The opponents of renewable energy are prepared to spare no expense in destroying solar energy before it can get started. These opponents are bankrolled by the likes of oil companies, utilities and the Koch brothers. These opponents want to control our energy, our financial structure and our people. Solar energy (and wind energy and other types of renewables) interfere with that.
We received an email from vote solar.org today that is telling us of a way to fight back. Its contents are, in full, below the Great Orange Squiggly.
We received the following email today:
Begin forwarded message:
From: Adam Browning
Subject: The Desolation of Smog (with apologies to Tolkien)
Date: December 17, 2013 at 2:35:29 PM MST
To: us (name and email removed)
Reply-To: Adam@votesolar.org
Friends-
Remember that scene in The Lord of the Rings when the camera pans back from the bad wizard’s tower, and you get a view of a pit, lit by hellfire and seemingly bottomless, which is just churning out fanged orcs and trolls and awful undead creatures with every manner of spike, claw, and blood-guttered blade known to man? And you think, uh-oh, this is not good, those little pink-cheeked Hobbits are gonna get munched?
That’s how it’s feeling in the solar world these days. Our small band of quirky-but-plucky warrior-wonks is up against a powerful enemy that has turned its all-seeing red eye on solar like never before.
Over the course of 2013, we have seen a dozen utilities take aim at customer solar adoption through regulation. It began in earnest last spring, when Arizona Public Service filed for approval of a scheme to squash the growing solar market in the state. APS spent at least $3.7 million dollars on television ads attacking rooftop solar and promoting their scheme. We’ve never seen the like.
Then, the Edison Electric Institute, the deep-pocketed trade association representing the major utilities in the US, also produced an ad attacking rooftop solar - and spent a reported half million dollars airing it during NFL Sunday. This is unprecedented.
Let’s be clear: most EEI members are not just huge monopolies, but monopolies with guaranteed (!) returns on investment. These monopolies are principally investing in polluting fossil fuels, whether you like it or not, while shifting all the costs to human health and the environment onto you and your kids (like it or not). They privatize the profits and socialize the costs – and like that sweet deal just fine. EEI members have fought renewable policies. EEI members have blocked effective federal action on carbon and climate change. Having failed to deliver collective solutions, the Mordor of Monopolies is now gearing up to stop individual actions.
As if EEI and dozens of state fights weren’t enough, we are now getting word that American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - is taking aim at rooftop solar homeowners. Armed with deep pockets and the influence of its corporate membership, ALEC is reportedly sponsoring efforts to try and remove customer choice and protect monopolies from individuals going solar. So much for liberty and free markets.
Rooftop solar provides the opportunity for individuals to make their own energy choices. Solar opens the door to democracy in environmental decision-making. And that’s what the utility interests, with their deep pockets and guaranteed rates of return, are trying to prevent.
It’s not all doom and gloom. For all the places where battles have raged this year, not one has ended in defeat. Time and again – in Louisiana, Idaho, California, Arizona, and soon (we hope) in Colorado – solar supporters have won the day.
But we are not going to lie – it’s getting scary out there, and we need more resources.
So we are doing the obvious thing: we invite you to join the Fellowship!
Ents: $25
Elvenkind: $50
Wizards: $500 (Wizards are very powerful, and will get a Vote Solar T-shirt to prove it).
Your donation will help us continue the fight until sunny days prevail in the Shire, once and for all.
Onwards-
Adam + team
Vote Solar
101 Montgomery St, Suite 2600
San Francisco, CA 94104
www.votesolar.org
twitter.com/votesolar
facebook.com/votesolar
To subscribe, go to: http://action.votesolar.org/...
I have left in the links for responses in case anybody here wants to be involved.
The energy companies claim to be in favor of conservation and the environment, but they want to do it on their terms. Their terms include maintaining obscene profits, controlling the pace of change (or stopping it altogether), and controlling the people where it they can truly be controlled. Their terms include other types of violence against our environment in the form of fracking, sacrificing the purity of our water for breathable air. This is not a necessary tradeoff. The energy companies want to limit the growth of this type of energy until they are able to capture the market and impose fees, taxes, as it were, on all the people. Their goal is to maintain control and money in the hands of a few. Alternative energy practices put the control and money in the hands of the many.
Solar and wind energy are earth friendly and people friendly. Using these types of energy is not only friendly, it is responsible. As more and more of us turn to alternative sources of fuel, our dependence on fossil fuels, here and abroad, diminish.
If enough consumers converted to solar and wind energy, there would be no argument in favor of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The profits of the energy companies and the Koch brothers would be greatly impacted. There would not be quite as much for them to purchase and control our congress critters.
We got solar panels on our house connected in October, and already we are saving money. The panels are not inexpensive, but as more of us get them, the price will come down.
This is not just a battle over energy. It is also a battle of the billionaires. It is a battle in which those billionaires (Koch in particular) are fighting to turn us back in time against the billionaire Elon Musk, who is using his wealth to improve our environment.
I am very concerned that the energy companies and utilities will win, and that we will continue to pollute our planet and bleed our people.