global warming / climate change

During some of the 1970s, I went through a phase where I was fascinated by the periodical Mother Earth News. I'd never seen so many photos and illustrations of solar and wind energy systems. I longed for the days when these would be our primary energy sources, but never imagined I'd live to see it happening.

But now, the party's over, and I'm concerned about problems we may encounter in our dash to renewables, such as the uglification of the countryside. When I want to escape the city for some soothing country scenery, I, like millions of people, like to see as few objects made by humanity as possible - the fewer, the better.

Solar and wind farms have already prostituted the beauty of much American landscape, and from all the predictions, much, much more will be prostituted to meet our energy goals. One source says we'll need land the size of West Virginia for all our solar farms, and another source says we'll need more than that. Don't be surprised if some of your favorite scenery is compromised.

And with all this energy being produced in the country needing to go to cities to be used, we're going to need all sorts of new utility lines to further degrade our landscapes, uglifying them even more. Where is Lady Bird Johnson when we really need her again? In the 1960s, during President Johnson's administration, as the First Lady, she had a national campaign to clean up our countryside from the overuse of billboards, many of them dilapidated. It was a much more beautiful country to drive around when she got done. We need her spirit again, because without it, it's going to be a less attractive nation to drive around once more. America the (once) Beautiful?

We need fewer utility lines to preserve the nation's beauty, and to reduce the amount of energy we lose without being used. The more miles we transport energy through wires, the more energy we lose. We should try to produce as much energy as possible near to where it's going to be used. We need to place greater emphasis on rooftop solar to reduce the problems we're having and going to have with solar and wind farms.

Solar farms may uglify the nation further by deciding which plants and animals can live, and which can die. Can you imagine being a plant or animal that's spent your entire life hanging out on a hillside that gets lots of sun, when all of a sudden, a solar farm is built over your hillside, and the land is now always in shade? This could be an Auschwitz for some of those plants and animals. Yet solar farm supporters will tell you about certain plants that thrive near the farms and how they can help pollinators. But how do we know this is better than what was there before the solar farm?

I'm concerned our quest for solar farms and turning so much sunny land to shady land may be the death knell of the migrating Monarch butterfly, which has been on the ropes for years. Monarchs need milkweed to lay their eggs, and milkweed needs sun to grow. How much land can we take out of sunlight and put in to shade without losing huge tracts of land where milkweed was growing or could grow? The migrating Monarch has already lost habitat where it winters in Mexico, and where milkweed might be found to lay its eggs along its annual migration. How much more habitat lose can it stand before it becomes extinct? And has anyone yet to see milkweed growing in the shade of solar farms?

Anyone interested in reading more about the current plight of the migrating Monarch should read Bicycling with Butterflies, by Sara Dykman. She rode her bike following the migrating Monarchs over 10,000 miles from the mountains in Mexico where their journey starts every spring, to Canada, and back to their winter nesting grounds in Mexico. It's the longest insect migration in the world. I asked her if she thought solar farms might be the death kneel of migrating Monarchs. Her response:

Somehow I feel enlightened every time I see a Monarch, maybe as to how beautiful life can be. Not only are they physically attractive, but to me, it flies with more grace than anything else. Summers wouldn't be the same without them flying in and out of my life.

One would think with the fix our species is in that there would be laws throughout the land that demand all new construction - commercial and residential - be built so they use solar panels and/or geothermal, but it's not that way. The city I live in - Madison, Wisconsin - is anticipating population growth and has been building housing developments (i.e., apartment buildings) like crazy that all look the same. They're three, four, or five stories tall, with the first floor devoted to commercial enterprises. The most frustrating aspect of this is the city cannot, because of state law, demand developers incorporate solar panels and/or geothermal in to new structures. So we're seeing a lot of new roofs in Madison that aren't incorporating solar panels. You might want to find out what the laws are in your state regarding this issue, and work with others to have them changed, if necessary. If the entire nation had such laws, it would create greater demand for solar panels, which would, at least in theory, drive the price of solar panels down.

Many are predicting climate change will slowly eat away at local economies throughout the world. A recent prediction by Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research predicted in 25 years the average income in the world will be 19% less. Many communities will find they are less prosperous. Communities will be looking for ways to keep as much of their wealth from leaving the area as possible. One way to help do this is by passing laws requiring new buildings be built so they use renewables. Those who build such buildings will often be local, and it will put more money in their pockets over the long haul, and that will help communities gain wealth, while also helping to clean the air with less pollution. Maybe someday we'll no longer have to be exposed to articles about American kids having asthma because of air pollution.

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers have a wonderful song tribute to Jimi Hendrix called Accidental Suicide. Some of the lyrics are: Drugs can bring you joy, but the danger is that they destroy. Isn't it that way with fossil fuels? Fossil fuels can bring you joy, but the danger is that they destroy.