Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Specially Interested in One Thing



The good news is renewable energy continues to be more affordable.

"The price of a solar panel has dropped more than 60 percent since early 2011, and the price of wind power is down by more than 50 percent in the past four years. Approximately 29 percent of the power added in 2013 in the United States was solar energy," according to the Huffington Post.

The bad news is fossil fuel companies and utilities continue to fight the future.

"Edison Electric Institute released a report in January 2013 entitled "Disruptive Challenges" detailing the threat that distributed energy (especially solar) poses to the traditional utility industry business model. The group began taking action on the issue in 2013, pushing to repeal solar policies to protect utilities' financial interests.

The real genius of this attack by special interests is the widespread use of additional front groups to lobby, spread disinformation, and pressure decision makers to eliminate clean energy policies.

The fossil fuel lobby aggressively uses lobbying and propaganda to achieve their goals and self-identified "free market think tanks" are among the most effective advocates for the fossil fuel industry to lobby for policy changes," says Gabe Eisner.

Every small victory, every hurdle they throw into the path of clean, renewable energy makes it that much harder to stop climate disruption. High time to go on the offensive and defend our beautiful planet.

2 comments:

William Evans said...

Vote with your dollars! We use 100% wind power and the added cost is minimal. The more customers the renewables have the more competitive they can be. Maybe I don't have a vote in congress, but I can vote with my choices.

Mike Misner said...

Absolutely. Thanks William. Google renewables or clean energy for your area. There are many ways to vote with your wallet w/out emptying it. In NYC and environs, Community Energy is a good choice.