Why Give a Damn:
There is a window of opportunity to do a lot of solar in the next 12-24 months. By 2015 the USA will be back in campaign madness and as pressing as climate will be as an issue, the opportunity to be proactive and frame our solutionary response will have passed. We must strike now.
The author of this post, Danny Kennedy, is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of one of the foremost solar companies in the world, Sungevity.
Solar has been a booming American success these last few years and Obama’s second term is his chance to put “going solar” up there with the space race; bringing electricity to rural America in the 1930s; or ending slavery. No kidding. It is that important. And he’s the President to do it.
Some solar industry details:
We’ve grown 400% since he was first elected. Our jobs continue to grow despite the failure of one company, which the Republicans tried to make synonymous with our whole industry. We are now 119,000 employees strong and serve over a million homes with clean, cheap electricity.
Meanwhile, coal is crashing. The three major coal companies in America are on the verge of bankruptcy, prices are going up, production is going down, they shed jobs each year and lose market share. Even the conservative International Energy Agency predicts coal consumption will go down from here on out due to price rises and other concerns, even in China.
Back at the ranch, employment remains scarce in the US. This means that industries that employ more people each year should get more support than those that employ fewer people each year. Politics. Solar power employs more people per unit of power (kwhr) than almost any other way of making electricity, while consistently coming down in price.
Now add Obama. He has a mandate. People want what he’s selling. And even more so, people want clean energy. Look at the polls – solar and related renewables get a bigger vote than Obama did. As one example, more than 70% of people in swing state Colorado think we should support renewables more. 90% of all Americans want more solar in the mix.
These polls come after a yearlong barrage of coal, oil, and gas industry propaganda. The Koch brothers, who made their billions on oil and gas futures, and other interests vested in fossil fuels, spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to brainwash us to go back to dirty, dumb energy dependency.
We can create the political will to move forward with the solar ascent. Politicians will have to do what the people want and what creates jobs. Or they will lose theirs.
An Unreasonable Challenge:
Tell a rep to get behind this singular American success story. Or at least to get out of the way: First do no harm. Take the Pledge – Do SUNthing!