PUTNEY — I recently returned from a hiking trip to the wondrous Bryce Canyon, Zion, and Grand Canyon national parks.
The Southwest desert is a fascinating place: it offers beautiful nature in some areas and is desolate and poverty stricken in others. It also is affluent and fast-growing in cities and some towns.
The limited areas we saw in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona seemed to have two striking things in common: sunshine almost all the time and no solar!
I know the Republican Party, which has an iron grip on Arizona and Utah, is deep into denial of climate change, but given the drop in solar prices, I was a bit hopeful. But I didn't see one rooftop solar installation, or any community solar “farms.”
Even the national parks seemed to make minimal use of the sun's potential.
It all sadly reminded me of south Florida, where I observed the exact same huge tracts of new housing, retail and restaurants, and industrial buildings - all with use of no solar power.
Solar is actually not allowed in many Florida housing developments, where you also can't hang your clothes outdoors!
After the Break Free from Fossil Fuels action's national profile, it is also necessary to look at our own area.
While we are moving ahead in electricity production from sustainable resources, much of New England is almost completely without a real alternative to car travel for most trips. We are far behind the developed world in our lack of both local and fast intercity trains, trams, and real bus service.
To make real reductions in use of fossil fuels, this situation will need to change. The United States has the resources for this job, but not yet the political will. Amtrak is pathetically underfunded, and buses go to fewer places with less frequency than even in the recent past. Local transit is a bare-bones operation.
Our senator Bernie Sanders is one of the only national political voices speaking to the urgency of climate disruption, calling it our greatest challenge in his first presidential debate. It is past time we demand that our government work seriously to turn the tide on fossil-fuel use.
If we are to leave our children and grandchildren a livable planet, we need to work to collectively reduce our use of fossil fuels. This is not optional, but essential.