Electrifying our Addiction to Short-Sightedness

Of course, I am disappointed.

 

We are firmly in the camp with those who believe in the value and wisdom of encouraging alternative energy sources.  Migrating to more environmentally friendly and sustainable sources won’t happen overnight, but shouldn’t we be intentional about nudging forward that movement?  Yes, our entire way of being right now is organized around fossil fuels – our infrastructure, a large segment of our employment, a major pie wedge of our economy – but we have learned some things about fossil fuels.  For one thing, we are using them up.  They are a finite resource.  True, exhausting the reserves might theoretically take decades, or even centuries, but not knowing when it will happen does not obviate the fact that it surely will happen. Surely prudence demands forethought.

 

That, plus the thorny fact of their environmental destructiveness.  We know this, even if the knowledge is inconvenient.  The dots have been connected.  Burning fossil fuels is environmentally degrading.  That would be the environment on which we depend; that keeps us alive.  It isn’t in our interest to poison or degrade it.  It makes sense to look for healthier alternatives.

 

All that, plus the stimulating intrigue of horizon-seeking ingenuity.  We should always be incentivizing creativity.  We needn’t penalize possibility by privileging present tools.  There can only be better options than the ones we currently employ.  The “big two” available to us now are wind and solar energy.  Those two aren’t likely to exhaust the possibilities.  Decades from now, wind turbines and solar panels will likely seem like the horse and buggy of energy.  It will be fascinating to see what advances beyond them.

 

But for now, they are the alternative tools at our disposal.

So I was disappointed when the local City Council last week put a leash on the installation of solar panels in our community.  Unanimously, according to the news report, which is more disappointing still.  No one among them spoke up for our children.  Their only concern was for how they “look.”  Among the other restrictions, ground-mounted systems were banned entirely.  As the proud owner of a ground-mounted system, I felt the slap.  

 

The consideration focused on property values and those perennially mythical factors that hypothetically impact them negatively, and aesthetics.  Concern was expressed about the “look and feel” of neighborhoods, should such arrays be permitted.  “There is not one person who is dying to live next to a ground-mounted solar (system),” one Councilmember was quoted as saying.

 

I appreciate the complexities of municipal governance.  I am not standing in line to be elected.  I don’t want their job.  The needs and desires of the many quite often conflict with the wants of the few, and juggling the competing interests is as perilous as it is acrobatic.  And I understand the concept of rhetorical hyperbole.  We say extreme things to make a point.  That’s the nature of public discourse and debate.  But I wish the Councilmember had, in this case, been more restrained.  I’ll accept that the “dying” he refers to in his assertion is intended as a synonym for “desire,” but the rest of the claim is logically specious on the face of it.  He didn’t ask me, and I, alone, would have scuttled his claim.  Nor did he presumably survey any of those citizens who wanted to install ground-mounted systems but are now prohibited from proceeding.  I think it’s safe to say that 100% of them would be happy to live next door to such an installation.  

 

And this notion of property values and aesthetics.  Ephemerality and subjectivity made into talismans.  As the ancient Romans would say, “De gustibus non est disputandum” – there is no disputing taste.  I, for one, don’t wish to live next door to a purple house, but I’m not sure that gives me cause to prevent my neighbor from choosing that color.  Never mind the current fad giving rise to a proliferation of wall murals, I wouldn’t want to live next to one of those, either.  It’s not the “look and feel” I prefer.  But I’ll not stop you from adding one if such a spectacle voices your particular aesthetic.  

 

Paint colors and murals, after all, will neither help nor hinder us.  But solar panels might well be one of the ways that help us survive, wherever we put them.  And not every rooftop is workably situated.  I value aesthetics as much as the next person – quite likely more than the next person.  And aren’t we always making exceptions to our aesthetic sensibilities when outweighed by functional benefit?  As the teenaged Ursula observed to her friend Kim in the Broadway play,
“Bye, Bye Birdie”, “Some things are more important than very important.”  Like how our descendants seven generations from now will look back upon our choices. I pray for the time when we don’t succumb to our preternatural tendency toward short-sightedness.

 

Maybe someone could figure out how to paint a mural on ground-mounted panels.  I suppose I could get use to that.

 

In the meantime, I’ll give thanks for sunny days, and the clean, renewable energy they occasion.  I’ll do what I can to enlarge public awareness – and a broader sense of collective and far-reaching stewardship and responsibility. 

 

And beg our neighbors’ indulgence that all this marvelous benefit apparently comes at their aesthetic expense.