Appalachian Institute for Renewable Energy
Pioneering community-owned renewable energy
This coronavirus public health emergency is a time-compressed capsule view of a lot of our big crises– climate emergency, bad energy policies, privatization and enclosures of the commons, unthinkable levels of inequality and human suffering, shock doctrine [1] economics that doesn’t work for 99% of the people, and all the rest. These are things we
Exponential growth can be good or bad, in other words, something can grow in either direction. I’ll get to that in a minute. Coronavirus is absolutely an example we’re all trying to wrap our minds around now, so we better understand EXPONENTIAL GROWTH!!!! But this also applies to other relevant topics in our renewable energy
Coronavirus is revealing an important truth about culture, media, politics and mental models here in the United States. Cooperative behavior at all levels is completely overwhelmed by the forces of obfuscation, misinformation, and incompetent leadership, paving the way for uncontrolled viral spread. That cat may already be out of the bag and the pandemic on,
Barring a miracle as Utility Dive reported yesterday, congress will not be extending the tax incentives that segments of the solar industry have utilized since 2005. Rather than go into the specifics since you can read the Utility Dive piece if you wish, the main takeaways are that there’s little to no appetite for clean
“I can only take one apocalypse at a time.” That’s what the bank teller said to me during a recent trip to the bank when his computer couldn’t manage a simple deposit. As we stood there waiting for this machine to do its work, he alluded, probably only half jokingly, to the possibilities of artificial
Lately, I’ve heard people say that “Bloomberg is at least good on climate” in rationalizing their lesser-of-the evils hail mary impulses. That may be a fear-based reaction for supporting a plutocrat, but regardless of explanation, the claim is simply false. Joshua Frank’s piece on counterpunch, Bloomberg is a Climate Change Con Man, is a must
All 21 days of our new decade 2020 have been even more surreal than what has been the ever-metastasizing malignant normalcy of the past three years. My mind went careening into a maze of “dots” when President Trump assassinated the Iranian general earlier this month (remember way back then?), trying to connect them to make
Duke Energy, a government-protected monopoly, not only still isn’t paying it’s fair share, it’s taking away from ordinary, working taxpayers. According to the 2018 update report released a few days ago from the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, which does a deep dive into the impacts of the 2017 corporate tax cuts on large,
Did my EV driving cause a coup in Bolivia? That’s a question too big and complicated for this space on many levels, but the point is to connect a few dots. In the consumption-driven western world, we seem mostly oblivious to dots, or at least look the other way to avoid the messy inconvenience of