Appalachian Institute for Renewable Energy
Pioneering community-owned renewable energy
This guiding question borrows from the title of a collection of essays, “WHAT ARE people FOR” by agrarian writer, Wendell Berry. It is provocative because it calls our values into question and challenges assumptions. Our conversations and activities at AIRE have recently asked a similar question out of the same vein– What is solar for?
Just a quick little rant here, but it’s worth filing a mention of the goliath of fracked natural gas, Chesapeake Energy bankruptcy. I’m not going to get into the details since the story is everywhere in the financial news. To see how big a deal this is, just search “Chesapeake Energy bankruptcy” and you’ll get
I co-authored an article published in the North Carolina State Bar Journal back in 2017 entitled “The Trial of the Century: Kids, Climate, and Law’s Role in Allocating Responsibility for Harm.” The case, Juliana vs. United States, in the 9th circuit federal appellate court, raised critical questions, not just about the climate emergency and who
AIRE ended a great week today, Juneteenth 2020, having had an inspiring display of solidarity in crowdfunding the Burton Street Community Peace Gardens Solar (also here and here). We’ll be installing that solar project very soon. This successful effort has me thinking about common threads. I’m hopeful more people know the critical history of “Juneteenth”
WILLIAM “SHORTY” IRBY and a monument meant to endure… Because the crowdfund campaign for the solar project has been so successful, it’s allowing the gardens to leap right into its Phase 2 solar vision, which is equipping the garden’s hands-on lab with equipment to train for solar. This is very significant and here’s the story.
Everyone by now has seen commentary on the “looting” that has taken place amidst the smoke in Minneapolis and other cities. It’s true that lots of looting occurs in the United States. The problem is that the word “looting” is being used dog whistle style, mostly by politicians and others to deflect attention away from
We’re about to launch a crowdfunding campaign for maybe the most important solar project ever. It won’t be the biggest by any stretch but there’s no doubt its impact will amplify the power of this special place. The Burton Street Community Peace Gardens has been a place for absorbing trauma and for healing for a
AIRE extends a warm welcome to Damian Gregory, a rising senior at Western Carolina University, where he expects to complete his Bachelor of Environmental Science with a minor in Geology & Environmental Health in May 2021. Damian, who is from Statesville, NC, has already accumulated important experience in energy and sustainability at Western and is
Well, poor ole’ natural gas? Actually, Duke knows very well that natural gas is bad for life as we know it, and is collapsing by virtue of its own economic logic [1], not because people have the gall to point these things out, so spare us the sympathy
The smash and grab continues under the cover of coronavirus economic relief. Our illustrious federal government is shooting heroin again. It’s disaster capitalism looting the public kitty in broad daylight and at bewildering speed. A couple headlines picked up in my daily feed from U.S. Energy News should make us very angry: The Trump administration