Appalachian Institute for Renewable Energy
Pioneering community-owned renewable energy
Every new year’s ritual involves reflecting on where we’ve been and looking ahead to where we may be headed. Rarely though, is this ritual engaged in any meaningfully critical sense. Instead, it’s the ubiquitous new year’s resolution. This year is no exception but what feels different, or at least more intensely amplified, is a dark
The World Food Programme’s (WFP) 2020 Nobel Peace Prize and reading yesterday’s Washington Post story about mothers stealing baby food to survive gives me the sinking feeling that Christmas 2020 will not be “merry” for many. The global pandemic, wars, and climate change have 270 million people on the brink of starvation according to WFP.
Note: I heard Dahr Jamail on a podcast back in the summer saying he– a brilliant, award-winning journalist and author– can’t even write in the present moment. This is a guy who went independently to Iraq to cover war up close and in the streets. Now, instead of writing, he’s immersed in grassroots mutual support
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?
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”
As has been a running thread in these coronavirus days here on AIRE’s blog, the novel virus for all its misery, grief, and social upheaval is exposing some myths. All one has to do is pay attention and use their critical lenses. Whether it’s food supply, medical treatment, or energy supply, there’s growing evidence that
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
I shared a short bit of serenity in the previous post on Earth Day. If ever we needed to calm our synapses, it’s now, in the turbulence of a pandemic and a certain (ir)response. So much is going on it almost seems like something else is breaking or being deliberately broken by the minute. That’s
You’re probably seeing reports (e.g. here and here) of how the air around Los Angeles and other places is suddenly clean with the economy turned off now. I even had a dream last night that I could see a lake in the distance that I’d never seen from a mountaintop I’ve frequented many times. I
I’ve been thinking about all the interrelated crises[1] that seem to be coming to a head now with the deadly coronavirus shutting down large swaths of social and economic activity. My mind tends to go there, especially with a little time to expand my imagination and questions amidst a real-life global calamity. There’s nothing theoretical