Just think about the flooding in California and the intense weather that is popping up all over the world. Can we as a nation, as a world, really wait much longer to really face our climate crisis?
I work in a planned residential, commercial, and industrial community named Barkley Square in Bellingham Washington. Every single building whether they are a business, office building, or apartment/condo building has a flat roof. This community is situated on elevated ground that has excellent solar exposure year-round. And yet not one of these buildings has a solar panel array on top of it. Why?
It’s also very distressing that President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Climate Bill creates little benefit for this community to use these rooftops as energy producers. In fact, it has little benefit in tax write-offs, and or rebates for America’s largest solar field that still pretty much sits unused. Millions of rooftops across America could effectively remove a great deal of energy demand from large corporate power companies that want billions to upgrade transmission lines across the country.
I do commend the President for tax write-offs for electric cars but that’s just part of our pollution problem. Our Government, both state and federal, can do better. A whole new economy sits as yet untapped with solar power if the government would significantly increase the ability to use rebates and tax write-offs to spur this growth forward. And it would allow many Americans to jump on board to save the world from a coming climate calamity and save money at the same time with lower home energy bills.
And one last thought here. We have been warned many times that sooner or later our Sun is going to emit a massive solar flare that could do incredible damage worldwide to everyone’s energy grid. Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew this solar flare was coming ahead of time, which we would, to be able to shut down our own home solar panel array while it passed by Earth thus saving us from being in the dark for weeks, months, or perhaps even years?
By Bill Walker
