Why switch to solar?
With the growing need for clean energy, the future of solar power has never been brighter.
As a clean source of energy, it can replace the toxic pollution of fossil fuels and eliminate its hazardous emissions and health impacts on our citizens. Solar power is also unbeatable as a long-term money-saver.
It is an investment that is typically paid off in 10 years or less, with free electricity for another 20 to 30 years. It is an investment for our pocketbooks and our health.
We’ve dug a hole for ourselves burning fossil fuels, driven by the Industrial Revolution, a hole that affects our resources and our health. But most problematic is our severely overheated atmosphere. As NASA reported, “Our atmosphere is getting hotter, more turbulent, and more unpredictable.”
Last year, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rocketed up passed the safe limit and was recorded by NOAA at an alarmingly dangerous level.
“It’s now or never … Climate changes are happening faster than predicted” was how United Nations Secretary-General AntónioGuterres put it, following the latest report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
And after completing their NASA/NOAA/Department of Defense joint research, NASA announced that “the ocean will rise 10 to 12 inches higher than its present height by 2050. It’s a wake-up call for the world.”
Ice is disappearing. For eons, ice helped moderate the world’s temperatures by reflecting the rays of the sun. Now, warmer air and warmer oceans are melting it, so it is losing its cooling effect, further warming the air and melting even more ice, in a vicious loop. And the thawing tundra exposes permafrost, releasing methane into the atmosphere — worse than carbon dioxide.
It is an example of what Guterres meant when he said, “We are already perilously close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate impacts.”
After 11,000 years of civilization as we’ve known it, we are in uncharted territory. Last summer, the largest single wildfire in California history sent polluting smoke 3,000 miles to New Hampshire, which we endured for days. We witnessed Hurricane Ida’s 150 mph sustained winds and 172 mph gusts with lethal flooding up the Eastern Seaboard, along with the “strongest tornado in U.S. history,” the “deadliest firestorm on record in Colorado” and 20 “billion-dollar disasters” in the United States.
A radical course correction is necessary. At the local level, switching to solar power increases sustainability and can help curb hardships to our communities like New Hampshire’s predicted rise in excessive heat and health impacts, invasive new insect species and tick and mosquito diseases, floods and drought harms to farms, stronger storms like the 2008 ice storm with Temple’s 14-day power outage and gradual losses of treasured wildlife such as loons, snowshoe hares, moose, brook trout and our state bird, the purple finch, as well as maple syrup and ash trees.
Temple took a step forward, along with 163 other New Hampshire towns, in 2007, approving a warrant article calling for the creation of a town energy committee to help “save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Our committee obtained energy audits for our town buildings and coordinated what became an exceptionally successful grant-funded energy-efficiency retrofit for our municipal building, fire department and library.
It significantly reduced fuel usage and lowered energy costs and town taxes. Thirteen years later, it is still paying dividends. As a result of the reduced energy demand, the size of a solar array can be smaller yet cover the municipal energy needs.
In 2017, the Energy Committee presented a petition at our Harvest Festival booth asking the town to switch its municipal energy to 100% renewable energy by 2030. It became a warrant article that passed at the 2018 Town Meeting requesting the formation of a Renewable Energy Task Force to provide options for transforming our municipal energy to 100% renewable energy by 2030.
The task force plans to present a warrant article at the 2023 Town Meeting seeking approval to install a solar array covering the electricity needs for Temple’s municipal buildings, and our chosen site is expandable.
We also obtained Select Board approval to consider establishing a community power plan to serve our entire community. Developing regional coordination could also boost efforts to offer all our citizens 100% solar power.
Bev Edwards is a member of Temple Renewable Energy Task Force.