The Great Unless

It is a big week in the Indiana General Assembly for the future of renewable energy. Senate Bill 309, the anti-rooftop solar bill, is being voted on in the House Utilities committee after passing through the Senate with flying colors a few weeks ago, despite an outpouring of opposition from citizens. There is no doubt that this terrible bill is a tipping point for Indiana's energy future. SB 309 would essentially kill net metering in Indiana, the process by which customers who generate their own electricity through the use of solar panels or other renewables are able to feed the excess electricity that they generate back to the grid and receive fair credits for their contribution to the system. SB 309 will end the net metering process after a tiered grandfathering process. This would severely undercut the growth of solar energy in Indiana. In a state that still gets over 70% of its electricity from coal, solar energy provides essentially zero risk to utilities. However, per u...

It was an unusually dark week for me. A rollercoaster of emotion and activity. It was the kind of week that takes your breath away, forcefully blows air back into your lungs, and then knocks the wind right back out again. I won't get into all the details of what my week consisted of; suffice it to say that the work I do can be grueling, brutally exhausting, and - occasionally - incredibly rewarding (hence why I persist). And this week tested me in ways I had not been tested in quite some time. I suffer from anxiety and panic disorder (with some mild depression mixed in; you know, just to keep things even more fun). My anxiety is most often rooted in the climate crisis and the devastation we are wreaking on this planet upon which we live. This makes it an impossibility for me to ever "get over" the trauma that I feel daily. And I am slowly learning more about this constant state of panic and guilt and anger and grief that I live with because I finally - after two decad...