Virtual Ecotopia

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112504X.shtml

One of the environmental success stories of this election was Colorado's approval of a renewable portfolio standard requiring 10 percent of the state's power to come from renewable sources by 2015. Power companies will also have to offer customers a nice rebate for solar electricity that could pay a third or more of the cost of installing solar power in their homes.

Many states now have such programs. If you have the dough, you can create your own virtual Ecotopia right now. Go to www.dsireusa.org to find out what rebates and tax incentives your state has. Go to www.seia.com to get a referral for a contractor to install it for you. Do-it-yourselfers, your home is www.homepower.org. If you want to hook up your efforts with those of others, take a look at www.fatspaniel.com. This company is aggregating energy output data from solar and wind installations by city or region. You can be part of a virtual solar power plant.

If you don't have the big bucks, buy a little solar panel and play around with it. Teach your kids about solar. They may grow up to be solar power installers. One of my favorite energy education sites is www.energyquest.ca.gov. The National Renewable Energy Lab, www.nrel.gov, also has lots of educational resources for kids and adults.

Photovoltaic power won't answer every energy need, but it is a very nifty technology. In five years, a solar module produces the energy it took to make it and it lasts, if well made, darn near forever. Some of the first modules produced 40 years ago are still going strong.

A little solar power can go a long way. The difference between having no power at all and having some power is huge. There is an amazing housing project in Portland, Oregon called Dignity Village (http://www.outofthedoorways.org/). Homeless people have constructed low tech houses for themselves out of mud and straw that are quite nice. Soon, some of these houses will have solar electricity, something these folks never had when they were living under bridges and in doorways.

The most important Ecotopian principle is making conservation a moral imperative. You know, that granola hippie thing of simple living, reducing, reusing and recycling. Believe it or not there are people who never stopped trying. Type "sustainable" or "biomimicry" into any search engine to find them.

If we virtual Ecotopians do our job well, we will build the basis for a new sustainable civilization. Our thousand points of light, burning like the blue flames of highly efficient combustion, will shine for Red America on the day when the oil bubble bursts and the consumer dream lies shredded in tatters and it becomes clear that Ecotopia is not a fantasy but a vision.