Three Events on Kings, Health Hazards, and Questions + Echoes from History
Energy action comes in many forms
It’s been a tough few weeks for Energy and Democracy. In case you haven’t heard, here are a few highlights:
The House of Representatives passed a budget bill now in the hands of the Senate that repeals EVERY energy efficiency and renewable energy tax credit by the end of 2025, for residents and industry. No Wind. No Solar. No EVs. No Heat Pumps. No Panel Upgrades. No Insulation. No Weatherization.
The same budget bill would repeal and rescind every major pollution reduction program under Energy and Commerce. No Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. No Environmental Justice Block Grants. No Vehicle Efficiency Standards. No Methane Emissions Reduction. No State Climate Pollution Reduction Planning. No Department of Energy Loans. No Clean Ports. No Air Pollution Monitoring for Low-Income and Disadvantaged Schools. No Fenceline Pollution Monitoring. No Corporate Greenhouse Gas Reporting Standards.
In place of environmental review, the budget bill will substitute a pay-to-play permitting process allowing methane gas pipelines to receive a permit for a $10 million and for methane export projects to pay $1 million for an export permit.
Any person of conscience, including those worried about “mortgaging our children’s future,” ought to make their voice heard by Senators to stop this willful ecocide that will drive energy costs up (by as much as 50%), our health down, and accelerate the natural disasters happening all around us. In the Midwest (and apparently Europe!), we need go no further than out our own doors before we are confronted with unsafe air quality from yet another year of out of unprecedented wildfires in Canada.
Surely there must be an upside to this budget bill you ask? The Republican Party must stand for something more than ecocide and war right? Aren’t they trying to balance the budget? Well here are the topline budget outcomes:
It adds $2.4 Trillion to the deficit
“The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History.”
Imposing a first-ever $1000 fee for seeking political asylum
There is nothing in this bill for you, me, or the communities we love. This is a bill by and for Billionaires, Oligarchs, and Wannabe Kings. Which brings me to the first event:
No Kings Mass Protest - Tomorrow, June 14th
Hundreds of organizations have come together to plan more than 2000 protests tomorrow. Find the nearest protest to you. Make a plan to attend. Invite your friends to join. (What to know about ‘No Kings” protests)
Protest is as much about sending a message to our leaders as it is about showing up for and inviting our neighbors into solidarity with one another.
Health Risks of Indoor Natural Gas - June 19th
When: Thursday June 19, 2025 at 12:00pm (CST)
Where: Online, Register Here
Intended Audience: Homeowners and Renters anywhere in the US
Description: Join the American Lung Association and Waukesha County Green Team as we dig into the Health Risks associated with Indoor Natural Gas. We'll cover the basics of natural gas, the health hazards associated with using natural gas indoors, and what we can do about it!
Accessibility: This event is free, closed captioning is available, and the recording will be available on demand after the event.
Home Energy Question & Answer - June 26th
When: Thursday June 26th, 4:00-5:00 PM CT (drop-in anytime)
Where: Online - Register here
Intended Audience: US Homeowners and Renters with questions on how to take home energy action.
Description: ⚡️Are you a renter or homeowner wondering how to take advantage of home energy programs and incentives available thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act? Do you want to know more about the experience of switching to an induction stovetop, heat pump, electric car, or e-bike? You have questions; we have answers.
Home Energy Office Hours aren't presentations – they're opportunities to talk to energy experts to learn more, whether you're interested in reducing your energy bills, improving the air quality and comfort of your home, or reducing your environmental impact. 🌱
This free event is hosted by the Green Neighbor Project.
Accessibility: This event is free. Drop in at any time during the hour. AI Translated Captions available. This event will not be recorded, but a transcript will be saved to track frequently asked questions.
Thank you to those who came out last month! We had some really wonderful discussions about:
Getting rooftop solar quotes (& sizing your array without sufficient bill history)
How to find rebate-eligible contractors (depends on the state)
Reasons to install a home battery with solar (there are many possible)
Tax Credits for New Energy Efficient Home Construction
Considerations when designing a passive home
Dealing with hostile HOAs or county permitting processes
Echoes from History - A “Chance for Peace”
In this moment in time, I find wisdom and some small comforts in returning to the lessons of history. In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican and the only five-star general to occupy the Oval Office, speaking shortly after the death of Joseph Stalin, and responding to the arms race that would later become known as the Cold War, warned the American people of the true cost of the war machine:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953.
This is one of those times in the affairs of nations when the gravest choices must be made, if there is to be a turning toward a just and lasting peace.
In his farewell address 8 years later, he would coin the term Military-Industrial Complex to describe this new and seemingly permanent industry accumulating a dangerous political influence in Washington:
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
He later continues:
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we-you and I, and our government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
While I hope soon to return towards my original intention of creating a walkthrough for each step in a whole-home re⚡volt, I cannot help but feel and comment on the gravity of this moment in world and US history where a movement of fear and hate, stoked and mobilized by unaccountable and selfish billionaires, is rapidly working to dismantle the US government, destabilize international cooperation, and irreversibly damage the planet we all depend on.
Get out there neighbors! Make yourself seen and heard. We write our own history.