July! July! For the last time in my career as a mom, I have to get up early on Saturday for a swim meet. My younger son will officially retire from swimming after tomorrow’s divisional meet, where the temps promise to be hot and humid. Wish us luck!
This week’s must watch: Bob Inglis was interviewed on Fox5 Washington about the latest path on climate change and the path ahead toward progress. Check it out.
“This is a 30-year process of decarbonization we’ve got to be about,” Bob wisely notes. “So we got to have bipartisan support.”
Hoosier Happy Hour, take two: Bob Inglis shares his reflections from Indiana
July 20, 2022
Lafayette, IN
State Rep. Sharon Negele was our special guest at our second Hoosier Happy Hour, co-hosted with the Indiana Conservative Alliance for Energy.
As a member of the Utilities, Energy and Telecommunications Committee, Rep. Negele is in a key position to address the clean energy transition. She pointed out that Indiana is currently running on around 9% renewable energy, but that the grid could easily handle an increase to 35% renewables. It’s “open water ahead,” she declared, “and there’s not reason not to go for it.”
Rep. Negele brings a business sense to the energy transformation conversation. She holds an MBA in finance and is President of Wolf’s Homemade Candies, a 100-year old chocolatier in Attica, IN. She also runs an ice cream business, so I’m hoping that my next trip to Indiana includes a tour of both operations–complete with samples!
A special note: our happy hour was made all the happier by a meeting just beforehand with the Confront the Climate Crisis student group in Lafayette. It’s a group of high school students who generally identify as left-of-center, but they have reported success in reaching out to their conservative classmates. Turns out that their young conservative friends plan on joining the young progressives in what they hope is a long life on this planet! Throughout the meeting, I had to remind myself that these were high school Hoosiers. With that kind of talent coming up through its high schools, the state of Indiana has a very bright future!
On my way out of town I drove past the old coal-fired plant. I wish I hadn’t been hurrying to get to Lafayette as I would like to have gotten a photo of the plant as it exits today. The photo above must have been taken in the plant’s glory days. It’s well past those days now. The City has moved on to clean energy; Crawfordsville’s five solar parks combined produce 28.06 megawatts of energy — more than any other community in Indiana. It’s enough energy production that, during the day on weekends when industries run less and many businesses are closed, Crawfordsville’s parks could produce 65 percent of the city’s energy. Now that’s energy that isn’t subject to scarcity, tariffs, or geopolitical strife.
Status: sweltering: More than 110 million Americans from the west coast to the east are under heat warnings and advisories, according to reporting by Axios. 60 million of us will experience triple digits this weekend. With a so-called heat dome exacerbating conditions, here is a sampling of what the country is currently enduring:
- Oklahoma City set a record high when it hit 110 degrees.
- Austin, Texas has already experienced its 40th triple-digit temperature day this year.
- Salt Lake City, Houston, Phoenix are all sweating.
- The drought in the west is reaching dangerous levels.
- I can speak from experience, the DC metro area is like a hot armpit right now.
This is not your grandmother’s heat wave. Climate change exacerbates these events so buckle up and prepare for more of the same.
This seems like an appropriate place to put our quote of the week:
“I’m convinced we’re going to act on climate change,” said Bob Inglis. “It’s just whether we’re going to act soon enough to avoid the worst consequences.”
POLL: Generation gap divides young and old Republicans on climate
Recent research conducted by the Pew Research Group found a steep divide between young Republicans (18-34) and their elders (65+) when it comes to acting on climate change. Nearly half (47 percent) of the younger cohort think the government is doing too little, compared to 18 percent of the 65 and older group. But the silver lining is a carbon tax narrows the opinion gap with 50 percent of young Republicans favoring this approach, joined by 47 percent of those 65 or older. Almost seems like there should be more political will to take this on…
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This weekend will find me either near the pool, in the pool, or in a dark room wishing it were fall. Keep hydrated and cool, whatever you do!