As CEO of Electrify California I have 10 years experience educating people in communities about rooftop solar, storage batteries and electric heat pumps.

In many communities known to be politically conservative I have encountered skepticism and often outright hostility. Here are 5 reasons I have found that people hate the idea of clean energy.

Reason #1

They have an outdated worldview.

We all have a worldview that is formed during childhood. We learn that in cold weather our homes are heated by natural gas and that it is important to pay the gas bill every month. We learn that cars run on gasoline and that the gas tank has to be filled up when empty’

But today the world is changing rapidly. We are making a transition to electric vehicles, homes can be heated with electric heat pumps, and we can produce our own electricity with rooftop solar.

But learning new things is uncomfortable and challenging and an affront to our ego. It is natural to brush it off as nonsense and to suspect that it is all a con-game designed to get money from people.

Reason #2

They don’t understand much about energy and all its different forms.

Energy is an important concept in science but most people try to avoid it because it is challenging. But today it is important that everyone learn more about it.

Our simple world of pumping oil and gas out of the ground and burning it is getting more complicated. We’re increasingly going to be depending on electricity for all our energy needs.

Reason #3

They suspect global warming may be true and are angry about it

Every day we hear more about climate change. Unprecedented heat waves. Larger more violent hurricanes. Polar ice caps melting. Crop yields declining. Animal species going extinct.

Rapid climate change is happening, and it is getting increasingly more dramatic. Climatologists are predicting that extreme weather events are going to get worse over the next few decades.

Reason #4

They don’t understand how clean energy technologies can solve the climate change problem.

Global warming is occurring because of greenhouse gases being sent into the atmosphere from burning of coal, gasoline, diesel fuel and natural gas. With rapid growth of global population in the last few decades, the earth’s temperature has increased considerably, and the process is accelerating.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that we have the technology we need to solve the problem. We can get most of our energy from the sun by producing electricity using solar panels, wind turbines, and hydroelectric dams.

During the night when the sun is not shining we can draw power from storage batteries.

Reason #5

They are angry about the high cost of rooftop solar, storage batteries and electric vehicles

The transition to clean energy is going to cost money. No question about it. But, just like other technological innovations in the last 150 years, investments in new technologies will pay off as new profitable industries are created that generate millions of new jobs.

In most cases homeowners who invest in rooftop solar have a payback period of about 15 years, after which they are producing their own electricity for free.

Modern society is more complicated than in the past. But, with each new innovation, life gets more secure, more comfortable and more fun.

 

 

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