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How Community Solar Can Liberate You From Fossil Fuels

How Community Solar Can Liberate You From Fossil Fuels
Posted by jj on May 21, 2025 in Health and Safety, Environment, Newsworthy
How Community Solar Can Liberate You From Fossil Fuels

If you are as impressed with Michelle Moore, her work and ideas, as we are, you may want to see how she was recently treated by the orange idiot.  Read the whole story here.

https://alabamareflector.com/2025/04/05/trump-fires-clean-energy-leader-from-tva-board-without-publicly-providing-a-reason/

Trump fires clean energy leader from TVA board without publicly providing a reason

Michelle Moore's Article

Introduction

Energy is the lifeblood of opportunity and economic development and a pillar of human civilization in the 21st century. Even the most remote communities in rural America were welcomed into the industrial age when electricity was made available to them in the 1930s. This created an economic engine that attracted jobs and supported a quality of life previously unimaginable. However, challenges are now different in the information age and Anthropocene period. Our traditional energy choices are destroying the places we come from and love. But we can be better.

A different vision is possible: a future in which rural communities flourish. In this future, clean, resilient, and local energy, as well as the infrastructure investment required to build it, sustain good jobs in small towns as the abundant land in rural America is used to fulfill the energy needs of big cities. Farming families use unplanted fields for the “last crop,” earning a living from the power that’s freely and abundantly available in solar energy, thereby preserving generational wealth. And communities become more resilient, connecting local renewables with energy storage to improve energy futures for everyone.

Broadband—built and financed alongside the modern and secure power grid that it relies on—runs to every home, and its network is owned and governed by the communities it serves through rural and small-town public power utilities. These new high-speed networks also offer many educational options for kids who would otherwise rely on a much slower dial-up connection. Everyone has remote access to doctors, and no one has to drive hours for basic health care. Local businesses and startups can succeed because they’re finally connected to a global marketplace of people and companies that want to buy what they have to sell.

Rural and small-town utilities—the economic hearts of their hometowns—flourish because clean energy and the transportation sector’s electrification enable them to grow again. More revenue means more funding to support community development and pay for essential services, so residents thrive, too, because their utilities represent their needs and are governed in alignment with their democratic roots.

As a result, and perhaps most importantly, the 48 percent of Americans who want to live in a small town in the countryside can do so and have a good life there with jobs, affordable homes, and the possibility of an even better life for their kids.

How can we make this vision a reality? Community solar projects are unique in their ability to help neighbors within the same utility service territory share power from a solar project. Rural electric cooperatives, in particular, have long been leaders in community solar. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association even published a “solar playbook” in 2016 to help local utilities develop business models and implementation plans for bringing community solar to their member-owners; though ironically, at the same time the playbook was being developed, NRECA was opposing clean energy legislation in Congress.

Because energy policies, natural and built infrastructures, community priorities, and market factors like energy pricing and price structures vary from place to place, there’s no one way to incorporate community solar into your local clean energy future. There are many great examples to look to for inspiration and guidance.

Six Great Examples of Community Solar Projects

1) Vernon Electric Cooperative

Vernon Electric Cooperative completed the first community solar project in Wisconsin in 2014, and it has been sold out ever since. Local member-owners were invited to purchase shares of the 1,001-panel array at VEC’s headquarters.

The electricity production from each member-owner’s panels is credited against their utility bill, and panels can be bought and sold among members. Its model has created a strong sense of community ownership among participating residents. When heavy snow blankets the solar farm, members regularly call the utility to make sure the panels get cleared so they can keep producing power.

2) Walton EMC

Walton EMC—the rural utility that won Facebook’s clean energy business—built its first one-megawatt community solar project in 2015. Member-owners can purchase up to two blocks of community solar at $25 per block, the production from which is credited to the member-owner’s utility bill.

Located on six acres next to its headquarters in Monroe, Georgia, Walton EMC’s first community solar project sold out, and the program quickly expanded to two additional sites. This early community positioned the company to become one of the Southeast’s leading utilities in solar development, attracting new businesses and investments to the area.

3) ACCESS Project

Building on this history of community solar leadership, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded NRECA a $1 million multiyear research award to study pathways for making solar energy more accessible and affordable for rural households with low and moderate incomes.

The resulting ACCESS Project, which stands for Achieving Cooperative Community Equitable Solar Sources, was led by Adaora Ifebigh, former NRECA program director for Energy Access. The body of knowledge the ACCESS Project is creating is a rich resource for understanding how rural cooperative utilities can use community solar to meet their unique, place-based needs.

4) Anza Electric Cooperative

The Anza Electric Cooperative’s SunAnza and Santa Rosa Solar projects are among those being studied. AEC was born in the 1950s, when local residents, frustrated with the high cost of power from California Electric, reached out to the Rural Electrification Administration and began the process of funding and forming their own local electric cooperative. Located in rural southwestern California, AEC serves about 5,200 residential member-owners and has a long-term agreement to provide power for the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians.

The success of its first solar project, SunAnza, demonstrated how solar could help reduce peak electricity costs for the utility and its members. As a result, AEC began work on a second community solar project on tribal lands. By pairing community solar with a time-of-use tariff that charges less for electricity usage at off-peak hours, the Santa Rosa Solar project will share annual savings estimated at $600 to $1,000 per participating household.

5) Roanoke Electric Cooperative

Consistently among the vanguard, Roanoke Electric Cooperative takes a different approach. It uses philanthropic support and leverages other programs to deliver extra savings to member-owners through the Roanoke SolarShare program.

Philanthropic donations pay for no-cost community solar shares for low-income member-owners, reducing their utility bills. The first fruits of the savings are used to cover the costs of home repairs, like fixing leaky roofs. These are necessary to enable energy upgrades, such as insulation, which deliver even more savings through energy efficiency.

6) EnerWealth Solutions

Then there is the reparative and restorative approach to solar development pioneered by EnerWealth Solutions in North Carolina, which supports small and minority landowners with a unique profit-sharing model that channels some of the revenue into a local community development nonprofit controlled by member-owners.

An Abundance of Opportunities in Your Community

There are many opportunities to support your community’s vitality with solar power. You can begin locally by working with your state’s energy policy and market structure, changing regulations if necessary, using the land responsibly, working with partners who share your values, and choosing from various solar scales and models to match your and your neighbors’ needs.

This approach is liberating compared to the constraints of a scarce fossil fuel-powered energy system that takes resources from one place and burns them in another to create enough power to support new industries and opportunities.

As you’re building your solar strategy, don’t resort to what’s been done in the past when you have the chance to build a new system based on better values—a system whose benefits can be seen within your generation. Always keep in mind why rural cooperatives and public power utilities were created in the first place: to enable rural and small-town communities to come together to own their power generation. The field is wide open and the harvest is ripe. Take deep breaths, roll up your sleeves, and get ready for the joyful work.

As you do so, lead with love. Localizing your community’s energy system with clean power is an opportunity to achieve a healthier balance between the natural and built environments. Economically, such power production and delivery also benefit communities by sustaining them rather than extracting their wealth. Keeping our love for our hometowns and neighbors at the forefront will help us make decisions we can be proud of as we navigate the road ahead.

It will be hard. Sometimes, the people and companies that benefit from traditional power generation methods might resist you and fight for the status quo, and you may get tired. But as the Good Book says, “Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” So don’t give up; you’ll see the results in your lifetime.

Clean energy offers us a future; many different futures, in fact. The possibilities are as diverse as the places we live, the ways we make decisions, and the renewable resources we share. Let’s use this gift, and this moment of transformation, to build the kinds of energy futures that will enable us all to thrive.

This excerpt is from the book Rural Renaissance: Revitalizing America’s Hometowns through Clean Power. Copyright © 2022 by L. Michelle Moore. Reproduced with permission from Island Press, Washington, D.C. Edited and produced for the web by Earth • Food • Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
“How Community Solar Can Liberate You From Fossil Fuels” by L. Michelle Moore is licensed by the Observatory under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). For permissions requests beyond the scope of this license, please see Observatory.wiki’s Reuse and Reprint Rights guidance.  Last edited: February 20, 2025
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If you are as impressed with Michelle Moore, her work and ideas, as we are, you may want to see how she was recently treated by the orange idiot.  Read the whole story here.

https://alabamareflector.com/202https://alabamareflector.com/2025/04/05/trump-fires-clean-energy-leader-from-tva-board-without-publicly-providing-a-reason/5/04/05/trump-fires-clean-energy-leader-from-tva-board-without-publicly-providing-a-reason/

Trump fires clean energy leader from TVA board without publicly providing a reason

 
https://alabamareflector.com/2025/04/05/trump-fires-clean-energy-leader-from-tva-board-without-publicly-providing-a-reason/
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TRUMP and CHAOS - THAT IS THE PLAN

TRUMP and CHAOS - THAT IS THE PLAN
Posted by jj on May 15, 2025 in Newsworthy, Politics & Elections, Background, Intersectional Issues
TRUMP  and  CHAOS - THAT  IS  THE  PLAN

James Greenberg

They say Trump governs by chaos. That he acts impulsively, erratically, without a plan. But what if that is the plan? What if the chaos is the cover? What if the daily spectacle—the tariffs, the purges, the budget cuts, the Twitter feuds—isn’t just noise, but a smokescreen for something colder, more calculated?
Because behind the outrage lies a pattern. Not of leadership, but of looting.
When institutions are gutted, when rules are rewritten, when the lights go out in the agencies that protect the public—who steps in? Not the small farmer. Not the corner shop. Not the family clinging to a mortgage. It’s the well-connected, the well-capitalized, the politically protected. The ones who know how to turn wreckage into wealth.
That’s the real game. And it’s happening in plain sight.
Take tariffs. Pitched as a punch to China, they’ve hammered small manufacturers and family farms here at home—people who can’t absorb the costs or reroute their supply chains overnight. Many go under. And when they do? Hedge funds, multinationals, and campaign donors are waiting, checkbooks in hand.
It’s not protectionism. It’s predation.
And it doesn’t stop at trade. In his second term, Trump is gutting the civil service—replacing experienced professionals with loyalists. Not to drain the swamp, but to drain the brakes. Environmental protections? Scrapped. Watchdogs? Fired. Procurement rules? Bypassed. With no one left to say no, federal agencies become pipelines for favors, land grabs, and sweetheart deals.
This isn’t deregulation. It’s a hostile takeover of the state itself.
Housing follows the same script. With tenant protections stripped and public housing defunded, eviction becomes policy. Neighborhoods are emptied. Then come the “Opportunity Zones”—tax shelters wrapped in the language of renewal. The public loses homes. Developers get subsidies.
And education? It’s being slowly bled out. Public schools are starved, then slandered, then sold off. Vouchers and charters vacuum up resources, while billionaires move in on school buildings, test contracts, and real estate.
Even disaster has become a business model.
COVID shuttered small businesses by the thousands. Many got nothing. But big tech, logistics giants, and private equity firms made a killing. Now Trump is back to the same script—slashing Medicaid, defunding science, gutting the safety net. Because every crisis is a chance to clear the field. And when the dust settles, only the powerful remain.
We’ve seen this before. In Mexico, where public cooperatives were crushed by debt, then sold off to cronies. In Russia, where state assets became oligarch fortunes overnight. In New Orleans, where homes, schools, and lives were swept away—only to be rebuilt for someone else.
Trump doesn’t need a governing vision. He just needs the wreckage. Because in the wreckage, rules disappear. Oversight vanishes. And billionaires buy what’s left.
This isn’t governance. It’s liquidation.
So don’t be fooled by the chaos. It’s not a distraction. It’s the business model.
And if we don’t call it what it is—organized looting, sanctioned by the state—it won’t just continue.
It will become the future.
https://substack.com/@jamesbgreenberg
(c)James B. Greenberg
 
Author Bio:  James Greenberg is a Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Founding Editor of the Journal of Political Ecology, and past president of the Political Ecology Society.
 
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WHO PROTECTS YOUR FREEDOMS ??????????

WHO PROTECTS YOUR FREEDOMS ??????????
Posted by jj on May 13, 2025 in Newsworthy
WHO  PROTECTS  YOUR  FREEDOMS ??????????
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PROMINENT ACTRESS & TIRELESS LGBTQ+ ADVOCATE

PROMINENT ACTRESS & TIRELESS LGBTQ+ ADVOCATE
Posted by jj on May 13, 2025 in Women In the Arts, News
PROMINENT  ACTRESS  &  TIRELESS  LGBTQ+  ADVOCATE

LAVERNE COX  (1972 - )

Laverne Cox has emerged as a tireless advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. A prominent actress and the first openly transgender person nominated for an Emmy, Laverne Cox has promoted visibility and awareness on behalf of the transgender community.

Laverne Cox was born on May 29, 1972. Assigned male at birth, she grew up in Mobile, Alabama with her mother and twin brother. Cox never knew her father. Her mother was a teacher, and as a single parent focused her energies on raising her two children. As a child, Cox described herself as “very creative,” and credited her creativity with sustaining her. She dreamed of being on the stage. She loved to dance and began taking classes and performing in recitals and talent shows in the third grade. Cox’s mother allowed her to take tap and jazz classes, but not ballet, fearing it was too feminine for a young boy. Cox began to feel ashamed and fearful of her inclination towards femininity, due to harsh comments from adults, bullying and harassment from peers, and messages she was hearing at her church. Cox feared she was disappointing her grandmother, who had passed away. Finding that idea horrifying, Cox attempted suicide at the age of 11.

Cox received a scholarship to study at the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham for high school. While there as a boarder, Cox began to embrace androgyny. She then earned a dance scholarship to attend Indiana University, where she arrived as a “gender-nonconforming” freshman. After two years at Indiana, Cox transferred to Marymount Manhattan College and graduated with a B.A. in Fine Arts in Dance. These early years in New York were formative for Cox. While at Marymount, she caught the acting bug. Cox participated in plays in Marymount’s Theater Department as well as a student-directed film. She also transitioned from being gender-nonconforming to “being more and more femme.” Cox recalled in an interview that while in NYC, she saw other transgender women who changed her outlook and challenged her misconceptions, including her belief that transgender people could not be successful. While at Marymount, Cox began her medical transition and began living and identifying as female.

After graduation, Cox knew she wanted to continue performing. She tried for years to be an actress. By 2007, Cox had done several student and independent films, off-off Broadway shows, and had begun auditioning for professional acting gigs. She mostly auditioned for and got roles for transgender characters. After seeing the 2007 premiere of the soap opera “Dirty Sexy Money,” in which Candis Cayne became the first openly transgender actor to have a recurring role on a prime-time TV show, Cox realized she could be openly trans and have a successful career. She made postcards with her photo and the statement “Laverne Cox is the answer to all your acting needs.” She sent the postcard to about 500 agents and casting directors, and it led to four meetings. Cox appeared on two episodes of “Law & Order,” a pilot for HBO, a reality show, and produced and starred in her first show on VH1 called “TRANSform Me.” In 2012, she booked her breakout role on the show “Orange is the New Black.”

Cox’s role as Sophia Burset on “Orange is the New Black” catapulted her to fame. TIME Magazine named her “the most dynamic transgender character in history.” In 2014, Cox became both the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy Award for her role in “Orange in the New Black” and the first openly transgender person to appear on the cover of TIME in June. When asked what these two milestones meant, Cox said “I was told many times that I wouldn’t be able to have a mainstream career as an actor because I’m trans, because I’m black, and here I am…And it feels really good.” Of the Emmy nomination, Cox said it was just as important to her as an actress as it was to her as an activist, arguing the transgender community deserved the opportunity to turn on the TV and “see [themselves.]” Since her role on “Orange is the New Black,” Cox has appeared on many magazine covers and received numerous acting awards and nominations. Her other recent acting credits include “Promising Young Woman” (2020) and “Inventing Anna” (2021).

In 2015, Cox returned to Indiana University to speak about her experiences as a member of the transgender community with a speech titled “Ain’t I a Woman,” echoing the speech of the same title given by activist Sojourner Truth in 1851. In the speech, Cox told her audience to have “difficult conversations” to educate others and combat misconceptions about the transgender community. She hopes that through these conversations, people can understand “not everybody who is born feels that their gender identity is in alignment with what they’re assigned at birth…if someone needs to express their gender in a way that is different, that is okay…That’s what people need to understand, that it’s okay and that if you are uncomfortable with it, then you need to look at yourself.”

Works Cited

Aleksandra Gjorgievska and Lily Rothman, “Laverne Cox is the First Transgender Person Nominated for an Emmy—She Explains Why That Matters,” Time, July 10, 2014, https://time.com/2973497/laverne-cox-emmy/

Chris Gardner, “Laverne Cox Explains Why She Wants to ‘Share’ Her Historic Third Emmy Nomination,” The Hollywood Reporter, August 23, 2019, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/laverne-cox-explains-why-shes-sharing-historic-third-emmy-nomination-1233682/

Katy Steinmetz, “Laverne Cox Talks to TIME About the Transgender Movement,” Time.com, May 29, 2014, https://time.com/132769/transgender-orange-is-the-new-black-laverne-cox-interview/

“Laverne’s Story,” Lavernecox.com, https://lavernecox.com/about/

Marc Malkin, “Webby Awards: Laverne Cox to Be Honored for LGBTQ Advocacy Work,” Variety.com, May 10, 2022, https://variety.com/2022/scene/news/webby-awards-laverne-cox-1235262280/

Sarah Zinn, “Laverne Cox Details Her Transgender Journey at IU,” Indianapolis Monthly, January 15, 2015, https://www.indianapolismonthly.com/arts-and-culture/circle-city/laverne-cox-details-transgender-journey-iu

How to Cite this page

MLA – Rothberg, Emma. “Laverne Cox.” National Women’s History Museum, 2022. Date accessed.

Chicago – Rothberg, Emma. “Laverne Cox.” National Women’s History Museum. 2022. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/laverne-cox.

Image Credit: "Laverne Cox at Paley Fest Orange Is The New Black.jpg" by Dominick D, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Additional Resources

Katy Steinmetz, “The Transgender Tipping Point,” TIME Magazine, May 29, 2014, https://time.com/magazine/us/135460/june-9th-2014-vol-183-no-22-u-s/

Jacob Bernstein, “In Their Own Terms,” The New York Times, March 12, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/fashion/the-growing-transgender-presence-in-pop-culture.html

Erik Piepenburg, “Helping Gay Actors Find Themselves Onstage,” The New York Times, December 12, 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/theater/13actout.html

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What is a fascist?

What is a fascist?
Posted by jj on May 13, 2025 in News, Background, Newsworthy, Intersectional Issues
What is a fascist?

Does this description define anyone you know?  Perhaps it describes more than a few people you know or whom you see regularly on TV.

What are you going to do about it?

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