Dear editor:

I’m writing after gathering my third load of laundry from the line. Temps are 21 degrees F above the 30-year average (1991-2020). (I was born in 1964 in Sundance, WY so I know the current 30-year average is higher than the 1961-1990.) With today’s light breeze, even jeans dried in an hour. Thank you, sunshine and breeze. You pour down free energy on all of us, rich or poor. We could reduce a ton of energy bills in this state if our electeds were focused on serving us with energy policies that maximized capturing the free shower of sunshine. Clean, free solar power produces electricity that delivers the most efficient way to warm and cool our homes and run our appliances. Imagine solar power arrays beside every trailer court in Wyoming. Residents would have steeply reduced bills.

I’d feel great if my county and state incentivized solar power. For those of us concerned about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we’d feel our people power turning the tide for affordability, resilience and adaptation. Win-win in Wyoming! Also, our electeds can combine clean energy policy with workforce transition plans for fossil fuel jobs. The people who have always kept the lights on can keep doing so if they want, and won’t carry the unspoken burdens of conscience about warming the world unnecessarily. Of course there will always be things fossil fuels do better, but let’s lop off the unnecessary, inefficient and expensive uses so our fossil fuels will last for the necessary tasks. We can strengthen our resilience, reduce fossil fuel emissions, increase our independence from foreign fossil fuels by drastically reducing our use of them, and maintain our role as an energy state. Only the political power of fossil fuel industries prevents us from transitioning to Creation Care economy.

Mary Keller

Cody