Published Letter to Home Power Magazine
“Show RE the Money” – Power Politics Issue 121

Dear Home Power,

Given the space devoted to favoring solar subsidies in
Home Power over the years, and doubtless the dependence
on subsidies of most who advertise in your pages, Michael
Welch is to be commended for even suggesting there could
be something wrong with subsidies.

There is a lot wrong with subsidies, and particularly solar
subsidies that leave fossil fuels solidly in place, because
they distract the public from the best uses of the sun -
daylighting, solar clothes drying, and passive heating - and
have us concentrate on relatively uneconomic electricity
generation.

Big money and big business determine big government.  
They regard clotheslines, daylighting, and passive solar
design the way banks regard barter.  If they can distract the
solar crowd away from what might unravel their grip on us,
and encourage us to continue to awkwardly and expensively
make electricity when we don’t need it, they’ve “got” us.


Sincerely,


Steve Baer