“Finally, the great state of Maryland has announced a new solar energy program that will help low-income households save money on their energy bills while also reducing carbon pollution.” This is a major win-win for everyone involved, except maybe for fossil fuel companies who will surely be losing some profits.

Um, kay.

The Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) may be leading the charge with this bold new effort, but so what? This press release masquerading as a blog post does a good job describing program incentives and financial assistance, and sure it means more Marylanders will have access to clean and renewable energy, and they won’t have to rely on dirty and expensive fossil fuels anymore.

I don’t care that ‘MEA isn’t just giving away free solar panels to anyone who asks for them.’ I don’t care that the program ‘will carefully evaluate each household’s eligibility and provide funding based on their individual needs.’ What I care about is … why are we doing this now, not 30 years ago?

Any greentech / cleantech initiative is welcome but please spare us the performative empathy. We could have started on reducing carbon pollution forty years ago when we first heard about it. “Maryland will be taking an important step in the fight against climate change” would have been a great thing to hear back in 1987.

But we didn’t want to talk about it then.

Goes to show that – to all the people out there who still think that solar energy is too expensive or too complicated – we could have done this any time. We could have launched a Solar Access Program in the past 30 years to make it easier and more affordable for everyone to go solar. We could have had EVs in the 90s – but then GM killed it. We could have been living in a solarpunk future for the past thirty years. We just didn’t want to.

Now we’re dealing with climate skeptics, unfazed by the idea of a free and endless source of energy. Can you blame them?

Yeah yeah yeah – let the sunshine in. But let the light shine on some accountability. We’re playing catch up on a planet that’s lurching toward major ecosystem collapse. Now’s not the time to sugar coat any whoo-whoo articles about finally doing the right thing after you’ve exhausted all other options.