Spread The Word On Joe Biden's Climate Action: Hold A 'Ribbon Cutting' For Your New Heat Pump!
Spread The Word On Joe Biden's Climate Action: Hold A 'Ribbon Cutting' For Your New Heat Pump!
Or rooftop solar, or EV charger in your garage, or induction stove, or ...
One of the great frustrations of Our Current Political Climate (and yeah, our Climate Climate) is that Joe Biden simply doesn’t get the credit he deserves for his historic actions to address climate change and get the USA on the road to transitioning to clean energy. For any number of reasons, most people in the US, even those who say climate is among their top issues, just don’t know much about what Biden has done, even though he regularly touts programs and infrastructure being funded by his signature climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Hell, he was at it again just yesterday, and while some of us nerds were over the moon, most folks were instead paying attention to the latest insane babblings from Donald Trump, who … you know what, the details don’t matter, because there’s ALWAYS some new insane babblings.
Happily, to mark August’s second anniversary of the IRA, the clean energy nerds at Rewire America rolled out a nifty little campaign to help folks who have already taken advantage of the IRA’s incentives to make some noise about it, encouraging them to hold “front porch ribbon cutting” ceremonies to call attention to home energy upgrades made possible through the IRA. Your typical home solar and battery storage systems, efficient heat pumps for heating and cooling, home EV chargers, induction stoves, upgraded electrical panels, improved insulation, and the like.
If a new battery factory can have a ribbon-cutting ceremony, then why not celebrate your own new efficiency upgrades, complete with comically oversized scissors, a big red (or green!) ribbon, and if you can hook ‘em in, a few words from a local politician who supports clean energy?
Oh look, here is Colorado Gov. Jared Polis doing exactly such an event in Denver, where James Warren and Hayley Schroeder replaced the fossil-fueled furnace in their 1950s-built house with an IRA-subsidized heat pump.
So far, as Colorado Public Radio notes in its story on the event, more than $8 billion in homeowner tax credits for clean energy upgrades have gone to help more than 3.4 million American households for good clean energy stuff.
And hell yes, if you can connect with local climate activists and use an information kit like those provided by Rewire America, the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and others, then your little event has a better chance of getting local attention. You could also coordinate with a local contractor / clean energy installer and invite neighbors to come and try out electric yard-care equipment, like these folks did in Pelham, New York:
Some local outlets will even just run your press release, photos and all, though we do have to tut-tut at what lazy journalisming that is.
We think this is pretty keen. If Joe Biden couldn’t personally sign every new solar panel paid for by IRA, then this is a good way to get the word out.
[Rewire America / Colorado Public Radio / CoPIRG / Pelham Examiner]
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Ta, Dok. We love our heat pump. It changed our lives. And on those very few days of the year it's too hot up here, it's an air conditioner also, too.
Maybe I will get a retroactive ribbon-cutting for my two-year-old heat pump water heater (which is amazing). But those weeds, I have to take care of the weeds in the yard first.