Pursuing Hope and Clean Energy
In the account of the Exodus, God's people had a bright future ahead of them, if they only would trust in the Lord and lean not on their own understanding.
The days of wandering in the desert aren't too different than the days we inhabit. Then like now, the cultural challenges seemed stacked against us. Then like now, God still has more to do with each of us, yet many evangelicals are calling for a return, a return to Egypt, a return to separation from the culture.
In the book of Numbers we find the account of Caleb. Moses through God led the Israelite refugees through Sinai to the edge of "The Promised Land." He then sends twelve men to explore this land of milk and honey. After 40 days, they return. One, Caleb, sees the hope for a better future. The others are fearful and cause the people to cry out, "If only we had died in Egypt."
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For many of us when faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges whether personal or within the culture, we want to separate, go back, go our own way often without God's guidance or leading. Whether we like to admit it – most of us fear change.
We stand today with God still actively at work, offering up new opportunities, new missions, and new ways forward. One of these areas has to do with creation care and God's children.
According to the American Lung Association State of the Air Report, 35.6 million kids in the United States live in areas with unhealthy air. The latest childhood epidemics are Asthma, Autism, AHDH, and Allergies impacting as many as 1 in 3 children in the US with strong links to petrochemicals and fossil fuel energy. Dengue fever, a mosquito borne disease, never before native to US is now present in Florida, Texas, and Hawaii due at least in part to our changing climate and warming temperatures. And in the northeastern US, especially Pennsylvania, Lyme disease has reached almost epidemic proportions, as earlier springs and later autumn become the new normal.
The decision is ours. We stand on the precipice of a new energy future. At our grasp is a clean energy revolution. A revolution that could provide energy freedom for all, add to our economy, empower families to generate rooftop energy, save our children's health, bring over 2 billion into the 21st century world of energy, and reduce security threats to our nation. Business giant Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) says the clean energy transition is now self-sustaining and inevitable. Morgan Stanley another business giant says the "tipping point is near for going off the grid."
It's no surprise in the face of the new clean energy economy, state controlled electric monopolies across the US are stepping up to limit competition and even curtail our personal freedoms to protect their profits. From Florida to Ohio and West Virginia to New Mexico bills are being introduced to protect utilities and limit energy freedom.
Some utilities are seizing the opportunities and hope for a new future. As NRG Energy's David Crane points out, the future for utilities is working together with consumer generated electricity. His vision sees utilities operating more like Amazon, Apple, and Google providing a new electric supply model based on consumer needs rather than 20th century protected monopolies. A generation ago, the Ma Bell break-up sparked the cell phone and the information technology revolution, a clean energy revolution will provide the same results.
Ben Franklin is attributed as once saying, "Doing well by doing good." It's time to live this biblically inspired saying. Evangelicals and other people of faith must lead in creating a clean energy revolution—it's who God calls us to be.
