The Blog
Life is expensive, and it is complicated by choices and sales pitches. Conventional wisdom sometimes helps, but sometimes does not… Imagine that you have a choice between two alternative costs – each several thousand dollars a year – only one of which you have to pay. One might be slightly higher than the other, now, but is mostly stable, and will go away altogether after a period of time, maybe 15 or even 20 years from now; The other is lower now, but might increase slightly – or even sharply – over time, and will never go away. Which would you choose? I think, put this way, most people would likely choose the former, if it were available to them. If the former ultimately added to the value of their house, and the latter did not, the former would presumably be that much more attractive! In the case of financed energy transformation, because the former has attached to it a big scarlet letter D – for Debt – we tend to choose the latter – ongoing energy expenses – even those of us to whom the former option is fully available. Debt is always something people are uneasy about. We are supposed to be uneasy about it. The negative implications of it – mounting interest, living beyond our means, and just owing money- are all negatives we tend to want to avoid. We often hear about people using debt improperly – running up high interest, paying off just enough to take on more debt, getting deeper into the red. Living debt-free is, for many, a point of pride. But debt is simply an instrument that, if used properly, gives us access to a better life, and often greater financial benefit. It comes with a cost, of course, but it is a cost which often can eliminate other costs. Many Americans are familiar with this when they buy a house. Since most people don’t have enough money to buy a home with cash, they take out a mortgage to do so. In ordinary circumstances, most people would not be too concerned about assuming a thirty year mortgage, especially if the monthly payment on it were only a few dollars more than paying rent. The benefit in doing so would be obvious. Nobody thinks about payback in such a case. Nobody really even thinks about the fact that, by the time the mortgage has been paid off, they have paid the price of the house almost three times over. There are numerous ways to pick apart costs and benefits of home ownership and to enumerate the potential hazards and liabilities – but the value of the investment is usually recognized to outweigh all of these concerns. Few people would recommend staying in a rental situation longer than necessary if we had the means to assume a mortgage. Carrying a mortgage to achieve home ownership is also a point of pride. With energy transformation, however, we tend to linger over all the associated liabilities and unknowns. Will a heat pump be able to heat this house? What other costs are there – maintenance, cleaning, repairs? How soon will it need to be replaced? Is my roof or my location good for installing a solar array? What is the payback period? How long will we be living in the house? Will this work somehow negatively affect the value of the house? These are all good questions and should be answered honestly and carefully before you engage in a major energy project – the same as you would before buying a house, or undertaking any significant expense. The same scrutiny and due diligence are necessary. For some, just the unknowns associated with unfamiliar technologies, such as heat pumps or solar panels, are enough to make them hesitate about what otherwise would be an easy choice. These technologies, however, are now recognized – most importantly by banks and insurance companies – as safe and reliable, in virtually all weather conditions found in Vermont. Frankly, there are some characteristics of any of these technologies that may make them less effective in a particular home, and we should look at those closely and become better educated about them. But, if sized and installed correctly (and this is where Zero Energy Now comes in), their benefits, on balance, far outweigh their liabilities. There is no better investment than energy transformation! This is especially true if it includes generating all the energy we consume, which is possible with photovoltaics. Once the loan is paid off – no matter how long it takes – our energy costs are virtually eliminated. What doesn’t make sense is taking a stance against debt on some kind of unconsidered principle or prejudice. It doesn’t make sense, for example, to continue paying high energy costs for an extended period in hopes of saving up money to pay for an energy transformation project outright at some point in the future. It is much easier to generate the funds to pay off a loan when most of those energy costs have been eliminated through completion of the energy transformation. Doing it this way provides the added benefit of fossil-free heating and cooling, while the loan is being paid down. Like a mortgage, debt in this case is really an investment in your home, and in your quality of life! Your Zero Energy Now Contractor or Coordinator will design and develop the best strategies available to you to achieve full energy transformation, and especially, if possible, to develop your capacity to buy into and generate your own renewable energy! You may be surprised at the clarity of the choices in front of you! Our ZEN contractors and coordinators are specifically trained to design a system for your home that will meet your needs and give you confidence that you are doing the right thing – for your home, for your family, and for the planet! – Tom Perry 1/16/2026
We don’t hear so much about the climate these days- not like used to! 2025 wasn’t a big year for hurricanes, and even here in Vermont – although there was flooding in the northern part of the state – flooding emergencies didn’t hit the high water mark they did in 2023 and 2024. (Instead, we had historic drought!) Large tracts of the City of Los Angeles burned to the ground, but that was in January, and seems so long ago now that it’s hard to remember that those fires happened in 2025! The current President has continued to insist that climate change is a hoax, generated now not so much by China (as he has said in the past), as by radical-left Democrats who want to destroy the country. He has worked with Republicans in Congress to eliminate tax credits related to electric vehicles, and renewable energy, and rolled back incentives for industries to invest in renewable infrastructure such as batteries, and further electrification of their industrial processes. He has even paused all off-shore wind projects, including ordering a mostly completed large-scale installation off the coast of Rhode Island shut down completely. All of these changes will have a significant negative effect on the cost of electricity, and more importantly on our ability and our will to mitigate climate change. The latest news on the climate front in today’s (1/13/26) New York Times is that carbon emissions are up 2.4% this past year after a steady downward trend since late 2021. This is due to increased electricity demand spurred largely by expansion of data centers, and a by a 13% increase in coal consumption (with Trump’s renewed blessing) to cover the demand. Donald Trump still cannot control the weather, however – although he might think he can! Nor does the weather or the climate respond in any way to his presumption of power over just about everything. It responds instead to the same factors it always has – uneven warming of the atmosphere and the oceans, and the broad weather patterns that respond to those irregularities. The range of these variables, which has been remarkably stable for hundreds of thousands of years, has been dramatically destabilized by the even modest rise in global average temperature precipitated by the enormous increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere occurring in the last 150 years. Pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were typically 280 parts per million (PPM) dipping as low as 180 PPM during heavily glaciated periods. As recently as 1960, the level was just under 320 PPM, but it has climbed steadily since then till it has reached over 420 PPM in 2022– far above what scientific consensus has told us can maintain steady climate and predictable weather patterns. Politics, and much of our awareness of issues, is driven not by science, of course, but, essentially, by competing “marketing claims”, from politicians and their backers – industry lobbyists, talk show hosts, and social media influencers. It has always been a dialogue of sound bites, full of questionable information, and its primary effect has been broad confusion, and a general resignation to the status quo. No matter how potentially horrific the effects of climate change have been – and will certainly be in the future – most people just don’t think it is their problem or within their power to address it. They feel we have either lost the battle, or that it isn’t that important. Serious efforts to address climate change have occurred internationally, through treaties such as the 2015 Paris Accord signed by all but three countries, and withdrawn from by only one – the United States. Domestically, they have been driven primarily in the development of policy initiatives, mostly at the state level by Democratic legislators and governors, and, in a rare achievement, by the Biden administration and a Democratic congress, through passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. This last was an extraordinary measure – the first truly national effort in this country to head off the most serious predicted effects of the warming of the atmosphere. It was a recognition – very late in the game – that we must do something to avoid the catastrophe that otherwise is bearing down on us! But the “political marketing” has continued – most of it lately coming from the bully-pulpit of the presidency, where there has probably never been a more effective bully in the pulpit than Donald Trump. This means that, for now, serious discussions about climate as a source of concern in our political discourse have largely evaporated. This is highly problematic, and especially so because, even at this late date, huge numbers of people in this country haven’t really known what to think about climate, and, for them, it has never been a top-of-mind issue. Most of us, even those of us who have been paying attention, don’t really have any idea what’s coming. We have a tendency to think that we have already experienced most of the dire effects that climate change will deliver, and that we can manage those effects simply with better air conditioning, perhaps some improvements in our emergency response systems, and improved resilience in our buildings and infrastructure. The particularly insidious and dangerous nature of climate change, however, is that by the time its most serious effects are experienced – consistently and drastically – it will mostly be too late to address it effectively. By the time we experience a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 type event precipitated by the climate, it will be too late to turn it around, and many such events will likely ensue – in waves of increasing magnitude. Imagine Hurricane Katrina -- in which over 1,800 people died -- multiplied by an order of magnitude, and then that catastrophe multiplied by an order of magnitude again, and yet again – in cities and human ecosystems across the world. The costs of rebuilding will also increase dramatically if runaway climate change is allowed to take place, until the economy essentially is unable to rebuild at all. Already in this country, the insurance industry has lost most of its capacity to cover costs of these devastating events, and has fallen back on the federal government to cover the cost of rebuilding lives and infrastructure. And yet, what we have experienced to date, world-wide, is only the tip of the iceberg. Both our politics and the free market have had very little capacity to lead, to look to the future, or to head off the kind of tragedy in store for us if we allow the warming of the atmosphere to continue. The intelligent, steady, and consistent hand of unpoliticized civic government, informed by the best science available, is really our best chance for breaking the current trends toward greater and greater tragedy. Trump’s effort to seize complete control of the Federal bureaucracy and bend it to his will has done unspeakable damage both to the government’s capacity to manage its response to climate change, and even simply to gather meaningful data on climate and weather for forecasting purposes through the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Ultimately, climate change will precipitate a series of world-wide environmental catastrophes that will drive all other human-related crises for years to come – mass dislocation and mass migration to avoid sea level rise and desertification, mass starvation due to limited crop land resources, civil and international conflicts driven by competition for dwindling resources. Destruction of local and regional economies will generate political crises and failed states that will breed illegitimate power centers – bandits, gangs, warlords, and rogue states. World War II was perhaps the greatest human catastrophe in recent human history. It is still somewhat within memory of some of us. Unimaginably, climate change is likely to be far worse in its potential effects than World War II. How do we respond to this blinding reality, which hasn’t quite blinded us yet? Well, for starters, we recognize that we are not blind, and we do know, or have some idea at least, of what to expect. We also know what can be done – especially what we, ourselves, can do. Good information is out there. We have to keep networks open that deliver it to people, recognizing that everyone needs it. We have to keep our eye on the ball, and continue working tirelessly to fight both the disinformation that is misleading people and the fatigue and confusion that comes with trying to navigate all the competing claims on our attention and on our personal response capacities. Which battles do we fight? How do we prioritize our personal energy? What must become our personal and community mission in these extraordinary and troubling times? Addressing climate change directly and vigorously was one of former President Biden’s top priorities. He created a special Security Council position for it – Special Presidential Climate Envoy – which was held throughout his tenure by former Secretary of State John Kerry, and he successfully pushed massive funding legislation through Congress to fight it directly and effectively with subsidies to individuals and businesses, and to whole industries. How much worse will things become in the remaining years under this current administration? How will we continue the work that we all must do? Continue the dialogue with everyone! Continue to learn! Continue to educate ourselves and others! Don’t give up – everything we do helps, has an impact, makes a difference! – Tom Perry 1/13/2026