There is a kerfuffle in town about whether to allow solar panels on visible roofs in the historic district and, if so, how many and where. I’d like to reach back into New England’s rich history and call our main witness, Benjamin Franklin, who I think can help us clear this up.
The year is 1765 and Franklin is staying at the Warner House on Daniel Street, where he has just supervised the installation on the side of the building of his newly invented lightning rod. Franklin was an electricity guy. He’d already managed to electrocute himself several times during experiments. Imagine you catch Franklin one evening after he’s enjoyed a hearty supper with his host. You have some pertinent news for this pragmatic man of science — a real data guy who can see right through specious arguments — but you decide to break it to him gently. First, you compliment him for inventing the Franklin stove, which now keeps many New Englanders warmer in the winter. Listen in.
“Ben, I loved the hollow baffle and inverted siphon innovations you designed into that stove!” Franklin puffs happily on his pipe. You continue.
”Ben, we’ve figured out a way to stick a few shiny plates on a roof to produce free energy from the sun.” Franklin sits up. His eyes widen, then narrow with suspicion. He looks around the room. He’s wondering if this is some sort of Portsmouth humor.
”Say what?” he says. “Explain, please.”
”Well, when the sun shines we convert it directly to electricity you can then use to heat your hot water and yourselves. No wood, no coal, no smoke, no drafts.”
Franklin’s posture stiffens. “Is this for real?” he asks. You nod yes.
”Then why are we sitting around like dead possums? Get the ladders out immediately — we need some of these hot plates.” His Portsmouth hosts are as excited as he is and everyone makes for the door. You hold up a cautionary hand.
”Hold steady, Ben. First, there is something you should know.” You need to manage his expectations.
”Don’t tell me,” he says,”we have to pay taxes on them?”
“Worse than that,” you say. Franklin’s face starts to turn red, his hands on his hips.
“Ben, it’s about the fidelity to history, the charm and the quaintness. People worry the building might be, shall we say, compromised. The hot plates might be visible.” Franklin looks like he is about to burst a vein. You fear the recoil but you add more. ”They think this wonderful historic house might not be quite as, how shall we put it, historic.” You take the best option here, which is shutting your mouth. A deathly hush descends over the room. Franklin looks at his hosts and points at you.
”Tell me this nincompoop is joking. About the resistance to this astonishing new invention, I mean. It’s a brilliant first-rate idea and time’s a-wastin.” The host shrugs his shoulders. You add some more background.
”Ben, I’m afraid a few people are revolting.” Franklin sucks in a deep breath. You wonder about your safety. Then he lets rip.
“Historical charm isn’t worth a hill of beans when your feet are cold,” Franklin says. “As for visibility, do you know how much time people actually spend looking up?” You nod no. “Next to none,” he says, “unless there are fireworks or a crow is chasing off a hawk. If people walked around looking up, doctors would be doing land office business treating faceplant injuries. Observe your own townsfolk in Market Square, my good man. Observe yourself. Notice where your eyes track as you go about your business.”
Franklin is now on a roll, his mind working furiously. “Do an experiment. Next time you have a visitor, walk them down one of those pretty streets that lead from Pleasant Street down to the water. When you reach the river, ask them what they noticed about the roofs. ‘What roofs?’ they’ll probably say. But they’ll tell you how much they admired Mrs. Langdon’s lilacs or the Mardens’ brass door knocker.”
Franklin pauses to catch his breath, then continues. “My friend Thomas Jefferson has thoughts about change. He says when governments write rules, they can’t possibly know what challenges the next generation will face. He says the dead shouldn’t rule the living. When the times require expedient change, it can’t be business as usual. Maybe you have a leader or two in Portsmouth who can shake some trees?” Franklin nods towards the door. “Now, get out those darn ladders. There’s work to do on the roof.”
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We should heed Ben Franklin’s pragmatic advice. If you question his observations about visibility, ask yourself when you last looked up from the sidewalk on Market Street between Hanover Street and the salt pile. If you crane your neck, you’ll see the ugliest, most unholy mess of an overhead view you’ll see on any historic street in New England. It’s probably not what tourists remember. If we can live with that travesty for decades, plentiful rooftop solar panels in historic downtown in a time of need are a cake walk.
In 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen warned the United States Senate that the planet was warming because of emissions from burning fossil fuel. A year later Bill McKibben put the whole thing in layman’s language in his book “The End of Nature.” Their essential message was: for the first time in human history our collective activities were affecting climate systems and threatening the natural world and our place in it. Our cumulative technological achievements have placed us in the driver’s seat. We now have a moral duty to following generations to become much better drivers. Thirty-six years later, scientific consensus says Hansen got it right.
This is not a time for business as usual. We, the people and our leaders, need the courage to admit this. The middle schoolers who presented their solar energy projects to the council a few weeks ago already know it. Younger people see their future at stake; they’d prefer action to being patronized. Our habitual naysayers — with their misplaced proxy fights over change in general — need to step aside.
Discussion in the council chambers has to focus on the right question: how can the city of Portsmouth actively encourage and facilitate the installation of solar panels, anywhere in town, by property owners who wish to generate clean energy from their rooftops? It’s true that the devil is always in the details of any new or revised ordinance, but a much larger devil is in the big picture we seem to be underestimating.
We already know everything we need to know about what’s at stake and how to act. As one stakeholder, who is eager to install solar panels on a visible historic district roof, told me: “We can never be 100% sure we’re right about anything, but in this case I know for certain that I’m on the right side of history.” He’d like the rest of Portsmouth to join him there.
Gerald Duffy lives in Portsmouth.
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