By Mary O’KEEE

On Sunday former President Jimmy Carter passed away at the age of 100. As I have stated before I had met Mr. Carter and his wife a few times while I lived in Iowa during the 1976 Iowa caucus. He was running for the Presidency at the time. He was kind and thoughtful and actually listened to all of us, from teenagers to farmers. Later, after he left office, I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, an organization he championed and was a boots-on-the-ground volunteer. 

President Carter was before his time when it came to the environment and even put solar-thermal panels on the White House. 

“The White House itself once harvested the power of the sun. On June 20, 1979 the Carter Administration installed 32 panels designed to harvest the sun’s rays and use them to heat water,” according to the 2010 Scientific American article “Where did the Carter White House’s Solar Panels Go?”

At the time, he predicted, “In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me, which is being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy … A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

But under the Reagan Administration the panels were removed during a roof repair. 

In 2023, about 4,178 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) (or about 4.18 trillion kWh) of electricity were generated at utility-scale electricity generation facilities in the United States.About 60% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels – coal, natural gas, petroleum and other gases. About 19% was from nuclear energy, and about 21% was from renewable energy source s… Of that 0.1% came from thermal solar, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

Imagine what our energy independence would be now if only former President Carter’s vision was completed … and expanded on. China is now the world’s top producer of solar panels capturing about 80% of global production.

I think one of the things as a teen that drew me to former President Carter was his faith. We may not have seen Christianity exactly the same but I admired his loyalty to his faith, and I agreed with a quote he gave to a reporter interviewing him about a book he had just completed. He said, “To me, faith is not just a noun but also a verb.” 

And he showed his devotion to his fellow humans in so many ways – even being awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize “for work to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights and to promote economic and social development,” according to thewhitehouse.gov.

 And just a note: 

“The year 2024 is on track to be the warmest year on record after an extended streak of exceptionally high monthly global mean temperatures,” according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The past 10 years are the warmest on record and ocean heat continues to rise. The Antarctic sea level is the second lowest on record, glacier loss accelerates and extreme weather and climate events have led to massive economic and human losses, according to WMO.

So here’s hoping that in 2025 we can learn from the legacy of former President Carter and find compassion for others (and the Earth) and that we all practice our faith as a verb. 

Although we started the week with weak Santa Ana winds, by today the winds should die down and temperatures will be in the mid-70s; however, temperatures are expected to cool as we head to the weekend where temps are expected to be in the high 60s. No rain in the forecast; it looks dry for the next two weeks.