Month 9, Day 30: Bella, bella, bella!

The New York Times had a lovely article on a little Italian town that’s moved to wind energy and done itself a huge favor in the process. Go read the piece; it’s really inspiring.

At least, it inspired this letter:

The citizens of Tocco De Casauria have chosen wisely in moving their community to renewable energy sources. Perhaps a village that has existed for centuries is better-equipped to plan for an existence hundreds of years in the future. It is a measure of how far the United States has to go in this area that the concept of “sustainability” is still considered the province of tie-dyed back-to-the-landers, rather than a simple piece of common sense. Obviously we should be thinking in the long term rather than the short. But, alas, America is the home of the shortest attention spans on the planet, and sustainability isn’t shiny enough to engage the interest of the country that invented “planned obsolescence.” We need an energy economy that’s built to last…and we won’t find it in oil wells and coal mines. Tocco’s turbines are a lesson to all of us: “planned obsolescence” is obsolete.

Warren Senders