Because, Silly, San Francisco is foggy and cool and Miami is drenched in sunlight and hot.  Yet San Francisco is filled with environmentalists and economy savvy people who elect to use whatever sun they have to generate non-emission clean electric power by installing acres of solar panels on rooftops. These rooftops are on public buildings, schools, police and city halls. This can’t happen here in Miami because Miami is different intellectually and its focus is politically aimed at a war of attrition between Americans of Cuban heritage that yearn for Cuba and Cubans in Cuba who want to flee to America.

I have communicated with the fragile solar energy network here in Florida and find they are willing to work but cannot get the support of Floridians. It seems that while the state is drenched in sunlight and liquid life (available in huge quantities in other parts of Florida rather than in draughty South Florida) the only sensible way to go is to spend a little to get a lot.  That is a difficult thing to do to people who have little work, few prospects, and see luxury towers springing up all around them that attract people of wealth who do not need to save money on energy. I would like all flat top condominiums to benefit from the savings in electric use. There are lots and lots of condominiums here.

The whole oil thing is irritating.  It will not go away for there is too much invested in getting new supplies while this resource is being literally drained away and burned up for fuel and energy.  We find the natural beauty of our land despoiled while its natural resource of animal life dwindles because it is not valued by car-driving sportsmen who like to shoot at creatures that cannot shoot back. Oil is staining the land near the ocean off Spain and is killing off the creatures on, below and above the oily waves.  Somehow, the picture of rooftops on which no one goes anymore, filled with acres of solar energy cells supplying our electric needs, seems cleaner than despoiled waters.

My proposal to the local condominium coalition to examine the possibility of buying and installing solar cells to generate our own electricity and selling the excess to the electric power company is unread and not discussed.  At our meetings we hear about the problems of accountants, lawyers and politicians who all want to get to places where they can do a lot of good. But, they are enmeshed with devilish documents written years ago by the developers and builders who locked themselves into collecting millions of dollars in leases they designed to profit themselves.

Innocent retirees and others who flee the north looking for warmth all year around find themselves to be a pool of farm raised fish into which the few drop their lines to get themselves a fat dinner.  This may be the way of life for most of us but there are a few who would like to be like foggy San Francisco and fill our roofs with energy.