Debby Rice, Leslie Shipps and Katharine Preston of the Keene Valley Congregational Church (Provided photo by Naj Wikoff)

On Saturday, Sept. 20, a small gathering of EV, Hybrid, Solar panel, and other forms of sun-generated electrical users gathered at Marcy Field in Keene to celebrate energy generated by the sun. The gathering began a week-long celebration of sun and other forms of renewable energy, now the cheapest method of generating energy in the United States.

Sun Day is being re-launched 55 years after the founding of Earth Day. On May 3, 1978, following the installation of 32 solar panels on the White House, President Jimmy Carter launched the first Sun Day. This celebration was curtailed a few years later by President Ronald Reagan, who did so as he removed the solar panels from the roof.

The Keene event is one of 450 taking place in all 50 states across the country. Believing that the growing interest in affordable energy and environmental protection created an opportunity, well-known author and environmental activist and former Adirondack resident Bill McKibben came up with the idea of reestablishing Sun Day a few years ago when he noticed that the cost of renewable energy had dropped significantly, more than ninety percent over the past 15 years. He proposed that Sun Day now be held on or just before the autumn solar equinox.

As it did under Reaganomics, once again the new Sun Day is facing political headwinds on the national level, as the current administration and congressional leadership are working to reduce or eliminate tax credits for electric vehicles, heat pumps, and solar and wind power, and making it harder to establish offshore wind farms. The difference is that now there is widespread growing interest in renewables among the general public and industry because they are cheap, and it’s not possible for carbon-based energy to meet the rapidly expanding demand for electricity.

“Solar power is longer the Whole Foods of energy — nice but pricey,” Mr. McKibben announced. “Instead, it’s become the “Costco of power — cheap, available in bulk, and on the shelf ready to go.”

Michale Glennon, Adirondack Watershed Institute’s research directorm and Liz Evans, co-facilitator of Third Act Upstate New York (Provided photo by Naj Wikoff)

The Keene Valley Congregational Church’s Environmental Justice Committee organized the Sun Day Festival in Keene as part of a Sun Day Wool Relay organized by the Adirondack Watershed Institute and Third Act Upstate New York. Sun Day activities in the Adirondacks will culminate with a Watts and Wheels Clean Energy Celebration at the Wild Center on Saturday, Sept. 27, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The Marcy Field participants welcomed a small EV caravan bringing ten-inch circular hand-crafted wool suns en route to Albany, where they will be assembled and displayed to form a large tapestry.

“I’m involved because as a person of faith I believe in equity,” said Katharine Preston, a co-founder of Keene Valley Congregational Church’s Creation Justice initiative. “I support cheap energy for everybody, things that nobody can horde, things that people won’t start wars over. I feel expanding access to affordable renewable energy makes sense. When we heard of this opportunity to be part of a nationwide effort to increase awareness of the benefits of generating energy from the sun, we immediately signed up.”

The Keene Valley Congregational Church is one of the first churches designated as a Creation Justice church by the United Church of Christ, New York Conference.

“This designation means that we have looked at what we do, how we think, pray, and with a mind towards creation justice,” said Preston. “It’s not just in terms of loving creation and working for environmental stewardship and sustainability, but for justice; working to make sure all people can afford and have access to clean air, energy, soil, and water. Today we are working with the Sun Day organizers to increase awareness of the benefits of solar power and renewable energy.”

Susan Manners of South Burlington and Jane Haugh of Keene (Provided photo by Naj Wikoff)

“For us, switching all our lighting to LED was an amazing energy efficiency move,” said Joe Pete Wilson, Keene Town Supervisor. “It cut our streetlight bill in half, saving us about ten thousand dollars a year. As a result of our work on winterizing, we qualified for a grant that enabled us to install solar panels on the highway garage, generating power and additional savings for five years now.”

The Adirondack Watershed Institute and Third Act Upstate co-organized the Adirondack Sun Day events with such partner agencies as KVCC and the Wild Center.

“We’ve had a program going for the past three years called Wool and Water that combines art and science as a way of promoting environmental education, to help educate people about our waterways, a program that’s become very popular,” said the Institute’s research director, Michale Glennon. “Last year, I was invited to attend an event with Third Act at the Lake Placid Film Festival. I jumped at it because I thought that there would be an overlap between “old and bold” people that they represent, and the fiber, music, and other people we represent.”

Out of that meeting came the idea of inviting people to create wool fiber circles, each representing the sun, that would be combined to create a large tapestry displayed at the Capitol in Albany on Sunday, Sept. 21, and again at the Wild Center on Sept. 27.

“Essentially, the idea behind Sun Day is we want people to recognize solar, wind, and other forms of clean, renewable energy are the way of the future, and now is the right time to start getting involved,” said Liz Evans, co-facilitator of Third Act Upstate New York.

Attending the Marcy Field event was Susan Manners, who lives at Hillside East, a zero-carbon community in South Burlington.

“We have solar panels, can plug in our EVs, and the house is resilient; we won’t have any outages,” said Manners. “We joined because the environmental benefits are important to us, and our panels enable us to give back to the community grid. While the current administration doesn’t support renewable power, we’re forging ahead and trying to educate others about the benefits.”

“Shifting to renewable power is important because we do have to protect our planet,” said Patience Whitman of Westport. “It’s our home and the future home for the next generations, we need to do everything we can to take care of it.

(Naj Wikoff lives in Keene Valley and has been writing his column for the Lake Placid News since 2005.)