[MassHistPres] solar panels in historic districts

[Willa Bandler]

Honestly, this is why many members of the general public hate 
preservationists. As long as we focus on making everything look pretty at 
the expense of what's good for our world, we lose. The past wasn't 
sanitized, and neither is the present; solar panels are, it is true, not 
pretty, but neither is global warming, and neither were the streets full 
of horse manure that abutted many of these houses when they were 
originally built.

The environmental benefits of preservation are huge, and if there's any 
future in either movement, we need to work together. (For what it's worth, 
I feel every bit as strongly about the environmentalists who foolishly 
believe destructive insulation and window replacement projects are 
necessary and important parts of environmentalism.)

I don't post here much (I think this may be my second post to the list 
ever?) because I'm not a professional or even an HDC member, just a 
past-and-hopefully-future grad student at BU, but I've been subscribed to 
this list for several years, and I often find it frustrating that people 
are devoting so much energy to judging their neighbors' mailboxes, 
basketball hoops, free newspaper boxes outside businesses, and the like, 
while every day I see historic houses that are condemned and will soon be 
bulldozed. Preserving history in a meaningful way doesn't always mean 
making it look like a movie set.

-Willa Bandler