“The question is no longer if the world will transition to cleaner energy, but how long it will take,” the article notes.

But here in Wisconsin, we impose special fees on some solar users (let’s just be fair and call it a tax) because they “strain the resources of the grid” by adding electricity back to it during peak solar times (which are often peak electric useage times). As a state, we are  attempting to spread those taxes to ALL individual homeowners with solar panels.

And we’ve tried to pass a special tax on hybrid-car users because they don’t use enough gas (and therefore don’t give “enough” in gas taxes — never mind that we don’t have any kind of graduated tax for general fuel efficiency in an age of increasing fuel efficiency).

This we do while other states are trying to pass incentives for hybrid and electric vehicles.

Solar energy and hybrids are a couple of issues about which the latest Wisconsin news is much tougher to find. But those of us who live here already understand the constant battering of our environment by backward politicians who control our politics for the time being.

We’re lagging in job creation partly because we’ve tied ourselves to dying industries and put constraints on the growing renewable-energy business.

And our state motto is really “Forward?” Forward to what?