Join the Call to Put Solar on the White House and get updates from the road trip!
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House. In 1986, President Reagan removed them and they were never replaced. Years later, Unity College in Maine adopted the panels where they have lived ever since. Until now.
On September 7, 350.org founder Bill McKibben and a group of Unity students will start driving one of the original Carter panels from Maine down to Washington, DC. But we’re going to need your help to reach President Obama: sign our letter (→) asking him to put solar back on the White House and help spread the word.
Follow us—and let’s get solar power back on The White House!
The solar trip is less than a week away and our excitement is growing everyday!
Who are we?
We are three students from Unity College in Maine who will be taking a road trip to Washington D.C. with a historic solar panel to urge President Obama to fulfill his promise of a clean energy future. We will need your help all along the journey and well after.
The Jimmy Carter solar panels on our cafeteria roof have become a regular sight for the students here. We never imagined that we would have the opportunity to take one of these panels down and bring it back to the White House so it could give the country another chance to take that road to an energy independent future.
Our campaign got started with the launch of our website and the announcement of our trip on the Late Show with David Letterman on Tuesday night. During the show, Bill McKibben called on President Obama to be expecting us next week, and to set an example for the nation by installing solar panels on the White House.
In only a matter of days, Bill McKibben will join us in loading the historic solar panel, piling into the van, and waving goodbye to our supporters as we head off on our journey.
As college students we have become very familiar with exams, but if there was ever a test that mattered for our generation and the future of life on earth, this would be it. It’s up to the youth and the youth-spirited to seize this clean energy campaign now in order to turn the tide on a climate that is already burning up our future.
We won’t succeed alone. We need your help so that this trip will make a difference.
·     If you are able, please join us at the launch event at Unity College, as well as in Boston, New York City, and for the pre-delivery event in D.C. We are very excited to meet anyone who willing to help with our mission. Check out the list of road trip stop times and locations on our website.
·     Wherever you are in the world: follow along, and share your voice. We’ll be live-blogging, live-twittering, and facebook-ing to let you know what’s going on. Tell Obama to Put Solar On It!- and stay tuned at http://putsolaron.it/road-trip
·     Make a poster that says “Put Solar On It!” and hold it high on your roof, your bicycle, or your car. Send the photo to photos@putsolaron.it to be featured on the trip website.
If our education at Unity College has taught us anything, we have learned that if we want to make difference, we need a strong social movement now. That’s why after the road trip, we’re urging folks to go all-out for 10/10/10, a massive planet-wide day to take action on climate change and demand our leaders to do the same. We hope you’ll sign up your town! Check out http://350.org/1010.
We’ll see you along the northeast coast, all over the web, and everywhere you can look up and see the power of the sun, still waiting for us to take full advantage of it.
Let’s get the ball rolling- and get solar back on the White House!
If you are one of the 4 million plus people that watches the Late Show with David Letterman every night, then you’ve already seen this clip with 350.org founder Bill McKibben. If not, check it out—Bill lays out the case for the need to get back to 350 ppm, talks about the momentum building for 10/10/10, and announces our upcoming road trip to take one of President Carter’s original solar panels back to the White House.
Please share the clip with your friends and spread the word. Together, we can get President Obama (and other world leaders) to get to work with us on 10/10/10!
350.org founder Bill McKibben will be on the David Letterman Show tonight, one of the most watched talk shows in the United States, to talk about his new book Eaarth, our plans for 10/10/10, and to kick off our Put Solar On It road trip!
As you can imagine, we’re pretty excited here at the 350.org office. This is great exposure and it couldn’t be better timed. Next week, Bill and a group of students will be driving one of Jimmy Carter’s original solar panels from its current home at Unity College in Maine back to the White House.
You can follow all the excitement of the road trip at our new Put Solar On It road trip site. Bill and the team will be tweeting, blogging, video-ing, etc. from the road and doing events in Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C. along the way. Join us as we ask President Obama to install solar panels on the White House roof on 10/10/10 and tell us his plan to put solar on rooftops across America and around the world.
Make sure to tune in to watch Bill on Letterman tonight and help spread the word!
Welcome to the Put Solar On It Road Trip! This September, 350.org and a group of students are driving from Unity College in Maine down to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to bring one of Jimmy Carter’s original solar panels back the White House.
The panel comes with an ask for President Obama: put solar back on the White House and lead our country to a clean energy future.
When President Carter installed a set of solar panels on the White House in 1979, he offered the following prophecy:
In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy. A generation from now this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.
Carter didn’t know at the time that just seven years later his panels would be removed from the White House roof by President Regan (who also let subsidies for the solar power, stymieing the industry’s development). Since then, our misguided energy policy has made solar panels a curiosity for too many Americans.
Together, we’re going to reclaim the sense of solar adventure — literally. Follow the road trip’s progress next week as we start our way down the East Cost from Maine, stopping in Boston, New York, and finally arriving at the gates of the White House.
With your support, we can re-charge America and get solar panels back where they belong: on the roof of the White House and on roofs around the world.
Climb up on your house (safely) and hold up a sign that says "Put Solar on it!" (or hold the sign above your bicycle, desk, or even your cat.) Email your photos as attachments to photos@putsolaron.it and we'll add them to the photo petition!
Spread the Solar…
Click here to put the solar road trip on the top of your Facebook profile, and here to put it on top of your Twitter feed.
Organize for a Solar & Clean Energy Revolution
Join us on 10/10/10, when thousands of communities will join together to show the world what solutions to the climate crisis look like -- and call on our leaders to unleash them. Learn more & sign-up here: www.350.org/1010
Featured Partner: Sungevity
Our partners at Sungevity have offered to donate a solar array to the White House--you can learn more about their work and check out an interactive tour of the proposed White House solar panels here.
350.org founder Bill McKibben will be on the David Letterman Show tonight, one of the most watched talk shows in the United States, to talk about his new book 
