Mailbag: Solar cookers need help getting cooking

Dear Editor,

My son John has just handed me the November-December 2014 issue of Dirt Magazine in which you recommend solar cooking and, specifically, the HotPot. I write to thank you a lot. Although now retired from Solar Household Energy, Inc. (www.she-inc.org), I continue to follow the doings. There are a bunch of new, young people working there now with new skills and ideas and contacts and insights.

The new crowd needs all the help it can get because acceptance of this technology continues to be a big hurdle. On the one hand, we’ve been chased off a mountain by developing world peasants who saw solar cooking work so well it could only be witchcraft. On the other, we’ve been ignored by developed world “experts” who are persuaded, without looking, that it can’t possibly work at all. As evidence of success accumulates, the latter will have to cave.

Your publicity contributes to the building evidence of the technology’s viability. Again, many thanks.

Sincerely,

Dar Curtis