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To most, the idea that barn-red Indiana can fuel a new wave of American environmental stewardship is almost laughable. We are a Republican, manufacturing, agricultural state — one without snowcapped mountains, sought-after beaches or great plains. We are “just Indiana.”
But this Earth Day, April 22, 56 years after the very first and a world away from that bygone era, I would like to make the case that Indiana can do just that.
What inspires me is history. At the heart of the original American environmental movement was a Hoosier Republican: Bill Ruckelshaus. He was asked to be the first administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, build it from scratch, implement the Clean Air Act and lay the groundwork for the Clean Water Act.
He emerged at a moment of incredible human progress, great post-war industrial churn and widespread pollution in cities and nature.
In the 1960s, Rachel Carson’s bestseller “Silent Spring” woke the nation and ignited widespread environmental concern around chemicals, bioaccumulation and personal health.
In 1969, Americans landed on the moon and snapped the first “Earthrise” photos of the planet. In April 1970, the first Earth Day kicked off through the bipartisan partnership of a Democratic senator and a Republican congressman.
Today, the echoes are clear. A new wave of environmental concern rooted in personal health — the MAHA movement — has catapulted into the national arena.
America has returned to the moon and snapped the first “Earthset.” And our very own governor — then U.S. senator — Mike Braun helped kick into motion bipartisan environmental action by co-founding the Senate Climate Solutions Caucus with Delaware Democrat Chris Coons.
So as the nation recalibrates from the Biden-era zeal for climate, the need for a rebirth of America’s environmental spirit is upon us — and Hoosiers might again provide answers. Indiana’s environmental DNA runs deeper than most people realize.
Take three quintessentially Hoosier companies: The Heritage Group, Steel Dynamics and ReElement Technologies.
The family-owned, multi-tentacled Heritage Group has built an entire enterprise on inventing sustainable solutions to its core industries of construction, environmental services and specialty chemicals — spinning out companies in that spirit left and right, including Cirba Solutions, the largest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America.
Fort Wayne-based Steel Dynamics, a Fortune 500 company, bases its manufacturing on melted recycled scrap steel rather than mined raw ore — and has recently launched BIOEDGE, which is powered with carbon-free nuclear energy and replaces fossil fuel carbon in the furnace with renewable biocarbon. This is one of the hardest industries in the world to decarbonize, and an Indiana company is leading it.
In Fishers, ReElement Technologies — born of a coal company — extracts rare earth elements and lithium battery metals from recycled wind turbine magnets, EV motors, and spent batteries, using a Purdue-developed process.
Its upcoming Marion facility is on track to become the largest rare earth oxide producer in the country from recycled inputs. That’s not just environmentally forward; it’s a direct challenge to China’s near monopoly on rare earth refining.
These are just three bright points in a whole constellation of Hoosier companies and leaders quietly but determinedly building with this philosophy.
Human ingenuity, American innovation, business sense — this is the basis of new-wave environmental tradition worth reclaiming.
It’s time to forge a distinctly Hoosier path to help America and the world achieve both human flourishing and progress and to keep the balance of God’s green Earth.
Hoosier pragmatism, business sense and clear-eyed leadership have never been more needed.•
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Gemelas is chief operating officer at Climate Solutions Fund, outstanding fellow of Mitch Daniels Leadership Foundation and a proud Greek-American. Send comments to [email protected].
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