Don't miss this wonderful piece featuring Citizens Caring for the Future leaders Nick King, Gene Harbaugh, Kayley Shoup & our incredible allies Joan Brown & Nathalie Eddy

Can the sun solve New Mexico’s energy conundrum? The state is dependent on oil and gas, but Carlsbad has opportunity to become the epicenter of renewable energy.

What Harbaugh finds most troubling is what he calls a psychic shift in the community. Carlsbad had always been a fairly poor area, with most jobs in mining or agriculture. So community institutions stepped up and people relied on one another, he said. And while he can’t totally blame the oil boom for the dwindling of his former congregation, Harbaugh said the industry, by nature, breeds a mentality of total self-reliance. Success is what can be pulled from the ground by one man or one company. “Individual freedoms are what now seem to be paramount,” Harbaugh lamented. “People are supposed to do whatever they want as long as it benefits them.”