This is a guest article by the Hoosier economist Morton J. Marcus.

With apologies to Rod Serling, consider, if you will, Rob and Rhonda, two ordinary Hoosiers doing what they customarily do each weekday in the Economic Zone.

Rhonda leaves the house to be at the job site by 7am, hard hat on, blueprints in hand. Rob takes off at 8:10 with the kids for elementary school and then to the public library where he will drive the bookmobile and serve as its librarian until mid-afternoon.

Rhonda is proud of the building her crew is constructing to green standards with the latest technology. Rob delights in bringing reading opportunities to people who find it difficult to reach a library branch. Both are warm-hearted do-gooders. Neither is prepared for the crushing truth about to fall on them.

This video summarizes what our network achieved in its first 82 days. Below the video is a full report. See also accounts of our first and second months.

Best part: "All together, in the middle of a global pandemic and economic recession, we've helped 33 households and businesses to pay for a cost they used to externalize."

Carbon Neutral Indiana was born on April 7, 2020. This is an account of our second month. Our account of the first month is here.

Nearly 3,000 students signed petitions calling Indiana University and Purdue University to become carbon neutral.

We selected only twelve.

So what can twelve passionate, creative, brilliant, and kind young people do in just one summer?

We're about to find out.

Learn more about these individuals below.

Carbon Neutral Indiana is now one month old. We want to learn in public, sharing the journey as we go.

So what's gone well? What's been challenging? What have we learned?

Here we go!