I have come across some remarkable people, groups and activities in my research and I'll share a few with you from time to time, along with links to more information about them. For now, here are three:PAUL HAWKEN: I consider Paul one of the great philosopher/macro thinkers of our time. Paul is an environmentalist, entrepreneur (Smith and Hawken), author (including The Next Economy (Ballantine 1983), Growing a Business (Simon and Schuster 1987), The Ecology of Commerce (HarperCollins 1993), Natural Capitalism with Hunter and Amory Lovins (Little Brown and Co., 1999), and his current Blessed Unrest (Viking Press, 2007), lecturer, teacher and idea- incubator extraordinaire. Here are just a few links to more information about his activities:
AMORY LOVINS: Amory is another renaissance man, described as a "consultant experimental physicist" who is also an environmentalist, Chairman and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute , author (Winning the Oil Endgame, Factor Four with Hunter Lovins and Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, and Natural Capitalism with Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawken, consultant and researcher. He has enormous common sense, a folksy and approachable personal style, a seemingly boundless grasp of complex environmental issues, and a clear roadmap out of the energy morass in which we find ourselves. He's not new to the debate, having been preaching (and walking) the low-energy footprint talk for over 20 years at his home and offices in Colorado. And his ideas have garnered the respect and acceptance of many liberal and conservative stakeholders alike. In addition, he's a leading proponent of the "soft energy path", described thusly in Wikipedia: The "soft energy path" assumes that energy is but a means to social ends, and is not an end in itself. Soft energy paths involve efficient use of energy, diversity of energy production methods (matched in scale and quality to end uses), and special reliance on co-generation and "soft technologies" (i.e., alternative technology) such as solar energy, wind energy, biofuels, geothermal energy, etc.
I urge anyone who is remotely interested in energy issues to find out more about Amory. He's truly remarkable.
PAUL FENN and COMMUNITY CHOICE AGGREGATION: I saw Paul recently at an event sponsored by the Mainstreet Moms group in Mill Valley presenting the concept of Community Choice Aggregation, a somewhat complicated sounding but decidedly elegant and empowering way for local communities to control energy costs and hasten the growth of renewable energy industries such as solar and wind at the same time. You will be hearing a lot more about this in the months and years ahead, but you can find out more about it here. I would also encourage you to watch the short film about it called "Going Local: The Movement for Community Choice Energy" available on the MMOB website.
Among other things Paul is Founder & Director of Local Power and Publisher of AMERICAN LOCAL POWER NEWS, based in Oakland, California.
Fenn authored California's 2002 Community Choice law, Assembly Bill 117, allowing municipalities to choose alternative electricity providers for their communities. Sponsored by state Assemblywoman Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), the Community Choice law also removed the state's $300 million/year energy efficiency fund from monopoly utility control and made these funds available to cities to pay for their communities' local energy efficiency programs.
Fenn also wrote San Francisco's 2001 "solar bond" or H Bond authority Proposition H and the 50 MW San Francisco Solar Power Facility proposal for which the revenue bond authority was written. Sponsored by San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano, the project calls for construction of the world's largest urban solar utility on San Francisco rooftops.
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