Communicating The Renewable Energy Revolution

[bananas]

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/27/communicating-renewable-energy-revolution/

Communicating The Renewable Energy Revolution

The editor of a quarterly Buddhist magazine reached out to me a while back to see if I’d be interested in providing an article for an issue focused on renewable energy. Of course, I said yes. The article was published in the most recent print issue of the magazine, and was also published on the magazine’s website with an extra interview section at the end. SQI Quarterly has graciously allowed us to republish the content here on CleanTechnica, so I’m reposting it below. Enjoy!

Originally published on SGI Quarterly.

The clean tech movement is about a shift toward a more peaceful world, a world in which there is more respect for others and in which our ways of living leave a smaller environmental footprint. Clean energy is not just about cleaning our air, preserving our water supplies and helping to protect our climate; it is also about democratizing the energy sector.

When I started blogging about clean tech some four and a half years ago, solar and wind energy were growing fast. That growth has subsequently picked up at an exponential pace. Choosing which 15 or so stories to cover each day on my website has become one of my biggest challenges.

With CleanTechnica.com, Solar Love and the other sites I run, I view “communicating the renewable energy revolution” and further stimulating that revolution through such communication as my prime objectives. There are two things I love about the phrase in quotation marks. First, this is a revolution–there is no doubt about it. Second, communication is a very interesting matter. There are many subtleties to communication that we generally overlook. We often say things, knowing where we are going next with our thoughts (and with our own cultural and knowledge background deeply influencing how we view those thoughts), without realizing that our words may have unforeseen effects or be heard in ways that we do not intend.

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SGIQ: What is your motivation for your blogs?

ZS: I have a degree in sociology and environmental studies. My passion since I was young was helping the world help itself. I moved into city planning for my master’s degree, but am happy that I found my way to this profession. There is a great deal of misinformation put out there about clean energy, and there’s a desperate need for independent voices and analysts to help inform more people of the actual facts. Unfortunately, one of the downsides of democracy is that it allows for manipulation by those with power, money, and more information than others. While the situation here is never going to be perfect, the democratization of publishing–through the Internet and the many publishing platforms that are now available for free (such as Facebook, Google+, WordPress etc.)–is helping.

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[Iterate]

1. Of the motivations Zachary Shahan gives for his support

and writing about renewables, he mentions democratization with some emphasis but peace almost in passing.

I think he has it backwards, or at least sells the idea short. There will be no peace or democracy as fossil fuels get to be more difficult to extract and climate change damage disrupts our expectations. Peace is not an incidental advantage to renewables, renewables are a necessary precursor to peace.