The SOLAR
2006 Tipping Point
by Phil von Hake
phone: 303-762-8547;
email:
phil@pvhccc.com
We’ve heard the term “tipping point” thrown
around a great deal lately. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a best selling
book with this title, and the term is now as popular as “podcast,” “blog,”
and “truthiness” in our national conversation. The latest research
on climate change, however, shows that we are nearing a more ominous
tipping point of environmental factors that could send us on an
irreversible path of climate degradation.
Right Time to Tip
I suggest we face another tipping point this
July, when the American Solar Energy Society’s (ASES) SOLAR 2006
conference comes to Denver. The theme of this year’s conference is
“Renewable Energy: Key to Climate Recovery,” and will be held at the
Adam’s Mark Hotel on the 16th Street Mall in Downtown
Denver July 7 – 13. The tipping point I refer to is one that could
move people from skepticism to certainty about climate change, and
from hopelessness to action that promotes greater use of renewable
energy.
There is now an overwhelming consensus in the
scientific community that climate change is happening, and
that it is caused primarily by fossil fuel emissions. The new
book and film by former VP Al Gore, “An Inconvenient Truth,” is
already starting to drive this point home to a more diverse
audience. A dizzying array of other climate change campaigns are
also gaining mainstream acceptance.
Along comes SOLAR 2006 at the height of all
this focus on climate change to show how an increased use of
renewable energy can pull us back from the brink of environmental
catastrophe.
·
Internationally recognized leaders in climate change
research like James Hansen of NASA and Warren Washington of NCAR
will present at our conference.
·
Leaders in renewable energy like NREL’s Dan Arvizu and
RMI’s Amory Lovins will also speak.
·
Political leaders like former U.S. Senator Tim Wirth,
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, and several others will speak and
attend.
Add to that an Exhibit Hall that’s moving into
its fifth overflow area, participation by Denver TV meteorologists
Mike Nelson (KMGH - Channel 7) and Dave Aguilera (KCNC - Channel 4),
a staggering number & variety of forums, workshops, technical
sessions, tours, and other events, and we have the potential to
reach an unprecedented audience!
Colorado Pitches In
SOLAR 2006 is the biggest & best opportunity
we’ve had to promote renewable energy in Colorado since the
Amendment 37 campaign. And I believe this is an even bigger
opportunity, since that campaign, while successful, still had to
compete for attention with all the other election campaigns going on
at the same time. With the world’s best and brightest in climate
change and Renewable Energy converging on Denver this summer – and
an event like EcoArts (www.ecoartsonline.org)
driving home the same point from an artistic and cultural
perspective – we have an opportunity to spread our message to a
larger and more diverse audience than ever before.
That’s where you come in.
The SOLAR 2006
Local Organizing Committee has been working tirelessly for months to
make this not only the best, but also the best-attended, ASES
conference ever. Each of you can have an equally significant impact
on this effort. While we continue to preach to the choir of ASES &
CRES members, fellow energy and environmental groups, and so on
about the need to promote and attend this conference, we also have
to reach far beyond the choir in order to achieve this
tipping point of awareness and resolve to action about climate
change.
Spread the word about SOLAR 2006 in places
where you don’t normally talk energy. Download and print out the
SOLAR 2006 flyer for Colorado,
make as many copies of it as you can, and pass them around in your
daily travels. Tell your office colleagues, your workout partners,
your softball or bowling team, your poker-night buddies, your
church, your neighbors, your friends, your enemies(!), and anybody &
everybody else who could be the slightest bit receptive to this
message. Tell them all to bring their kids, too! Like the old
commercial used to say: “You tell two friends, and they’ll tell two
friends … and so on … AND SO ON … [etc.]”
We don’t expect everyone to register for the
full-blown conference, but we are working on generating a massive
turnout for Sunday July 9, when the Exhibit Hall at the Adam’s Mark
is free and open to the public from 10 am – 5 pm. There will be
workshops and open forums running all day, and there will be fun and
educational activities for the kids. There will be plenty of other
SOLAR 2006 and EcoArts related events happening all over the Denver
Metro Area throughout the entire week of the conference.
Solar 2006 Flyer
(PDF)
Be sure to visit
www.solar2006.org for complete information about the conference,
and
www.ecoartsonline.org for more information on the related art &
cultural activities.
Imagine Our Potential
Reach
If every CRES member brought just one other
person “from outside the choir” to this event, imagine how much
further we can spread our message of “Renewable Energy as the Key to
Climate Recovery.” One of those kids who marvel at the spinning
model wind turbines could grow up to be the next top researcher.
That kid’s parents could then sign up for green tags to cover their
home electricity use. That family’s community could commit itself to
compliance with the Kyoto Protocol. And that community’s leaders
could come up with even more innovative ways to make climate
recovery a reality for them and their neighbors.
As you can see, I firmly believe that SOLAR
2006 is both a tipping point and a teaching moment for the future of
Colorado. We get it, leaders like Mayor Hickenlooper, Congressman
Udall, and Senator Salazar get it, and everybody who’s already
signed up for SOLAR 2006 gets it. What will truly make this event a
success, though, is for EVERYONE to finally get it. Spread the word
far and wide about this conference, print, copy, and pass out
flyers, bring yourself and anybody else you can bring to the
Public Day on Sunday July 9, and show the largest percentage of
Coloradoans we’ve ever been able to reach that Renewable Energy is
indeed the key to climate recovery!
Solar 2006 Flyer
(PDF)
If you’ve read this far, then thank you, and
let me know if you’d like a stack of SOLAR 2006 postcards and/or
conference programs to pass around your various circles of family,
friends, and colleagues. I can run them over to anybody in the
Denver Metro Area, or send them A.S.A.P to anybody else. For what
it’s worth, I’ll be spending most of the month of June blanketing
every library, bookstore, coffee house, billboard, or other public
place in the Metro Area that I can think of with this information. I
may even venture out to the “green Wal-Mart” in Aurora to spread the
word there!
Thank you once again for reading all of this,
and thanks even more for spreading the word about SOLAR 2006. Let’s
make this conference the tipping point that it’s shaping up to be! |
