Recently, representatives of the Rocky Mountain Institute spoke at Catawba College’s Center for the Environment. Here is an excerpt about that session from the blog of Wanda Urbanska of Simple Living TV.

By Wanda Urbanska
For the Salisbury Post
The Rocky Mountain Institute’s Stephen Doig and Lena Hansen addressed a capacity crowd of businesspeople, students and community members about “Opportunities for Businesses in the Development of a New Energy Paradigm.”
RMI is a “think and do” tank with a staff of 85 that is at once a nonprofit organization and entrepreneurial business incubator the aim of which is to foster “the efficient and restorative use of resources” to help put government and industry on the path to energy independence through renewable energy.
Doig told us that as a UC Berkeley grad student back in 1984, he and his colleagues had seen “irrefutable evidence that the level of CO2” in the atmosphere had gone up, signalling profound climate change; that information had been accepted among his peers for at least10 years.
“CO2 is like a down comforter we’re putting on around the world and seeing it get warmer,” Doig said.
Climate change is having ó and will continue to have ó profound and little-understood effects on our world. Rising CO2 levels are already rapidly changing the acidifcation of the ocean, he said. Currently, 40 percent of carbon emissions arise from the production of electricity.
Our nation and world face “security threats” from an increasing number of natural disasters ó connected to climate change ó as well as from nefarious acts by humans. The air in the Pacific Northwest, for example, is polluted by coal produced in China, he said.
Doig pointed to the economic advantages of alternatives and with that, introduced his colleague Lena Hansen to discuss solutions.
Lena Hansen ó who grew up in Asheville ó said innovative new technologies are not so much needed as are ways of making existing technologies of wind and solar “cost effective.” Solar, she noted, is experiencing 45 percent growth per year.
Currently, fossil fuels account for 70 percent of energy used in this country. In the future, Hansen said, it can be 5 percent. “The rest of the demand can be met by renewables. Solar has got to be a cornerstone of energy efficiency.”
The Center’s well-versed audience asked lots of good questions, questions about storing solar power, tax credits for upgraded homes, the role of decoupling utilities’ profit performance from their sale of kilowatt hours. Hansen emphasized the importance of collaborating with industry, government and technology providers for a greener future. “No one can do it on their own.”