“The radicals are the people who are fundamentally altering the composition of the atmosphere.” That’s the voice of Bill McKibben at this year’s annual Power Shift conference in Washington. Power Shift brought ten thousand young leaders to hear about how to transition from the fuel-based energy economy – and the money-driven politics of the special interests and the ideologues – to, in the words of the visionary German renewables pioneer, Hermann Scheer, the technology-based energy economy.
These leaders of today and the future were also in America’s capital city to stand up for action on climate and energy. They are not alone. The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication has identified the fact that 18% of Americans are deeply concerned about climate change and working on solutions. That is a very large “issue public” and its voice, thankfully, is becoming more eloquent, articulate and louder by the day.
McKibben is, like Scheer, a visionary. He is the author of The End of Nature, among many other works, and the driving force behind 350.org, the increasingly puissant activist organization. McKibben gave a terrific speech. It’s worth watching.