Impossible No More: Worldchanging Quizzes Festival Goers on Our Changing Reality
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 04.18.08
With sustainability planting itself well-and-truly in the mainstream, many of us folks who’ve been plugging away at environmental issues for years are finding doors and ears opening where there used to be brick walls. From zero-carbon schools to 500MW solar power plants, many recent headlines read like environmentalists’ fantasies of yester-year. (Of course, many other ice-cap related headlines read like our worst nightmares, but let’s leave that thought aside for now.) In the interests of taking stock of the new reality we find ourselves in, the ever forward-looking folks at Worldchanging asked a broad group of good-for-the-world people at the Seattle Green Festival to share their thoughts on what is now possible that they used to believe was not. From Story of Stuff creator Annie Leonard musing on the seemingly bipartisan readiness to engage in conversation about change, to social worker Joel Mog’s realization that people really can stop driving and find alternatives, it’s pretty inspiring stuff. But our favourite comes from Peter Greenberg, president of EnergyWise Lighting:
“PG: I don’t think I ever thought anything was impossible.
SK: Where has that philosophy gotten you?
PG: We’ll probably do $5 million this year in energy efficient lighting, saving people $2 or $3 million (on their energy bills).”
Nice one Worldchanging!
::Worldchanging::via site visit::
