groSolar

Sorry for the extended absence. The solar industry is growing rapidly, as is groSolar. We are currently undertaking an additional capital raise to further accelerate our growth, and that is consuming what extra bandwidth I had for writing. If it’s any consolation, I think about writing here often, and sincerely appreciate those who have sent me kind notes of encouragement. I will try to write more often Mom…

The following is a letter I’ve just sent to our local paper, the Valley News. While it’s specific to that paper, it also highlights a continuing and growing problem in our press today. That is the reporting of “balance” rather than “truth and opinion”. Too often today we see opinion framed in the same manner as fact. Using quotes from non-peer reviewed magazines, misstatements about what scientists are saying, and purposely misusing terms to further confuse the subject has become standard fare in the media today. Unfortunately, the problem goes well beyond global warming, and has infected all discourse today. (And yes, I’m going to blame the neo-conservatives more than the “liberals”. One fault, if you will, of liberals is that we tend to listen to other views. Even when we may have our mind made up, we allow others to hold their opinions. Frankly, I do not see that in the neo-conservative side of the media.) The motivation to write this letter came from an editorial cartoon which sows confusion over the difference between climate change and current local weather.

But global warming is the central issue here. While our government may go down in flames if we cannot arrest the decay and subversion currently underway, it is our world that will go down in flames if we cannot arrest global warming. While I desire neither, while I work to avoid both, clearly global warming represents a larger problem, and not one that can be “fixed later”.

Here is the text of my letter, which hopefully will be published this week. I’ve added in a web link to the offending editorial cartoon.

“It concerns and confuses me that the Valley News is still running editorial cartoons that lampoon the concept of global warming. It concerns me because global warming is real, and we have a very limited amount of time to start acting very seriously to limit the effects. Cartoons like the one in Friday’s paper (by Glenn McCoy, http://www.gocomics.com/glennmccoy/2007/07/10/, added reference for Blog) encourage people to not take global warming seriously, and to doubt the conclusions of one of the largest scientific research efforts ever undertaken.

I am confused because I do not know why the Valley News published the cartoon. Was it out of some warped sense of “fair and balanced” or because the editorial staff actually has doubts, or because they found it humorous and think that everyone understands the reality of global warming. (I wish that was true.) “Fair and balanced” does not mean that opinion can be set against fact. While we still have much to learn about climate dynamics and the speed and severity of climate change, there is NO doubt in the broad scientific community that global warming is real, and is largely caused by the actions of people. Yes, there are individual scientists who do not believe that global warming is real. There are also individual scientists who believe the earth is flat, and that aliens inhabit among us. But peer-reviewed science, the kind that gets published in the name-brand science journals (“Science”, “Nature”, etc.) has 100% agreement that global warming is real and that we are causing it. When you trace back the funding for the skeptics, an amazing number turn out to be funded by the oil companies.”

So I hope that the Valley News can present factual news on global warming. It is the most pressing issue of our time, and needs constructive action taken, not misinformation given.”

Well, guess who got a surprise when we searched in Google.

No, “Al Gore training blog” is not the “most searched after phrase”, but hey, we’re still number two and three on the list, right behind the man himself.

Ok, I’m done with the self-congratulations. Now back to work, another late night working to get enough solar out there to make a difference on this planet. Good thing this is my hobby as well as my job!

So much news. First, StepItUp was a tremendous success, locally and nationally. In Strafford, Dori (my wife, and partner in our business), organized a tree planting. In the drizzle and left over snow, over 30 people showed up. No frost (I mean zero) in the ground under the snow (boy is that an indication) and we had the tree planted in 30 minutes. Great fellowship and energy.

Then Dori and I traveled to the Vermont Democratic Party David Curtis Dinner. It was themed on global warming this year, and we had 6 others from groSolar attend with us. That made a pretty good splash in the hall and at a table. Keynote speech by Roger Ballantine was on target regarding the problem and what needs to be done to solve it. Political will to make changes is what it takes. Vermont is a great place to start. Here’s hoping that the leadership in the Vermont legislature was listening. I think they were, and I think we’ll have some great legislation passed before they wrap up this year.

I had my first Climate Presenter presentation tonight. There was a “home field” audience at the Strafford Lions Club of about 30 people. They are used to a 20 minute presentation after dinner and a quick exit. They stayed pretty well glued to their chairs for over an hour. It was obvious from the looks on their faces and a few comments that they had not seen the movie, or seen the evidence, before tonight. We changed at least a few, if not many, minds. And I managed to get through the presentation (dramatically slashed in time and content) with only modest technical glitches.

Giving the presentation is an exhausting and exhilarating task. Exhausting as it is an act, a choreographed performance. While I am mindful of the audience moving in understanding, fear, and desire for action, I am also feeling those emotions with them. Exhilarating because it is educating, moving people toward action that I passionately believe is necessary for our survival, and I felt a “thank-you” from the audience when I was done. Albeit a nervous and uncertain thank you, but a thanks nonetheless for telling them, for being willing to share this message, this Inconvenient Truth.

So I’ve passed the first hurdle, I’m on the loose, ready to present to any willing audience. (And even unwilling audiences if they can be held in place somehow!) Let me know if you want a presentation in your area.

Inspiring. Motivating. Humbling. Moving. Informing.

Those are a few of the words that come to my mind as I reflect back on my training this week to be a Climate Presenter as part of Al Gore’s Climate Project. I met inventors, investors, educators, scientists, a beauty pageant queen, a rocket scientist, an artist who in an earlier career was a coordinator for the Greenland Ice Sheet project and more. And of course I met a former VP of the USA.

The experience was also overwhelming. I already knew much of the material presented, although not in the depth its now been shown to me. I have tried to imagine how those with less of a background are coping with the information load. But TCP (The Climate Project) has set up a good support and information system for us. We also have the network of other presenters, over 1000 of us in the US alone. More in the UK and Australia.

I have the slideshow on my computer now, many hundreds of Mmegabytes, and many hundreds of slides. Now I’m modifying it in small ways so that I can present it, so that my voice can carry the message, so that people I present to will see themselves in the solution. And so that it does not necessarily take two hours to present!

Some of us wondered at the selection criteria for those who were chosen to be trained, out of the many thousands who applied. There seemed nothing in common. But perhaps the one commonality was that we all believe, fervently, that we must stop climate change, and that we can. As Al Gore said, “Once you know the truth about climate change, it is a moral imperative to stop it.” We are all now better prepared to further that work. We are all now emboldened to stand and deliver the message of hope, and of action, that the slideshow presents, and that the struggle against global warming requires.

Global warming does not need to be a catastrophe. It will be if we do not change course. But if we do change course (and we must), we can turn it into the biggest economic engine this planet has seen yet. The investment, new technology, and social progress will be on a scale never before matched in history. This can be, and will be, our “finest hour”. And to be part of the group of 1000 who are in the forefront of bringing this message to the public is humbling.

The science is in, the scientists have done their job. the scientific community is in broad consensus. There is refinement to be done, there are more causations and effects to be determined and understood. But now it’s our turn, to take the science and make it known. I’m preparing for my first presentation next Wednesday, and many presentations beyond. There’s a national listing of all presentation time’s and places on the Climate Project home page, as well as a way to request a presentation. Check there for a presentation near you! And let me know directly if you want a presentation by me. I’m going to be doing my best to fill these shoes.

April 10, 2007, evening 

We had our first full day of training today. We went through the show, pretty much slide by slide, with Al Gore giving color commentary, background, genesis, and presentation style for each. Let me tell you, that’s a lot of information. The slide show that Mr. Gore carries around is about 500 slides long, with about 350 active slides. It takes 1.5 to 2 hours to present straight through. Understanding the architecture of the show, how it’s built in terms of progression of the topic is interesting. This is not a bunch of slides thrown together randomly!

We learned about budgeting today, time, complexity, and hope budgets. Time is obvious; people will only give you so much time, although good photos and humor will buy you more. Complexity is, well, more complex. You can only push so much info out in a PowerPoint presentation. And since we’re usually presenting to people with much less understanding than we, as presenter have, we need to respect that this is complex stuff, and not confuse and lose people. I’ve never worked with a presentation that has a ‘hope’ budget before. But that is a large piece of what we’re dealing with here. Most simply put, we need to first convince people that there is a really serious, civilization threatening problem (yup), and as we do this we need to keep giving them hope for a solution. Otherwise, as Al Gore says, we’ll simply move from denial to despair. Is the hope real? Yup. Again as Al Gore says, “We can solve this problem, of course we can! We have no choice!” And it’s true. We can solve this problem, and we have no choice.

Gore is a very good presenter, at least on this topic. But he knows it as well as any presenter can know their subject. I spoke to him briefly today. I asked him how he personally deals with the potential despair of the situation every day. (I’ve had my share of continuously pushing a rock up hill in the solar business, and know how tiring it can be.) Our conversation concluded with him agreeing that a combination of humor and fun in the presentation helps to manage it. He says that part of the reason he continually changes the slideshow is to keep it interesting and engaging for himself.

For fun, we went to BB Kings tonight for dinner and more. We had some good live music with songwriters, and then later into a blues band. And what better than the blues to take my mind off the day. “>So tomorrow we learn presentation skills. Gore says that if he’d learned these skills from Andy Goodman before the 2000 election, he’d be well into his second term as President now. Really.

Among the trainees today, I met a sustainable building consultant, a cattle rancher / home developer, an advertising executive trying to figure out how to do “sustainable advertising” whatever that is, a radical PR blogger who’s blogging about the climate change skeptics and taking them on well, a person who was working for “Efficiency New Brunswick” (like Efficiency Vermont, but in NB Canada) but who is taking a year off to do nothing but present the slideshow. (He’s got a 6 year old child you see, and frankly he does not see anything more important in the world right now than raising consciousness of the problem so we can solve it, for his child.) Met a Cornell student (yea Cornell), and folks from several non-profits as well. An interesting and diverse group, will I’m sure give the presentation in many different ways.

Hopefully I’ll get another post in tomorrow night.

I’m at The Climate Project training session to become a Climate Presenter, enabled and equipped to present the (continuously updated) slide show seen in the Inconvenient Truth. So far, I’ve met some of my 175 compatriots in this last of the planned training sessions. These include architects, event promoters, political aides, a linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles, Paul Tsongas’ daughter Molly (now involved in renewable power promotion), and a self-described housewife.

Our introduction was Al Gore presenting the show. He’s good. He’s sincere. He knows his stuff and has more anecdotes than I’ll ever have. Many new slides that were not in the movies. We have access to all of the approximately 1000 slides that have been created, although they recommend that we use a fairly small subset. As with the movie, the slideshow in person was stirring, distressing, unnerving, and inspiring. Comparing the threat now facing the world due to climate change to the threat the world faced from World War II, Mr. Gore said something to the effect of ‘This is the first issue to affect the entire world and have the possibility of making the Earth lose its ability to support civilization.’

But then he spoke of our historic ability to do what conventional wisdom said could not be done, to rise to challenges. To not only defeat the Axis in WWII, but to then put in place the Marshall Plan that turned Europe from warring nations into peaceful strong economies. To put a man on the moon, with funding from both parties over a period spanning a decade, while we were at war in Vietnam.

At dinner, Mr. Gore introduced Rev. Jim Ball, Executive Director of the Evangelical Environmental Network, and a leading conservative Christian who is steering fundamentalists toward “creation care”. Mr. Ball is not taking the training, but he’s clearly bought into the theories presented (of course with some modification to some of the older dates!) I had an opportunity to shake hands after dinner, and discuss the StepItUp campaign happening this weekend. Mr. Gore said he’d sent out an email alert to his 500,000 email addresses. Once again, Vermont in the forefront!

One of the hot topics in our “free time” is to ask where people will be presenting. Great question. So far, I’m scheduled for the Strafford Lions Club Wednesday April 18 at 6:30 (dinner, talk later), and tentatively for SolarFest July 14 & 15 (time and day still under discussion). I’ll be looking for more venues. I’m going to try to spend less time talking to those who agree with me, and more to those who may not. So anyone with a connection into a group, let me know. Ideally I’d like groups of 35 or more, and at least 30 minutes. Tough to do much justice to the material in less than 45 minutes to an hour though. One of the beauties of the slideshow is how it builds the case, slide by slide.

Until tomorrow.

Jeff

Welcome to the blog. One of those things I’ve been “meaning to do”. Now getting done. The direct inspiration for starting now is my preparation for my vacation this week, a vacation to Nashville, Tennessee. I will not be visiting the Grand Ole Opry or the Charlie Daniels Museum. I’ll be holed up in the Hilton with 175 other folks, learning to be a “Climate Presenter”.

Back in August, I volunteered to be trained by Al Gore and his group The Climate Project, in the science of climate change and how to present his slideshow. My commitment was to go to the training and present the show at least 10 times. I was asked in mid-December to attend training in January, but had already made other unchangeable plans (visiting daughter Jessica in the Republic of Georgia). I was pleasantly surprised to get another chance now. I know several people who have gone before me, including a former employee, Meg Gluckman. They all speak ecstatically about it, and they are all active giving the slideshow.

By the end of this training, The Climate Project will have trained about 1000 people. Already, the trainees from earlier groups have given the slideshow to more people than Al Gore had in all his years, so the project is working, it is dispersing the information.

I’m looking forward to the training. But more, I am looking forward to have another reason, motive, and purpose for speaking to people about the greatest issue of our time. And hopefully to continue to make the difference that must be made.

I’ll hopefully be blogging from Nashville during the training, although the days and nights are packed.

So that’s my vacation. Wish you were all going too!