The Realist Idealist

As many of you know… and as many of you don’t know… I recently took up work in the clean energy field as the Internet Director/Chief Technology Officer/Strategic Communications guy of the Energy Action Coalition.

James Hansen has testified that Energy Action is one of the only environmentally or energy-focused organizations truly doing what needs to be done (raising awareness and organizing people to put pressure on elected officials) to move clean energy into reality.

Though it’s yet another more personal post, I wanted to share the letter I wrote the central staff (about 10), coalition partners (48) and and field staff (about 80) of Energy Action as I came on board.  It speaks in large measure about where I’m coming from as it relates to creating a clean energy future, and also some of the things that I hope will change as we move forward in this country.  One thing is certain, we MUST do something…

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Dear Teammates,

In 1988 my family and I (as well as all my LEGOs and my 8086 with accompanying text-only Zork game disks ☺) moved to the small town of Columbia, Tennessee from the suburbs of Detroit.   Two years earlier my father had been assigned by General Motors to a “crazy” initiative to build an American car company from the ground up that would do everything differently – from how and what the company built, to how its employees worked (and thought about their work), to how it integrated with the local and global community. The new company’s team was given two billion dollars, three thousand acres of cornfields, a few office trailers, and was met by a town welcome sign that read “population 800.” That was the environment in which this new company, Saturn, was to produce 350,000 cars per year in a facility over one mile long with more than ten thousand eventual employees - all without disturbing the local population, destroying the culture, or ruining the ecosystem.

Crazy enough, the team pulled it off – at least for a while – and right up until the GM-ification of Saturn took place in the late 90’s, I soaked up every bit of that innovative and collaborative culture I could.  Saturn lost its way in the General Motors mêlée of this most recent decade but before that happened, the company made me believe game-changing initiatives of that scale were possible because I watched it actually happen.

In the fall of 1995, just as I was fully becoming like all the rest of the men in my family with car on the brain (read: car and science magazines scattered everywhere across my teenage bedroom), my dad parked the strangest looking non-concept car I’d ever seen in our garage.  Then he connected a bizarre looking plug into the front of the car and into the wall. The car made almost no noise; it looked kind of like a teardrop, and it took off like a bullet when you mashed the accelerator.  This was my introduction to one of the first prototypes of the GM EV1.  I had known about (and been inspired by) electric cars previously because my uncle had helped design and drive the solar powered GM Sunraycer across Australia several years earlier, but the idea that we could own an electric car and plug it into the garage wall-socket got me excited.  At the time, my awareness ha  not been tuned to the environment and the potential benefits a well-developed national infrastructure for electric cars (or advanced energy technology) could bring, but rather my imagination and excitement was ignited by the EV1’s innovation, practicality, and of course as a 15 year old: its cool-factor.

(the GM EV1)

(the GM Sunraycer)

By the time my cousin (yet another GM employee) was on the lot in Mesa, Arizona in 2003 helping to push the last of the EV1s onto the trucks to have them crushed – a scene infamously captured in the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” – my consciousness was very much focused on the environment and solving global challenges.  Having spent a significant amount of the previous two years in the United Arab Emirates working with oil companies, and spending most of my campus life involved in social justice and environmental initiatives, the symbolic nature of the cars’ “death,” and the simultaneous failure of the California Air Resources Board’s Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) mandate were excruciatingly frustrating.
Those pains have been even more poignant as tens of thousands of jobs in the automotive ecosystem have been lost, and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands – including my family’s – have been negatively affected. That said, I’ve always found frustration to be a tremendous catalyst for action.

Largely as a result of such frustrations, I have since worked from the Middle East to DC to Silicon Valley with nonprofits, companies, governmental agencies and media to try to do things differently, create linkages, and find solutions – wherever and however they might come. Through this, I’ve come to believe social entrepreneurial initiatives and innovative grassroots efforts like the Energy Action Coalition – when supported with tools and leadership – are the best vehicles we have to raise awareness and create incentives that render political and corporate (e.g. Big Three auto and Big Six Oil) letdowns irrelevant.  ZEV or Congress’s essentially pointless 35 mpg by 2020 mandate won’t change much, but savvy enterprise, research, conscious policy, and the shifted awareness and action of millions of well-organized people will.  Where the impotent efforts of the past are frustrating, the capacity Energy Action is leveraging for true game-changers is both inspirational and ridiculously exciting.

Though engineering aptitude and technical analysis are not always overtly reflected in my current work, they are fundamental components of who I am, and they are at the heart of my approach to project and event management, strategic road mapping, the development of new initiatives, and even organizational relationships.  The things that are most overt in my work, such as large-scale special projects, the connecting and synthesizing of disparate networks and resources, continuous innovation, and a healthy irreverence for traditional systems, organizational cultures, and perpetuation of the status quo, are also the fundamental aspects of how I see and operate within the world.  I typically sum these traits up by describing them as those of a “pragmatic dreamer” or a Realist-Idealist.  Whatever you call it though, my sense is that this approach will mesh particularly well as the internet director of Energy Action – as well as with the “Great idea!    . . . now make it even bigger and do it faster” ingenuity I believe current and former staff of Energy Action bring to the organization.

Five million green jobs is what the Midwest and so many other regions of our country need to re-invigorate our local and national economy, spur innovation, and ignite the “anything and everything is possible” spirit our nation has lost this decade. Environmental justice calls us to re-think our national infrastructure and organize to prevent any new coal plants from being built – as well as reduce emissions from carbon by at least 80%.  I believe our planet and our livelihoods depend on our action on these fronts.

I know what it’s like to be inspired by green innovation and new potential and it’s time that millions more experience that.  I’ve seen what our nation’s corporations and political leaders can do when they put their will behind it. It’s about time we started using our economic power as young organizers, consumers, and citizens to bring about more of it.  I’ve seen the Rust Belt, and know the morale of those who sit idle there …waiting to be called into service. It’s time we mobilize and turn the Rust Belt green.

…Just as the Energy Action Coalition is doing!