PR for People® Reviews:
BOOKS: By Barbara Lloyd McMichael
How to take part in the energy revolution
Powering Forward – Bill Ritter, Jr.
Fulcrum – 304 pp - $17.95
A decade ago, former vice president Al Gore captured the public’s attention with “An Inconvenient Truth,” a multi-formatted argument about the impact of global climate change. Since then, many of Gore’s predictions about global warming have manifested at an alarming rate, but the change he was urging in human behavior has been slower to come around.
Now another former politician has jumped in with a new book that makes an equally impassioned call for an energy revolution, and provides a pragmatic agenda for getting it done.
The book is “Powering Forward,” and its author, Bill Ritter, Jr., served as governor of Colorado from 2007 to 2011. As governor, one of his top priorities became the development of a new energy economy for his state, with the emphasis on renewable energy. A Democrat, Ritter transcended partisan barriers to change by finding common ground with farmers and ranchers – constituents who lived close to the land and fundamentally understood that harnessing wind and solar energy was a workable concept.
During Ritter’s term in office, Colorado reformed some of its conventional, oil-based energy practices, accelerated energy efficiency initiatives and dramatically expanded the renewable energy standard.
Colorado is not alone. There are many cities and states around the country that, fed up with the lack of a bold renewable energy policy and Congress’ inaction on this crucial issue, have indeed powered forward with their own clean energy agendas.
While praising these local efforts as “dynamic policy laboratories” for demonstrating the efficacy of different energy solutions, Ritter still believes that the federal government needs to take the lead in developing and implementing transformative clean energy systems.
But in the meantime, this thoughtful book suggests compelling opportunities in the fields of energy, communications, finance, diplomacy, and more. This is an all-hands-on-deck proposition, and “Powering Forward” provides lots of entrepreneurial grist.
Barbara McMichael
Barbara Lloyd McMichael is based in the Pacific Northwest and writes about books and culture. She writes a syndicated weekly book review column called “The Bookmonger” that focuses on Northwest books and authors. Her PR for People® Book Review is written exclusively for The Connector.