I am so enjoying the Intermountain Sustainability Summit today, hosted at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. It feels electric to me to be with people that are smart and so committed to clean and sustainable energy living.
My part as facilitator is small. Inviting a bit of informal open space in which people can connect by calling their own conversation. And facilitating a bit of a networking conversation yet to come in the day.
However, my delight in participating is large. This morning’s keynote Bob Perkowitz, CEO and Founder of ecoAmerica, was delightful. And informative. And as is often how it is with people from this profession, needing to be skilled and telling both the sobering story and the encouraging story of climate change.
Bob shares, that due to climate change, the pine beetle population is thriving. In Colorado and Wyoming 100,000 trees die per day. Phenomenal, right. How discouraging and alarming. It goes along with a lot of other “bad news” from the science perspective.
Bob also shares an encouragement. 75,000 solar panels are going up per day in the USA. Wonderful, right. Encouraging, and so worth celebrating! Former President Jimmy Carter put them on the White House. Former President Ronald Reagan took them down. Thirty ish years later, 75,000 going up per day and solar farms growing.
There are some environments so populated with good people and in good causes, that I just feel smarter by being in the room. What a treat today that inspires oodles of questions worth engaging together about not only transforming a future, but doing so, in some cases, one little step, 10 solar panels, at a time.