Brattleboro event: Lessons from Germany’s Energy Transition

In 2000 Germany set a goal of achieving 20 percent renewable electricity production by 2020. At that time they were at 3 percent. Now, just 12 years later, they are already at 25 percent.

How is Germany transitioning to a renewable energy economy so quickly? Long-time renewable energy advocate Bob Walker and Vermont State Representative Margaret Cheney will report on what they learned from their recent renewable energy tour of Germany as guests of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

The trip was designed for American policymakers and advocates who are advancing renewable energy across the U.S. They traveled around Germany meeting with members of Parliament, government officials, cooperative organizers, technical consultants, and farmers, all of whom are helping to rapidly make Germany the world’s leader in renewable energy development.

Bob and Margaret will share photos, stories, and lessons from their trip and discuss how government policies, financing mechanisms, and local involvement can stimulate the growth of renewable energy, create business opportunities, and strengthen the regional economy.

This forum is free and open to the public, and will take place: Monday, February 11th, 2013, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM Marlboro College Graduate Center 28 Vernon Street (Route 142), downtown Brattleboro.

For more information call Tad Montgomery, (802)251-0502 or Tad@HomeEnergyAdvocates.com. RSVP is requested so we have an estimate of numbers and can plan the space accordingly.

David W. Orr, Ph.D

David W. Orr is Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies & Politics, Emeritus. He also served as “Counselor to the President” of Oberlin College for ten years. He is the author of eight books, including Dangerous Years: Climate Change and the Long Emergency (Yale, 2016) and Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (Oxford, 2009) and co-editor of three others. He has authored over 220 articles, reviews, book chapters, and professional publications. In the past twenty-five years he has served as a board member or adviser to ten foundations and on the Boards of many organizations including the Rocky Mountain Institute, Bioneers, and the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

He is currently a Trustee of the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, Children and Nature Network, and the WorldWatch Institute. He has been awarded nine honorary degrees and a dozen other awards including a Lyndhurst Prize, a National Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation, leadership awards from the U.S. Green Building Council (2014) and from Second Nature (2012), and a lifetime achievement award from Green Energy Ohio and the North American Association for Environmental Education. He has lectured at hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Asia. He headed the effort to design, fund, and build the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, which was named by an AIA panel in 2010 as “the most important green building of the past thirty years,” as “one of thirty milestone buildings of the twentieth century” by the U.S. Department of Energy, and as one of “52 game-changing buildings of the past 170 years” by the editors of Building Design +Construction in January, 2016. He was instrumental in the design and funding of the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center. He is the founder of the Oberlin Project and a founder of the journal Solutions. His current work is on the state of American democracy.