The World’s Problems Were Acknowledged; A Commitment to Work on Them Formed
"Paying attention is the most important thing we’ve been missing." —Amory B. Lovins
Well, whether you were there or not, RMI25 (the celebration of RMI's 25th birthday) came and went and can be called anything but a failure. The venues were packed, the conversations were poignant, and the audiences were enthused.
In the linked pages you can read about:
If you attended, I don't know what you might have gotten out of it (other than brain overload leading to a fullness headache), but there were several things that made me sit up (which you can read about in the linked pages):
- One was the fact that inventor Dean Kamen has devised "black boxes" that produce clean water and electricity with no infrastructure whatsoever (why are these not being mass produced and used already?).
- Bill Joy's three things that are not ready to deploy, but which are three things we as humans need to stay within the energy footprint we must now live within — and the fact that they're outside the "financing envelope."
- Carpet company Interface's $350 million saved in wasting less in terms of resources.
- Clare Lockhart's description of "how aid gets done."
- And Jim Woolsey's description of the security threat that oil poses.
These conversations are ongoing, and at RMI were trying to address some of the root causes of the problems discussed. So we appreciate your support, and hope you'll think about the choices you make, because as Amory said at the end of the event: "Whenever we chose to use energy in a particular way that shows up as part of as huge aggregate of energy demand, enormous carbon emissions. Well, it only takes a lot of little decisions, smarter decisions, of the same kind, better informed, to turn that right around."
Enjoy!
—Cam Burns, RMI
