Clean Energy Heroes

WHO ARE THE CLIMATE HEROES?

WHO ARE THE VILLAINS?

HELP US RECORD HISTORY ACCURATELY

This site is designed to celebrate environmental heroes and ensure they have a place in history. Some of us are concerned about the way historical records have a way of evolving, so we want your help to get it right. Please take a few minutes to help us record the achievements and efforts of key people during this historic period, on this web site. The information will later be stored elsewhere and published in other ways.

PARTNERS

GUIDELINES

Let’s focus on heroes, more than villains, but short, accurate records about villains will be posted too, in the villain section. Your heroes can be scientists, environmentalists, engineers, community leaders, industry leaders, activists, architects, legal people, bureaucrats, media people, government leaders etc. You can nominate yourself. The world is complicated, so it’s okay to put a submission about the same person in both categories.

Heroes:

One photo, up to 150 words, links ok

Villains:

No photo, 50 words or less

If you’re busy, one sentence is fine. We would ask that your submissions avoid mixing causes, however valiant. Please talk about environmentalist efforts. Please keep religion out of it. It’s by nature political, but it needn’t be partisan. Keep it civil. It’s a historical record, not a soapbox, and the submitter’s name will not be shown. Please stick to the word count limits. Use a public domain photo, a photo for which you have the rights, or no photo. If your person is already posted here and you think it’s inaccurate or missing something, please, submit a rewrite or correction. If you submit and we don’t post, or don’t post the way you like, re-read these guidelines for clues first, then discuss.

Please type or paste in the words below about a clean energy hero or villain, or send suggestions to bfnagy1@gmail.com or @BFNagy on Twitter. Contributor’s information is required, but will not be published.

DAVID DODGE Environmental journalist and photojournalist has created and hosted more than 350 award-winning videos, radio podcasts and articles on clean energy and environmental topics under the Green Energy Futures brand in cooperation with numerous environmental groups and media partners. David has worked for not-for-profit organizations such as the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and the Pembina Institute. He serves as co-chair of Edmonton’s Energy Transition Advisory Committee in Canada.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., activist, environmental attorney, and author, has spent most of his career suing people who pollute water. He helped found Hudson Riverkeeper, and after they won some cases they bought river patrol vessels to increase effectiveness. The model is being repeated in organizations worldwide. He is president of the board of Waterkeeper Alliance, and from 1986 until 2017, was as senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). For more than thirty years, he was a professor of Environmental Law at Pace University School of Law (now professor emeritus). Kennedy co-hosts Ring of Fire, a nationally syndicated American radio program, and has written or edited ten books, including two New York Times bestsellers and three children’s books. He’s also an excellent public speaker.

DAVID SUZUKI, academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist is best known as host of the popular and long-running CBC Television science program The Nature of Things, seen in over 40 countries. Suzuki earned a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961, and was a professor in the genetics department at the University of British Columbia from 1963 until his retirement in 2001. Since the mid-1970s, Suzuki has been known for his television and radio series, documentaries and books about nature and the environment. He is also well known for criticizing governments for their lack of action to protect the environment.

Paul Hawken is an American environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, activist and the Co-founder and Executive Director of Project Drawdown, a non-profit that describes how global warming can be reversed. He was the lead author on the book Drawdown as well. Hawken has authored articles, op-eds, and peer-reviewed papers, and has written seven books, including: The Next Economy (Ballantine 1983), Growing a Business (Simon and Schuster 1987), The Ecology of Commerce (HarperCollins 1993), and Blessed Unrest (Viking 2007). The Ecology of Commerce was voted the #1 college text on business and the environment by professors in 67 business schools. The businessman and environmentalist Ray Anderson of Interface, Inc. credited The Ecology of Commerce with his environmental awakening. He described reading it as a “spear in the chest experience,” after which Anderson started crisscrossing the country with a near-evangelical fervor, telling fellow executives about the need to reduce waste and carbon emissions.

NAOMI KLEIN, Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization and of capitalism. On a three-year appointment from September 2018, she is the Gloria Steinem Chair in Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University. Klein first became known internationally for her book No Logo (1999); The Take (2004), a documentary film about Argentina’s occupied factories, written by her, and directed by her husband Avi Lewis; and significantly for The Shock Doctrine (2007), a critical analysis of the history of neoliberal economics that was adapted into a six-minute companion film by Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón, as well as a feature-length documentary by Michael Winterbottom. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (2014) was a New York Times Bestseller List non-fiction bestseller and the winner of the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction in its year. In 2016 Klein was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for her activism on climate justice.

BILL McKIBBEN, environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and leader of the anti-carbon campaign group 350.org. He has authored a dozen books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature (1989), about climate change.

President Barack Obama is photographed during a presidential portrait sitting for an official photo in the Oval Office, Dec. 6, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

BARACK OBAMA, President of the USA. Obama raised fuel-efficiency standards, introduced the Clean Power Plan and the Public Land Management Act of 2009, started a plan to save bees and pollinators, established the National Ocean Policy, creted the largest ocean sanctuary on the planet, and much more.

ELIZABETH MAY, Leader of the Green Party in Canada, and for years the only Green in Parliament, May is among the hardest working environmentalists in the world. She fought successfully against aerial insecticide spraying on forests on Cape Breton Island and also against nuclear power. She became Senior Policy Advisor to a federal Environment Minister, creating national parks and negotiating the Montreal Protocol, which has since helped heal our ozone hole problem. She served as Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada from 1989-2006 and also on the International Institute for Sustainable Development, as Vice-Chair of the National Round Table on Environment and Economy, on the Earth Charter Commission co-chaired by Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev, and was a Commissioner of the Earth Charter International Council.

PRINCE CHARLES, The Prince of Wales has launched many different sustainability initiatives aimed at delivering practical outcomes. They range from The Prince’s Rainforest Project, Accounting for Sustainability and the International Sustainability Unit, to more grassroots initiatives run by Business in the Community such as Project Start and the Mayday Network of UK businesses. As well as addressing environmental challenges, The Prince promotes a more sustainable approach to planning and designing homes and communities in ways that enhance and add to the social, natural and built environment. He also co-authored the book, Climate Change with environmentalist Tony Juniper and climate scientist Emily Shuckburg, and has been the recipient of several prestigious awards for environmentalism.

WALLACE SMITH BROECKER, Columbia University professor and researcher, was known in science circles as brilliant and the “Grandfather of Climate Science,” because he brought “global warming” into common use with a 1975 article that correctly predicted rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would lead to pronounced temperature rises. Said Princeton University professor Michael Oppenheimer. “He wasn’t fooled by the cooling of the 1970s. He saw clearly the unprecedented warming now playing out and made his views clear, even when few were willing to listen.” Broecker said “In the Ocean Conveyor Belt, cold, salty water in the North Atlantic sinks, working like a plunger to drive an ocean current from near North America to Europe. Warm surface waters borne by this current help keep Europe’s climate mild.” Otherwise Europe would be in deep freeze, with average winter temperatures dropping by 11C (20F) and London feeling more like Spitsbergen, Norway (600 miles north of the Arctic Circle).

AMORY LOVINS is an American writer, physicist, and Chairman/Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has written on energy policy and related areas for four decades. He was named by Time magazine one of the World’s 100 most influential people in 2009.

JOHN BENNETT was for years the Executive Director for Sierra Club in Canada, but has also played key roles at GreenPeace and Friends of the Earth. An articulate advocate and stunt visualizer, he and a journalist famously landed a boat by the nuclear plant near Toronto, tried the back door, which opened, and wandered around for 20 minutes inside before security caught up with them. This was only one PR event he planned in long career as a dedicated environmentalist.

CELEBRITIES – There are so many! These are a few. We will keep adding.

ED NORTON, Movie actor, supports numerous green organizations including Global Green, Greenpeace, Focus the Nation, Earth Day Network, WildAid, Maasi Wilderness Conservation and Avoided Deforestation Partners.

Leonardo DiCaprio The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation has donated tens of millions of dollars for environment protection. to more than 100 organisations committed to protecting biodiversity, safeguarding indigenous people and combatting climate change.

MATT DAMON is an avid promoter of environmental issues; he is the co-founder of water.org, a nonprofit involved with fresh water in the developing world, and the host of Journey to Planet Earth. The PBS series of documentaries, produced by Marilyn and Hal Weiner, explores the current and projected state of the planet.

ONE DIRECTION, pop band, joined forces with Paul McCartney, Penelope Cruz, and Robert Redford at the Rio Earth Summit to promote saving the Arctic from oil drilling and other environmental threats.

KATY PERRY, singer, is a huge supporter of clean water causes and also part of Brad Pitt’s Make it Right Foundation.

ADRIAN GRENIER, actor was the host of Alter Eco, a show about green solutions, and also supports Global Green and Oceana.

CATE BLANCHETT, actor supports Solar Aid, providing solar light in Africa,

& the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Robert Redford, a deeply committed and great environmental champion had the Southern California green office building office of the Natural Resources Defense Council named after him, because of his commitment. He has been on the board of USGBC since 1975.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall lived in a home near Santa Barbara that was a showcase of green design and state-of-the-art energy efficiency mechanisms.

BRAD PITT, actor, led the design and rebuild of an award-winning green, storm-resistant and affordable subdivision in New Orleans after Katrina.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., lawyer, helped found and supports Riverkeeper, which patrols rivers all over the world and sues companies that pollute them.

JAKE GYLLENHAAL, actor, supports The CarbonNeutral Company, Global Green, & the Mississippi Animal Rescue League.

JACK JOHNSON, Singer, sometimes donates 100% of his profits from tours to environmental charities. He used the profits from his 2008 tour to start the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation, which works to promote positive and lasting change in the environment, arts, and music education.

JUDE LAW, actor, teamed up with Radiohead and Greenpeace on a video promoting protection for the Arctic.

ED BEGLEY JR., actor and long time Hollywood environmentalist famously cycled to the Academy Awards.

DAVID SUZUKI, scientist and actor has won numerous awards for his environmental television and film achievements, including his show, The Nature of Things.

NEILYOUNG, singer and songwriter, famously got in the face of oil companies, and invited environmentalists to speak at sold out music concerts.

SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY, singer and songwriter supports numerous animal protection organizations plus Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

JEFF BRIDGESLiving the future’s past https://www.livinginthefuturespastfilm.com/

SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY, singer and songwriter supports numerous animal protection organizations plus Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Former California Governor introduced many green initiatives including a plan to encourage the installment of solar panels in one million homes.

HAROLD ORR a Passive House pioneer is generally acknowledged as the leader of a group that built the first structure according to a model that would eventually be refined, mostly in Germany, into the passive house standard. This standard is likely one of the key solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions created by buildings. Passive houses are so well insulated that they can be heated or cooled with electric appliances that are at least 80% smaller than conventional HVAC technology. Orr’s innovations include new insulation techniques and materials, air sealing and efficient ventilation, blower-door testing and heat recycling. A housing engineer with the National Research Council, he led development of new national energy conservation protocols along with Dave Eyre, Dave Jennings, Deryl Thomson, Harry Filson, Hendrik Grolle, Bill Gibbons, Rob Dumont, George Green, Robert Besant, Garry Marvin, Fred Heal and others.

Larsh Johnson2

LARSH JOHNSON, a smart grid trailblazer is Chief Technology Officer for Stem Energy in San Francisco. He worked previously at Siemens Digital Grid, where he led technology development teams on consumer metering, demand response, analytics, control center software and grid automation. He co-founded eMeter, a Bay Area software company developing meter data management, analytics and advanced smart grid applications. Prior to eMeter, he co-founded CellNet Data Systems, a pioneer in wireless networks for smart metering and distribution automation and now a unit of Landis+Gyr, a Toshiba company. Larsh was a founding member of the Department of Energy’s Gridwise Architecture Council (GWAC) and remains a member emeritus. He earned his B.S. and an M.S. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.

KATHERINE PERETICK, a top electricity storage expert works with one of Canada’s most progressive energy companies, NRStor. She holds a Masters in mechanical engineering, and has worked at Nasa in California, Vestas in Denmark, GM and General Compression in Detroit. She is developing one of the most exciting compressed air energy storage projects (CAES) projects in the world, in Goderich, Ontario. Most people think of batteries when they think of storing solar power for use after sunset or wind power generated at night for peak daytime periods; but compressed air is a much less expensive and promising alternative at the moment. Most compressed air facilities around the world use some fossil fuel, but this new project and future ones for this company are fossil fuel free.

AOC or ALEXADRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ is a refreshing young politician who has enjoyed great success in becoming a member of the US House of Representatives (Bronx, Queens, New York). Intelligence, quick-wit, good preparation and social media dexterity have supported her increasing renown. She is a key architect behind the Green New Deal, a set of proposed economic stimulus programs that aim to address climate change and economic inequality. It has become a proposed House resolution. Dozens of House Members have said they support it. There is more climate denial and lobbying against environmental protections in the United State than there is anywhere else on earth. Therefore, not surprisingly, the fate of the Green New Deal is not known. Plenty of feigned criticism.

GRETA THUNBERG a 16 year old climate activist from Stockholm, Sweden goes on strike from school each Friday to demonstrate in front of the Parliament buildings. She has inspired school students all over the world to undertake similar protests. In 2018 she was invited to the UN climate conference in Katowice, Poland, where she famously stated, “Our world leaders are acting like children…I’m not here to beg our leaders to change. I’m here to inform you that the world is changing whether you like it or not.” She recently tweeted a picture of herself and a protest event with this statement: “We’ve had thirty years of pep-talking and selling positive ideas. And I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work. Because if it would have, emissions would have gone down by now — they haven’t.”

HANS LAK, NETHERLANDS, Master Networking Professional. Catalyst for Permanent Future Lab, Ambassador for TBLI Group, Founder of One Person Can Make A Difference, VP Strategic Partnerships for The environmental community, owner of Outdoor.info Network. Hans is a builder of organizations and groups who believe in a better, modernized, caring and sharing future. A social media specialist, he has more than 25,000 Twitter followers, thousands more connections on other social media, and is considered one of the top 10 influencers on the planet. He helps create spaces where different kinds of people and organisations can find tech innovation such as wearable devices, robots, drones & 3D printing, eg #PFLab where tomorrow is today. He supports world leaders in sustainability teaching them to network, connect, collaborate, and exchange information on the latest developments in screening, auditing, reporting, SRI analysis, corporate citizenship, indexes, research, impact investments and green products.

PROFESSOR MARK JACOBSON, Stanford climate scientist. Mark Z. Jacobson is a leading, well-respected, widely published, David Letterman & Ted-X famous scientist, studying models related to wind power, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric power, wave power, black carbon, cloud and aerosol coagulation, breakup, condensation/evaporation, freezing, dissolution, chemical equilibrium, and lightning; air-sea exchange; ocean chemistry; greenhouse gas absorption; and surface processes. He has developed and applied three-dimensional atmosphere-biosphere-ocean computer models and solvers to simulate air pollution, weather, climate, and renewable energy. He has also developed roadmaps to transition countries, states, cities, and towns to 100% clean energy. He co-founded The Solutions Project, a non-profit that combines science, business, and culture to educate the public about science based 100% clean-energy. The group developed individual energy plans for each of the 50 United States, and by 2017, for 139 countries of the world. The individual state roadmaps were the primary scientific justifications for California and Hawaii laws to transition to 100% clean, renewable electricity by 2045, Vermont to transition to 75% by 2032, and New York to transition to 50% by 2030. The world and state roadmaps further served as the motivation for more than 85 cities and 150 international companies to commit to 100% clean, renewable energy.

PROFESSOR PETER STRACHAN, SCOTLAND, expert on Energy Policy, Energy Transitions.As part of the State Visit of the President of Mexico to the United Kingdom for example, Professor Strachan was invited as an expert contributor to the Carbon Trust’s special session on the opportunities of Building a Sustainable Energy Economy in the UK and in Mexico, held in conjunction with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This led to the signing of a high-level collaboration agreement.

Within Scotland Professor Strachan has provided energy policy support to the Scottish Government since 2013, with this culminating in a presentation to the First Minister of Scotland. He continues to support the Scottish Government when required and was for example invited to give oral evidence at a private session of the “The Devolution (Further Powers) Scottish Parliament Committee”. More recently he has given a keynote talk on the “Future of Energy” to the Energy Institute and Strathclyde Business School Centre for Energy Policy and was further a member of a closing expert panel on the same theme at the University of Aberdeen. Professor Strachan has also presented his work to The All Parliamentary Group on Unconvetional Oil and Gas at the Houses of Parliament, Westminster.

ESTHER AGBARAKWE Minister of the Environment, Nigeria As a child Esther witnessed the destruction of one of the most beautiful natural springs in Cross River, which inspired her environmental activism and endless blogging beginning at age 9 and leading to the nickname ClimateEsther. She has been involved in projects that include high level targeted advocacy in climate change, biodiversity, sexual and reproductive health/Family planning locally and internationally. She founded the Youth Climate Movement though The Nigerian Youth Climate Change Coalition, and worked as an international advocacy fellow (population, health, environment and climate change) at Population Action International, Washington DC, USA. She has led several youth representations to major climate change and development conferences including Rio+20, Durban Conference and COP17. Esther has also worked on other projects with UN Commission on Sustainable Development, UNICEF and the Society for Family Health. She has been recognized with a Dekeyser and Friends Foundation Leadership Award in 2009 in Germany, the Ford Foundation/LEAP Africa Nigerian Youth Leadership Award in 2010, Commonwealth Youth Climate Fellowship in London 2010, and Atlas Corps Fellowship Award, USA 2012 and nominated in 2011 and 2012 for Best Use of Advocacy category of the Future Awards in Nigeria. She has worked with The Elders; Gro Harlem Brundtland, Mary Robinson, Desmond Tutu and Fernando Cardozo on UN Rio+20 as one of the famous four “Youngers” demonstrating true intergenerational dialogue on sustainability. She has twice chaired Actionaid Nigeria General Assembly. In 2015 she became Minister of the Environment in Nigeria and in 2017 was awarded the Crans Montana Forum of New Leaders of Tomorrow Award in Barcelona.

JERRY BROWN California Governor Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. is an American politician who served as Governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and again from 2011 to 2019, and also as California Attorney General from 2007 to 2011. He has been the subject of controversy, but has done much for the environment and later, for fiscal health in California. Early on he fought for Redwood trees: “What I see here is that the notion of the sanctity of property has obscured the fact that no person created the wildlife or the redwood trees. They were around before America ever became America…Does Pacific Lumber have a right to maximum profit, despite the irreparable ecological toll? After all, private property is relatively recent in terms of redwood history.” In Oct 2011 he signed legislation to protect the oceans and environment, and supported banning the possession and sale of shark fins in California. In 2013 he supported legislation to allocate $8M to clean running government fleet vehicles and buses and $30M for the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project and the Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project. In 2014 he approved a $25B development to improve the ecology of the San Joaquin Delta including about 100 square miles of habitat restoration, relief for agricultural water shortages. He also established a regional groundwater sustainability agency to educate, support and police sustainable groundwater practices. In 2015 California passed SB-350, so that renewable power would increase incrementally, reaching 50% by 2030. In 2017 he supported and extended the Cap and Trade program and in 2018 he signed a bill to make California 100% clean electricity, and zero net emissions across the state economy, including transport and agriculture and requirements for net-zero buildings.

MINDY LUBBER Investment leadership Mindy is the CEO and President of Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit organization which has organized more than 3500 investors, companies, mayors, governors, college presidents and other leaders to voice their commitment and to act on climate change. working with the most influential investors and companies to build leadership and drive solutions throughout the economy. Under her leadership, Ceres has launched visionary and practical guides, including The Ceres Blueprint for Sustainable Investing and The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability, for investors and companies to succeed in the 21st century global economy. She has received numerous awards including the Climate Visionary Award from the Earth Day Network, and the William K. Reilly Award for Environmental Leadership from American University’s Center for Environmental Policy. She was honored by the United Nations and the Foundation for Social Change as one of the World’s Top Leaders of Change, and is a recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Change. Vogue Magazine recently named her a Climate Warrior for her contributions in mobilizing business support for the historic Paris Climate Agreement, and Directorship Magazine named her one of The 100 Most Influential People in Corporate Governance.

AL GORE JR. Environmentalist, author and Vice-president of the USA from 1993 to 2001.

His work as an author and environmental activist earned him (jointly with the IPCC) the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He discussed global warming in the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth and in its companion book. The film won an Academy Award for best documentary. In 2009 he won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for his book An Inconvenient Truth. In 2011 he merged two of his environmental groups and established the Climate Reality Project, one of the world’s most progressive environmental organizations. It has grown into a corps of more than 10,000 Climate Leaders in 135 countries who deliver presentations on climate change and advocate for government support for the planet. In 2013 Gore published The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change, which analyzed the impact of various sociopolitical, technological, and environmental forces on humanity’s prospects. An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, the sequel to his 2006 documentary, was released in 2017.

JACINDA ARDERN New Zealand Prime Minister has committed the country to 100% renewables, banned offshore oil drilling, and pledged $300 million in climate-related assistance for Pacific countries threatened by the effects of climate change. She supports the long held New Zealand policy that disallows nuclear weapons in the country, and nuclear-powered vessels in its ports. It closed it last nuclear power plant in 1981. The PM has been a vocal campaigner for other world leaders to follow New Zealand’s green example. At the United Nations in September of 2018 Ardern called for equality for women, action on climate change and a recommitment to multilateralism, saying : “We must rediscover our shared belief in the value, rather than the harm, of connectedness.” It was seen as a response to the increased isolationism and national self-interest of the US and other countries, and she recieved an ovation from members in attendance.

ALICE KORNGOLD Business leader Korngold founded and leads the Better World Leadership (BWL) initiative. With the support and participation of several multinational corporations and IMPACT2030 as the Strategic Partner, BWL demonstrates the benefits of nonprofit board service to companies, their employees, nonprofits, and the community. BWL also presents webinars and UN events for companies seeking to involve employees on nonprofit boards, advance diversity and support the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Korngold authored A Better World, Inc.: How Companies Profit by Solving Global Problems…Where Governments Cannot (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and Leveraging Good Will: Strengthening Nonprofits by Engaging Businesses (Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint, 2005). She authored the chapter on “Sustainability and Corporate Governance” in The Handbook of Board Governance: A Comprehensive Guide for Public, Private and Not for Profit Board Members (May 31, 2016). She is the co-author of a chapter on “Corporate Volunteerism: Strategic Community Involvement,” in Corporate Philanthropy at the Crossroads (Indiana University Press, 1996).

MICHAEL E MANN Climat-ologist and geophysicist Mann was lead author of a paper produced in 1999 with co-authors Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes, Mann using advanced statistical techniques to find regional variations in a hemispherical climate reconstruction to produce a reconstruction over the past 1,000 years which was dubbed the “hockey stick graph” because of its shape. He was and is, of course, viciously attacked by people who are paid by fossil fuel companies to create doubt about climate change. But Mann has been courageous and unrelenting and he was acknowledged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as one of the key authors, contributing to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which was won jointly by the IPCC and Al Gore.

ELON MUSK Electric transportation, space travel, solar roofs & more.

Elon Musk is a courageous early 21st century clean energy visionary and entrepreneur. No one would challenge the conclusion that he has done more to advance the widespread adoption of electric vehicle transportation than any person in history. His car company is called Tesla, named after famous historical inventor Nikola Tesla. It’s been tough but he has overcome technical, financial and malicious challenges. Elon Musk will be known for introducing clean energy innovations that are significantly disrupting the personal vehicle business, rapid transit and the construction sectors. He is also dramatically advancing space travel.

CARTER SCOTT Builds zero energy & positive energy homes.

Carter Scott designs super insulated net-zero and positive energy detached houses in Massachusetts with Mitsubishi mini-splits, Navien instant water heaters and solar panels. He says solar PV now costs just 80 cents per watt. A few homes came with enough panels to power the house and an electric car for 30,000 miles. He’s working on more than 100 net-zero or better homes that cost just $1.40 per square foot to build. Photo: Transformations Inc.

ROB BLAKENEY Designs & builds passive houses.

Rob Blakeney is a visionary passive house designer and more. He’s advancing the concept of passive house by working with manufacturers on innovations like prefabricated (affordable) passive house panels, an ERV with a heat pump in it, and an earth tube which multiplies heating and cooling options in very cold or very hot climates. It hasn’t been easy. Passive house is a completely different, and now important way to build, and all through history the construction industry has been among the slowest sectors when it comes to change.