The following interview was originally broadcast on August 20, 2014, when this website was called the ECOreport and all of my long distance interviews were over Skype.
In 1978 Dr Alan Hoffman handed President Jimmy Carter a plan to fast track the adoption of renewable energy.
Only Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 and for the next three decades, Hoffman watched as other nations took over the leadership in developing renewables.
Doug Hamel made his first broadcast almost two months ago. His two-hour-long tribute to Gord Downey was the beginning. Doug had underwent some introductory DJ training at Cortes Radio months before, but found the time commitment intimidating. He works as a building contractor six days a week! Everything changed that first day he spoke into the microphone. That was the birth of Free Range Radio.
Thirty-seven years ago, the United States was poised on the edge of an energy revolution. The interdepartmental plan that Dr. Allan Hoffman presented President Jimmy Carter outlined how the nation could derive 20% of its’ power from renewables (principally wind & solar) by the year 2000. What could have happened, if Carter’s successors had pressed forward, is another of the great “ifs” of history. Hoffman answers another question in his book THE U.S. GOVERNMENT & RENEWABLE ENERGY: how America adopts energy policies.
The United States has known that burning fossil fuels destabilizes our climate for over fifty years, but taken few steps to prevent this. Even now, 18 months after President Obama declared “No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change,” the nation does not appear to be ready to switch away from a fossil fuel based energy system. According to Our Children’s Trust, this is discriminating against the rights of the very generations who will experience the worst effects of Climate change. So 21 Climate Kids are suing America.
