Energy and Engagement
The latest (September 2006) issue of Scientific American is devoted to perhaps the most difficult scientific and technical issue that the world has had to face: How to accommodate growing energy demands while cutting the output of carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming. Most of the authors in this special issue are university faculty who are leaders in the scientific, engineering, economic, and policy aspects of energy. But one cannot help but be struck by how important it is that all segments of the population join in this debate. If this isn't an appropriate topic for public engagement, nothing is. Like so much else in modern life, the issues are as much political and behavioral as they are technical.
The Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERT) project discussed in the previous two blogs provides an important model for how to approach these issues. To quote from Monday's blog: " The purpose of CERTs is to engage communities in determining their energy future by giving citizens a voice in energy planning and by matching community stakeholders with the necessary technical resources to identify and carry out the best bet community-scale energy efficiency and renewable energy projects within their region."