Heroes of the Green Age
The men, women and ideas shaping our low carbon future - and why we cannot afford to let them down
By Michael Stoltze
There are so many people on Earth and we consume so much that we wouldn’t survive if we did not act wisely.
Nature has punished us before with acid rain, dead rivers, and oxygen depletion in the ocean until we began cleaning up pollution and waste. Now, a new threat is knocking on our door: Climate change.
The climate threat is alarming, and the constantly increasing quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere seems almost inexorable. But it can be changed – and without great sacrifice. Environmental problems do not need to be the permanent companions of comfort and prosperity.
A large number of dedicated researchers, inventors, and business people all over the world have taken up the challenge to find solutions to help humankind enter a state of healthy development without destructive climate change. They have seen the possibilities, and they are doing something about it!
De grønne helte (Green Heroes) is about these brave people who possess the ability and the will to develop new technologies and smart solutions. They have lots of optimism and faith in the future. And they do a very good business. No one is making money any more on trendy four-wheel drives. It is so embarrassing to own one of these gas guzzlers that they don’t even work as virility enhancers anymore. Quite the opposite. They are so out!
On the other hand, there is a future for electric cars and cars with better fuel efficiency. Because we want cars! We want the comfort, the speed, and the freedom. We have acquired a taste for cars. This bell cannot be unrung; the development cannot be undone because of a threat to the climate. Things have to move forward. What we need is smart development. Green development.
We all need heroes. Green Heroes presents 20 of them:
There are, for example, Zhengrong Shi, “the Sun King of China,” who has revolutionized solar cell technology, Juliet Davenport from England, who is the director of Great Britain’s only supplier of 100 % sustainable energy, which quickly acquired 25,000 customers, and Shai Agassi from Israel, who has put the electric car seriously on the global agenda.
Green Heroes is a book that will make you happy. The book bristles with optimism and faith in the ability of people to act wisely and thus pave the way for a secure future. In addition to the more than 20 heroes the book extols, the book’s two enthusiastic authors – journalist and CEO of the think tank Monday Morning, Erik Rasmussen, and journalist and climate director for the same institution, Per Meilstrup – are worth pointing out. Their easy, lively, and absorbing tale is an achievement.
Just read the preface. It’s like lighting the fuse on a new era.
Translated by Russell Dees
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