I am going out on a limb here, and guessing that the EcoTuesday community believes that global warming is both real and caused largely by human influences. The preponderance of scientific evidence supports this, and scientists are the most careful people in the world about making sure their statements are backed by fact. 

So with that as a given, and again assuming that most of us care about a livable future the question becomes, “so what the heck can I do about it?” The people that I have meet at our EcoTuesday evenings care deeply, and often center their professional life on solutions to this and other environmental problems.  But it is challenging to know what actions can really have an effect.

This might be part of the reason for the results of a recent Gallup poll.  It showed that concern about environmental issues has dropped between 4 and 9 percentage points over the course of one year. The only bright note was that the two issues that had dropped the least were issues of safe, clean drinking water and global warming.  I think this drop is party because people suffer from concern burnout.  If they cannot see that they can make a difference, they cease to be concerned as a defense against feeling hopeless. 

This month’s speaker at our Silicon Valley EcoTuesday can refresh your level of hope.  We will have James Cook, Director of Business Development at First Solar, join us this month.  He will speak to us about his work in large-scale solar generation plants.  I am especially eager to hear about his personal passion to help the state of California achieve 50% renewable electrical generation by 2030 and push toward FFFF – Fossil Fuel Free by Fifty (2050, that is.)  These goals are striking for a number of reasons. 

Most of us know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.  Carbon dioxide is the largest single contributor, in fact CO2 accounts for 83% of all the green house gas (GHG) emissions in the United States.  Don’t glaze over on me here, I’m am coming to why this is so exciting! 

By far, the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions is the burning of carbon-based fuels for electrical generation.  This is interesting, since so many think that transportation is greatest problem.  If we could reach the goal of generating our electricity from fossil free sources by 2050, we would be greatly reducing the largest cause of GHG emissions.  If this were accompanied be incremental improvements in all other emissions, we would truly be looking at improving the environmental outlook for future generations. 

So, although it can seem that solar power is a fancy perk for a green building, or only of interest to energy policy wonks, in reality it holds the potential to be a huge part of the solution to global warming, within our lifetimes!