Originally published on CleanTechnica.
The future is now.
That’s a phrase I love on so many levels. I’ve got another presentation in my repertoire more tailored to that phrase, but for my PechaKucha presentation on the opening night of the Renewable Cities Global Learning Forum, I realized at the last minute (or maybe a little sooner) that “the future is now” was again more or less the focus of my presentation, so that’s the opening line I led with. Have a watch:
These PechaKucha presentations present quite a challenge, as you are limited to 20 slides and the slides automatically transition every 20 seconds. It doesn’t leave much room for freestyling, and you really have to make sure you get the timing right. But it is a lot of fun, and it forces you to succinctly get your message across via clear and focused communication.
Of course, figuring out the slides and topic of my presentation was not too challenging. After publishing tens of thousands of articles (seriously), I’ve got a handful of key charts, facts, pictures, and objectives in my head. CleanTechnica is about advancing the cleantech revolution using inspiration, context, and an onslaught of useful information. And that’s what the presentation was about.
There are three main things we need to do to address global warming (and at the same time reduce unnecessary suffering): switch to electricity production from clean and renewable resources, switch to electric transport, and cut meat and dairy consumption. Our focus on CleanTechnica is of course #1 and #2 (jump over to EatDrinkBetter for #3). The good news is that renewable energy and electric vehicles offer many consumer advantages (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here… for a start), and they have become much, much cheaper in recent years — now beating fossil fuels and gasmobiles on a cost basis in many or even most cases.
As I highlighted in my Renewable Cities opening night presentation above, I think we are at a big tipping point for both renewables and electric vehicles — or, in other terms, the beginning of a “disruptive” takeover of their respective markets. Solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars are the future… but they are also here now, and quickly becoming popular. Watch the video above to see me talking about these matters in much more detail.
And stay tuned for coming articles about other opening night Pecha Kucha monologues and other presentations from the Renewable Cities Global Learnig Forum (easily located in our Renewable Cities archives).
