DORI AND JEFF WOLFE ON CRISIS AS MOTIVATION
FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY CHANGE
(Editor’s note: The following comes from the recent Vermont Folklife Center exhibit, Portraits in Action: Pioneers in Renewable Energy, Environmental Conservation, and Land Use Planning. For more, visit their website.)
[D]ori and Jeff Wolfe, co-founders of groSolar, ponder the power of “cultural want”—listen below—then read their response to the question: What will bring us to the next level in meeting the energy and environmental challenges we are facing today?
What will bring us to the next level in meeting the energy and environmental challenges we are facing today?
We pray it is not true, but “crisis” may be the only tool powerful enough to evoke the change needed to conquer the environmental and energy challenges we are facing today. We can’t see parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so when we hear we need to be at 350 ppm, but are now over 400 ppm, it fails to instill enough action. We can’t feel on a daily basis how 2 degrees Celsius would affect us, so it is an ineffective motivator to encourage us to change our ways.
In addition, for over a century we have allowed the industrial revolution to use the atmosphere as a free dumping ground while we became ever more dependant on fossil fuels. It is incredibly hard for a civilization to break the habit of high profits, power, and convenience afforded by cheap energy. Where education is abundant and forward-thinking citizens harken to scientists’ warnings, change can and is happening. But not fast enough nor among a broad enough base of citizens.
Can devastating floods such as Irene and Sandy, long-lasting droughts as experienced in California, and other environmental crises provide the catalyst needed to inspire us to reach the next level? We hope we can change sooner, as happened with the ozone layer, for with crisis comes high casualties, especially to those most vulnerable in our society. For that reason, Jeff and I have long worked to bring renewable energy to the fore, effecting change now for a better future.
Dori Wolfe
Owner – Wolfe Energy LLC
Co-founder, groSolar
Jeff Wolfe
Senior Vice President of Business Strategy, Just Energy
Co-founder, groSolar
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Portraits in Action: Pioneers in Renewable Energy, Environmental Conservation, and Land Use Planning brings together a diverse cross section of twenty-five pioneers, activists, and leaders in renewable energy, environmental conservation, and land use planning, and invites them to speak to the issues at hand. It is both an oral history and a call to action.
The Vermont Folklife Center’s mission is to broaden, strengthen, and deepen our understanding of Vermont and the surrounding region; to assure a repository for our collective cultural memory; and to strengthen communities by building connections among the diverse peoples of Vermont. For more, visit us.
