Getting it on the table

First, a huge thank you to Mark Jacobson and the Solutions Project for publishing 50 plans for 50 states. There are many vague ideas about how to get to zero carbon, but few specific plans. We are truly grateful to you for putting the 100% Renewable plays on the table. This is a considerable amount of work, and profoundly useful to all zero carbon coaches, even those who reject a 100% renewable approach.

We consider Jacobson and Team to be the “Head Coaches” for the 100% Renewable plays. Thanks again for the “100% Renewable Playbook.”

Solutions Project Origins

Legend has is that the actor and anti-fracking activist Mark Ruffalo, tired of simply being “against something” asked Mark Jacobson of Stanford University for a plan to get New York State to 100% Renewable Energy.

By the next day, Jacobson had emailed him 40 pages of material. This was the start of the New York 100% Renewables plan, the first of the 50 state plans.

Jacobson and Ruffalo, joined by Marco Krapels and Josh Fox, then formed the Solutions Project. It’s purpose: to accelerate “the transition to 100% clean, renewable energy for all people and purposes.”

The website is the “go to” source for each state’s baseline 100% renewable energy plan.

Baseline Plans

Of course, the 50 plans for 50 states are just that. Plans. Tools for you to use, options to consider. Keep in mind:

• Plans, in themselves, do not act. This may seem obvious. It needs to be stated.
• There is no play without a Player. Human beings are the ones who act. A plan can inspire us and help us coordinate, but the plan itself, without human interaction, is just text. Dormant thought.
• A plan is a starting point. Consider it a baseline. The Solutions Project State plans were generated with algorithms and clean energy data. They have not been reconciled with your actual state energy and land use plans.  As you begin to reconcile the plans with your actual state energy plans you will begin to see places where the assumptions may or may not hold up. You may find ways to tweak the plan to better fit your state. You may decide you want more wind, less solar. More energy efficiency, less energy supply. You may decide you want to keep nuclear (the plan is nuclear free).
• The purpose of a plan, like any playbook, is to get everyone on the same page. Climate change is notorious for inspiring people to avoid action.  difficult problem to get action on, and the existence of a plan can be paradoxically used to shut down conversation.  is enough for people to wave their hands about and act like the work is done.