You can learn some important things from comic books. But perhaps the most important is that ordinary people have the power to do extraordinary things. Nowhere is this concept more evident than in the green energy movement, where average joes are becoming energy suppliers and producers just by installing a few simple solar panels or wind turbines. For this movement to thrive as many believe it will, we don’t need a politician or a big energy conglomerate. We need a hero.
The environmentalists at advocacy group Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future must read a lot of comic books. For their upcoming Green Power Luncheons, taking place in Philadelphia in September and Pittsburgh in October, Penn Future didn’t choose a famous author or engineer, instead choosing to leave it up to the people to decide who would join an already diverse group of nominees. The group announced in July that it was searching for a Green Power Hero as an honoree to receive the People’s Choice Award for its luncheon program, drawing applications from all over the state. As the voting came to a close this week, President and CEO Jan Jarrett and her team will be reviewing the applications for the most heroic from a long list of candidates.
“What we are looking for are individuals or companies who have invested in clean energy technologies, who are buying large amounts of clean energy for their homes or businesses, who are involved in generating clean energy or people who have done really holistic projects,” says Jarrett. “Maybe they transformed an old building into a nice green building powered by renewable energy, that kind of thing. We want to highlight these people that have made such strong commitments to renewable energy.”
The Green Power Luncheon recognizes organizations who have been good partners in the fight to spread the cause of renewable power like the Pittsburgh Opera House, a school in the Philadelphia area and other institutional pioneers. The People’s Choice Award allows Penn Future to find the unsung heroes of Pennsylvania energy who might be friends or neighbors using clean energy in a new way, advocating for green energy or making it easier for their community to examine and change their bad energy habits. But as companies across the country look to expand green practices and reduce their energy consumption, there are more heroes to choose from than ever before and, Jarrett says, the bar has been set pretty high.
“When we started this, we were giving awards to folks who made really modest purchases of renewable energy,” says Jarrett. “Now, there are lots of potential individuals or companies to choose from who are doing all kinds of innovative things. And many of them are not just doing one thing; they are investing in energy efficiency, they are doing green roofs on the tops of their buildings, they are powering their facilities with solar or wind power. And these companies or individuals have to be buying 100 percent renewable energy to meet the bar these days.”
Source: Jen Jarrett, Penn Future
Writer: John Steele