Jeremy Rifkin tries to put the whole energy-environment package together in this hour + long video. He's one of the few serious folks in this area who seems to be trying to connect the dots and has a lot of key folks in government and business who are listening, not the least of which is Andrea Merkel, chancellor of Germany. It's worth a look. If I were to sum up his key thought it would be "distributive" trumps "vertical" when it comes to energy. Think each building and vehicle a power-storage plant. The analogy with IT, as distributive, is made frequently. A few of his prescriptions: Go sun, wind, wave power - it's free and abundant and broadly available, carbon energy needs to be phased out in 30 years, we need to go largely vegie in our consumption, hydrogen fuel cells will be the main storage units of the future etc. etc. I have my differences, particularly on his omission of lowering population from his prescriptions, but I do think he provides a good basis to start from. He appears to be the big picture guy of our times. http://www.altenergyshift.com/page/blog/_/green-energy/jeremy-rifkin-3d-revolution-r2266
Just so there is no confusion about what a challenge Rifkin's vision of a 30 year carbon gas phase out is, here is the projection from the EIA(US Energy Information Administration) as to where American energy sources will be coming from up to 2040. http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/images/figure_12es-lg.png
Looking at his bio I don't know why I want to pay attention to a social theorist when it comes to power generation and transmission. I'd instead take the word of the power dispatchers I have worked with over the years. The power grid is already distributed. But you need large spinning mass. The more you distribute the more inertia you lose. DIstribution works up to a point. A point that we are at. Too little or too much and you risk black out. One large generator and all your eggs are in one basket. If it trips you are black. If you have too many small units on the system they don't have enough spinning mass to handle large disturbances so you get cascading blackouts. Mr. Rifkin strikes me as one of these people who makes a living convincing to change without ever really explaining why they need to change. His argument about a vertical system is bull(*)(*)(*)(*). That system doesn't exist. He puts forward a false choice. The system is already distributed. Such ideas sound very appealing when you don't have the faintest understanding of the electromagnetic forces that keep your lights on as such you expect such ideas to come from economic philosophers who view electricity as magic. You would do well to sit through a lecture by a real expert like Mike Terbrueggen http://www.o-t-s.com/ He would eviscerate Mr. Rifkin as he actually knows what he is talking about.
Apparently this guy was once a big anti GM food guy. Now that scare is dying so he is moving to a new cause. http://www.consumerfreedom.com/2003/11/2239-activistcash-profiles-pseudo-intellectual-jeremy-rifkin/ Its the blind leading the blind.
Not getting into the merits or demerits of the gmo issue, Rifkin's major points do not in the video hang on that. He does say we should become more vegetarian because we will be cutting down on the use of fossil fuel. I don't think you will find too many folks with expertise in agriculture who would argue with that. That's not the issue. The issue is distribution of power sources. Once buildings and vehicles become principal power sources, as opposed to large utility power generators, then you have power distribution. Rifkin's vision may be unrealistic but it needs to be characterized correctly.
Jeremy takes a turn into social psychology as this video shows his thoughts on the possibility of folks learning to get along and cooperate on a global scale due to being hardwired for empathy. This animated cartoon is called 'The Empathic Civilization.' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g
As much as I appreciate Rifkin's vision of the future I have to recognize he is no techno-expert and has had a considerable record of predictive errors. His present proposal puts a lot of emphasis on hydrogen fuel cells as the local storage-energy unit of the future. A gentleman who appears to have some considerable expertise in hydrogen fuel cells, Michael Behar, goes into its limitations. Unfortunately this pdf does not have C & P capability so you'll just have to read the piece. http://www.michaelbehar.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Hydrogen-Economy-Popular-Science.pdf
Jeremy Rifkin is not to be forgiven for his smearing of irradiated food back in the 70s - since vindicated. What makes you think he knows jack about energy?
Think trial and error. Kind of hard to avoid that for any of us and if you are a driven visionary then it's a double down.
Jeremy Rifkin is still around? Rifkin has been peddling "end of the world" scenarios since the early 1970's. Overpopulation, starvation, superbugs due to bioengineered food, disasterous unemployment due to technology and automation, etc. Rifkin has spent his life predicting disaster that never happens.
So did Malthus but in principle Malthus got it right and a lot of folks are good at some things and not in others. Darwin incorporated Malthus's exponential thinking into evolutionary theory. That covers for a lot of bad predictions and questionable sociology.
