It’s 2010 – Are YOU Ready for The Greenius Decade?

I sure hope you’re strapped and ready to roll for the Greenius Decade because ready or not, it’s already begun and I guarantee you it will not be like any other decade you’ve ever experienced or even previsualized.  The Greenius Decade will be all now and totally happening.  The Greenius Decade is ready to discover the limits of the possible by venturing a little way past them into the impossible.

So I hope you got plenty of rest over the holidays because the Greenius Decade does not come without effort.  The Greenius Decade requires you to get up off your ass and get involved.  The Greenius Decade insists you stop looking for leadership and start leading yourself.  The Greenius Decade is not prepared to pamper you, cut you much slack or accept any lame excuses.

How you liking it so far?

I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t real happy with the way things went down in the last decade and I’m not about to allow that to happen again.  Things started out bad from the first day of 2o00 and went downhill from there.

I recognize when it’s time to step it up and take more responsibility and that’s exactly what I’m doing now in the Greenius Decade.

And since I am indeed The Greenius and I have legally laid claim to this decade, preempting all others, I can confidently lay this on you and you can take comfort knowing I’m on the case and will not let you down.

 

It seems like only yesterday that I was out picking up trash in Old Town Torrance, but it was in fact in January of 2009.

Little did I realize at the time that it was to be the beginning of my entire year of public volunteer service, but 12 months later that’s exactly how it turned out.  Inspired by President Obama’s election and the collapse of the ponzi scheme economy, I decided to work full time, pro bono, on the issues I cared about most – climate change, renewable energy, energy conservation and sustainability.

For the first time in my adult life I didn’t keep score by how much money I made in a year, but rather by how many volunteer hours I contributed.  By my conservative estimate it was well over 2,000 hours for the year and it was the most freeing, stress-be-gone time I’ve had in the last 35 years. And I worked my ass off.

South Bay Cities Council of Governments Green Task Force, South Bay Environmental Services Center, State Center Jenny Oropeza, 350.org, GRID Alternatives, Greenpeace, Environmental Priorities Network, Malibu City Council – they all got chunks of my volunteer time in ’09.

And when I wasn’t volunteering, like any great autodidact I was studying, learning and researching.  And when I wasn’t doing that I was writing, writing, writing.

131 blog posts on this site in 2009 garnering a total of 58,826 page hits for the year.  Guest blogging posts on Climate Progress and 350.org for who knows how many views. Comments and discussions on too many other blogs and websites to count.

All of it, preparing me for the heavy lifting  and the work now on my plate in The Greenius Decade. And now that it’s here I’m the guy telling you the way it’s going to be…

First up, I’m going to help L.A. County make their AB 811 program a success – I’ll be working with Howard Choy at the County and using my marketing, communications and community organizing skills to help this essential program succeed as it should.  In today’s environment it’s going to take a Creative Greenius to get that AB 811 program into the hearts and minds of the citizens of Los Angeles County.  Fortunately the Greenius Decade is here and so am I.

I’ve got big plans for the South Bay cities here where I live in Southern California.

It’s time for every one of them to become carbon neutral and during the Greenius Decade that’s exactly what they’re going to do.

By 2020 Torrance, having closed down the ExxonMobil refinery in 2017 will proudly declare it has reached carbon neutral status.

El Segundo, having turned the former Chevron refinery into a solar thermal energy plant likewise will be celebrating their carbon neutral achievement with a huge citywide festival.

I expect Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach to get there halfway through the Greenius Decade and to become the solar powered plug-in car capitol of beach culture for the 21st century.  Redondo Beach is sure to be there right there with them too.

And I’ll tell you exactly how we get there in the Greenius Decade.  We use the AB 811 funds to kick things off by pouncing on that money first the second it becomes available.  I’ll spend the next couple of months getting South Bay folks ready for that. My friends at the South Bay COG and the Environmental Services Center are already on board for this mission and I’m going to be an integral part of that effort.

And ready for the carbon credits solar owners will be getting when California institutes Cap and Trade in 2012.  And don’t forget the feed-in tariff money I’m going to help the next Governor of California give them in the Greenius Decade too.  Money talks and money motivates.

But it’s not just the money that will be motivating them – especially since there’s no up front cash involved.  We need more juice than that to get things done in the Greenius Decade and I know precisely where to get it.

We’ll be firing up and activating our entire youth population here through our 350 Climate Action Group and those kids are going to become the carbon neutral ground troops that invade and occupy this whole area for the decade to come.  Get ready for a whole new kind of dance party when we unleash these kids to reclaim their own future.

It’s not going to be very hard at all.  None of these Greenius Decade Kids – as they’re sure to become known – are in anywhere near the kind of denial their parents are.  Maybe that’s because they’re not the ones responsible for screwing up so badly during the last decade.

But they’ll be the ones pulling the strings and pushing the buttons on the generation of parents who are desperate beyond everything to have their kids approve of them and be their friends.

All the Greenius wants is to make sure that the kids who are 10 – 20 years old get to reach my age (52) and still have a civilization worth investing in.

And I’d also like to keep them from feeling like they want to turn every baby boomer into Soylant Green.

Instead, the economic boom that’s coming in the Greenius Decade is going to make both the young people and their elders living in the South Bay not only very, very happy, but the envy of all the places that weren’t smart enough to get on board the cluetrain when it was in the station.

I’m committed to getting the entire South Bay wired up for the smart grid right away to help accommodate all the Plug-in cars and solar power we’ll have.  We can inventory electricity using the batteries in those plug-ins and we’ll need a newly wired smart grid to take advantage of the vehicle-t0-grid opportunities.  The Greenius Decade is all about V2G, the smart grid and the smart garage.  Don’t worry, we’ll teach you all about it and you’ll be hip.

We’re not only going to reap the first wave monetary benefits, we’re going to get the secondary profits from all the other cities and regions across the country who will be coming here and paying to learn the lessons of our success in the Greenius Decade and beyond.  Consider it an annuity we’ll be investing in.

And consider it my master escape plan – as in escaping the catastrophe that awaits us if we don’t embrace the Greenius Decade and continue on the path of business as usual for one more days.

That shit doesn’t cut it any more and the those who contend that it does will lead you straight into the gates of hell in a nitro burning funny car.

But the Creative Greenius isn’t going to let that happen and neither are any of the people I’m working and partnering with here and all around the planet.

And that’s the way it is here in week #2 with only 518 weeks left in the Greenius Decade.

Time for me to get back to work.  See you around campus.