Tomorrow, I’m interviewing Amory Lovins, Cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. I suppose Lovins needs no introduction here, but if you want a compact summary of his contributions, Wikipedia’s got a decent entry. If you’d like to read some of his stuff, check out Winning the Oil Endgame, which promises a roadmap for getting the U.S. "completely, attractively, and profitably off oil" by 2025. This year, he won the highly prestigious Blue Planet Prize for major contributions to solving environmental problems.
In short, Lovins represents the most articulate proponent of what’s come to be known as the "techno-optimist" take on green issues. He believes that we can design and engineer our way out of our energy and climate problems, while improving our quality of life and our economy in the process. Not only does he believe it, he designs and engineers it, and he consults with extremely powerful corporate and military leaders.
The two standard digs at Lovins are that a) he leads people to (falsely?) believe their consumptive lifestyles will never have to change, and b) he neglects regulatory and legislative changes in favor of technology.
The RMI’s 25th anniversary is this year, so this interview will have to involve some historical perspective. I’ve only got about 30 minutes, so I want to make it count.
Anyway: what should I ask him?
