Bill McKibben’s Comments on GRID Alternatives and Rooftop Solar in an Exclusive Greenius Video

The Greenius asks Bill McKibben a question at his L.A. Times Book Festival appearance at UCLA

The 2010 focus for 350.org is “Get To Work” and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing here in Southern California even before the year began.

Personally I haven’t stopped working since I began organizing for 350.org in June of 2009, and I know myself well enough to understand that I’ve been keeping the throttle open to avoid thinking about the consequences of the global warming we’re already too late to stop.

I asked Bill about the issues of optimism and pessimism and whether he still felt as he did a year ago when he told an interviewer that he no longer thought in terms of optimism and pessimism, he just got up every morning and got to work.

He said that today he draws his energy and inspiration from the young people, mostly in their 20s, who he works with.  They’re not discouraged or to bummed to carry on.  They know they’re being given damaged goods by the generation handing off to them and they’re ready to deal with it.  They understand that the most powerful, most monied interests are lined up against them with a vengeance and they never expected it to be any different.  They’re not ready to give up.  And so… neither am I.

I asked Bill about the work my friends at GRID Alternative are doing and his thoughts on the adoption of rooftop solar in this final segment of my video interview with him.

Another Exclusive Greenius Video: 350.org’s Bill McKibben on Biking and the SBBC

Bill McKibben signs his new book "Eaarth" at the L.A. Times Book Festival (photo by Debra Bushweit Galliani)

I really enjoyed getting to table for 350.org at the same table author, Bill McKibben, was signing copies of his new book “Eaarth.”  What I dug most was the way Bill personally connected with each person who had a book for him to sign.  He took his time and had a brief but unrushed conversation with each person who came by.

Bill was just as unrushed and kind in his time with me in answering some questions for my video interview.

In this second of three video segments, I asked Bill about the work the South Bay Bicycle Coalition is doing in bringing a Master Bike Plan to the area that links the cities of the South Bay:

Exclusive Greenius Video: Bill McKibben on Hermosa Beach as a Carbon Neutral City

Renown environmental author and activist, Bill McKibben, is in Los Angeles today where we met him at the L.A. Times Festival of Books.

Bill is the founder of 350.org and we’ve only previously talked together on the radio, so it was a great joy for me to meet Bill in person and exchange hugs and fist bumps.

Bill’s newest book, Eaarth was the topic of of his wide ranging discussion with L.A. Times staff writer, Susan Salter Reynolds, well known for her book reviews and “Discoveries” column.

I got a chance to talk to Bill about a few of the things we’re working on here in the Los Angeles area and the first subject was our Carbon Neutral City efforts in Hermosa Beach.