Energy Focus at TEDx Talk
The Town of East Hampton’s push to meet 100 percent of its energy needs through renewable sources will get a publicity boost on Saturday, when TEDxShinnecockHills, the South Fork’s first public TEDx event, happens from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Southampton Arts Center. It will feature a number of talks broadly focusing on sustainability and environmentalism.
With the theme of “Stasis: Conjecture-Meaning-Solemnity-Action,” the half-day gathering will feature East Hampton residents including Gordian Raacke, the executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island, Edwina von Gal, founder of the Perfect Earth Project, and Bill Chaleff, an architect specializing in “green” building.
TEDx events are independently organized versions of the talks and conferences by the TED nonprofit organization, which began in 1984 as a conference at which technology, entertainment, and design converged. More than 11 million people subscribe to TED’s YouTube channel, where more than 2,800 videos can be seen.
Mr. Raacke, who attended the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco last weekend, will deliver “100 Percent Renewable Energy — You Can Do It,” a talk about the climate crisis, its urgency, and civilization’s ability to solve it if immediate action commensurate with that urgency is taken.
“I’m really focusing on the fact that we’ve waited far too long, we have done things too small so far, but the good news is we still have a small window of opportunity to start working on things that are big and can be deployed rapidly,” he said on Monday. “If we do that, we can still make it — at least that’s my take on it. To make that happen, we need all hands on deck, everybody to participate in that transition.”
While the Trump administration is dismissive of climate change and has moved to roll back environmental regulations, states and municipalities are forging a path to a clean-energy future. The Global Climate Action Summit was held days after Gov. Jerry Brown of California signed a bill requiring his state to acquire its electricity exclusively from carbon-free sources by 2045. Hawaii has set a similar goal. According to the Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 campaign, 82 cities in the United States have also set goals for meeting 100 percent of their electricity needs from renewable sources.
“It was really encouraging to see we’re not alone here on the South Fork,” Mr. Raacke said of the summit and East Hampton’s commitment to renewable energy. “This is a movement now, a national and even global movement.” Those attending the summit discussed “how we can bring this all about, how we can reach our 100-percent goal.”
Councilwoman Sylvia Overby of the East Hampton Town Board also referred to the summit at the board’s meeting on Tuesday. “We were one of the first,” she said of East Hampton’s aspiration to achieve the 100-percent goal by 2020. At the time, the town was one of 20 municipalities to set such a goal, she said. “Big towns, small towns, they’re all looking forward to 100-percent renewable energy,” she said.
The hour is late, but with everyone’s cooperation, catastrophic climate change can be averted, Mr. Raacke said. “We can all be heroes, climate heroes,” he said. “We want to step up now before it’s too late.”
Other speakers on Saturday include Nicholas Palumbo, a Southampton resident who is the executive director of sustainability programs at Suffolk Community College; Mary Beth Pfeiffer, an investigative reporter who has written extensively about Lyme disease; Himanshu Ragtah, co-founder of Profillic, a start-up that aims to revolutionize research and development through artificial intelligence, and Emily Atkin, a staff writer at The New Republic magazine.
Tickets for TEDxShinnecockHills are $100, $80 for Southampton Arts Center members. A $250 ticket includes a cocktail dinner with the speakers tomorrow and preferential seating on Saturday. They are available at tedxshinnecockhills.org.