According to Robert Shaw of Aret Corporation, the global power market is bigger than telecom and the Internet put together. And by all accounts it s just starting to stir. It wasn t until the mid-1980s that money started flowing into telecom in earnest. In alternative energy, in other words, we ve got a mind-bogglingly huge sector whose main reason for being is to protect the environment. The emergence of this market is tantamount to a public pronouncement that we re entering the Ecological Age.
Environmental professionals know all too well how easy it is to get bogged down in the daily grind.
Progress can seem incremental at best. It is easy to get frustrated. There s another way to view what s happening, though. Open the windows take the 50,000 foot view and it becomes clear that we are in the throes of an extraordinary transformation. Ecological designer William McDonough speaks of the need for a new industrial revolution to take us out of our current ecological straits.