2007 News Coverage

President Clinton’s RMI25 Address
“The work of RMI over the next five to 10 years, in my opinion, may be cumulatively more important than all the work that's been done in the last 25 years, because you have finally got a consensus for your essential mission. The crying need is for our nation, and indeed the whole world, to adopt what you already do best: getting organized and proving this is good economics in very practical, specific ways”

Labor of Lovins
(www.plentymag.com/archives/2007/09/issue_18.php)
By Tracie McMilllan for Plenty Magazine (October/November 2007)
The co-founder of Rocky Mountain Institute talks about America's path to becoming more energy efficient. Amory Lovins might not be a household name, but the ideas he's put forth for the past 30 years have affected virtually every household in America. Increasing energy efficiency, supporting smalls and local power generation from renewable resources, and building smart rather than big are just a few of the concepts he's promoted.

RMI25: Celebrating Solutions, Event Highlights
(http://aspen.plumtv.com/videos/rocky_mountain_institute)
By PlumTV staff for Aspen PlumTV (14 August 2007)
The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) celebrated its 25th anniversary with an extravagant Gala at a scenic ranch in Basalt. This video highlights some of the events presentations, including: Thomas Friedman's Gala speech and Amory Lovins' Gala speech "Imagine a World...". Several guests comment on RMI's solutions-oriented and positive approach to environmental and world issues. Guest interviews, include: David Perry, Senor VP of Aspen Skiing Company, George Pataki, Former New York Governor, and Michael Miracle, Managing Editor of Aspen Sojourner Magazine.


Michael Potts on RMI25: Celebrating Solutions
(http://aspen.plumtv.com/videos/michael_potts)
By Sari Tuschman for Aspen PlumTV (10 August 2007)
Michael Potts, CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute, stopped by the Aspen PlumTV morning show to talk about the non-profit's 25th anniversary celebration, RMI25: Celebrating Solutions. In the interview several of the events luminaries are highlighted, including: Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, President Bill Clinton, Rob Walton of Wal-Mart, and Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia.

Coloradan Awarded Blue Planet Prize
(www.denverpost.com/search/ci_6308093)
By Steve Raabe for The Denver Post (05 July 2007)
Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Snowmass-based Rocky Mountain Institute, has won the Blue Planet prize, one of the world's top environmental awards. The prize's sponsor, Japan's Asahi Glass Foundation, said Lovins was selected "for his contributions to leading global energy strategy for protection of the global environment by efficient utilization of energy." Lovins co-founded the Rocky Mountain Institute in 1982 and has become widely acclaimed in business and environmental circles for developing economic approaches to energy efficiency and conservation. "Amory Lovins has been inspiring environmental activists and planetary thinkers for over 30 years," said Steve Smith, a Wilderness Society official in Glenwood Springs. "His calculations for improving the efficiency of the ways we use energy provide the vision and, more important, the practical, economical, everyday ways to implement that vision, so that we don't have to beat up our natural places in a panic search for new fuel supplies."

Global Warming: A Real Solution
(www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15051506/global_warming_a_real_solution/1)
By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Rocky Mountain News (18 June 2007)
What would happen if we created a truly free market, one in which alternative energy could compete on an equal footing with oil and coal? In 2004, physicist Amory Lovins answered that question. In a study co-funded by the Defense Department, Lovins and his colleagues at the Rocky Mountain Institute detailed how the United States can completely wean itself off all oil — and create a much stronger economy — by 2050. The transition from oil outlined by Lovins would occur in two stages. First, half of our current demand for oil can be eliminated simply by using oil twice as efficiently. Then, the remaining half of our oil demand can be replaced with a combination of natural gas and advanced biofuels. The result would not only end our oil addiction completely, it would also lower our energy costs to the equivalent of $15 a barrel.

Four Questions for Michael Potts of Rocky Mountain Institute
(www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/energy/article/0,2777,DRMN_23914_5404854,00.html)
By Gargi Chakrabarty for Rocky Mountain News (09 March 2007)
Michael Potts on Thursday was appointed CEO of think tank Rocky Mountain Institute. A high-tech industry veteran, Potts succeeds Amory Lovins, 59, who becomes the Institute's chairman and chief scientist. Both changes take effect immediately, as Chairman John Fox changes his role to lead trustee. A Denver resident, the 50-year-old Potts will split his time between the Institute's office in Boulder and headquarters in Old Snowmass. The Institute says its technical experts have redesigned $30 billion worth of facilities in 29 sectors for dramatic energy and resource efficiency.

Lighter Cars Can Help the U.S. Kick Oil
(www.businessweek.com/autos/content/feb2007/bw20070212_315092.htm)
By Christopher Palmeri for BusinessWeek (12 February 2007)
Lovins' goal is simply to "get us out of oil" by 2040. (His strategy is laid out on www.oilendgame.com.) Doing so, Lovins figures, will create 1 million new jobs, particularly in the farm belt where more labor will be needed to grow agricultural products for energy use. In the meantime, jobs presently at risk in the automotive industry will be saved, because foreign competitors would not be seizing market share from Detroit. As a bonus byproduct of the end of oil dependency, carbon dioxide emissions will be cut by 25%.

Mr. Green: Environmentalism’s Most Optimistic Guru
(http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/01/22/070122fa_fact_green)
By Elizabeth Kolbert for The New Yorker (22 January 2007)
Profiles of environmental optimist Amory Lovins. Amory Lovins. 59, first came to national attention in 1976, when he published a Foreign Affairs essay that asserted the U.S. could completely phase out its use of fossil fuels without cost (See RMI publication: E77-01, "Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?"). Thirty years later, the world faces another energy crisis, and Lovins still sees limitless opportunity. He maintains that the U.S. can eliminate its use of oil by 2050, even while reducing its coal and natural-gas consumption, enjoying economic prosperity, and preserving the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Although Lovins was one of the first to appreciate the dangers of global warming, he believes the problem is not so daunting as it seems.