Leveraging the Power of Social Media to Solve Our Energy Challenges

The world’s energy challenges are not just a problem for international negotiators, oil companies and climate scientists.  They are shared by all of us — the homeowner installing solar panels in the back yard, the researcher using cutting-edge science to see how termites create energy from wood, the small business looking for innovative financing to bring down the cost of renewables, the city manager turning to new technologies to save money, the utility executive deciding how to fuel the power plant.  These things are happening now, all around the world, in small ways and big.  Armies of innovators are working to change the way we generate and use energy.

In the same way, we’re moving away from sprawling, centralized media conglomerates and toward the engaged public in the search for new big ideas.  As media become more participatory, sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are setting the agenda and breaking stories.

That’s why we’re looking to the public to help us address the challenges of our shifting energy supply and a changing climate.  With this blog, we will focus on energy solutions that are submitted on Planet Forward, a site devoted to crowdsourcing the best ideas on climate and energy.  We hope that by opening the discussion to everyone, we can find a better solution for everyone.

Shared challenges, shared solutions.