Best-selling author to offer solutions to the climate crisis
By Contributor
Best-selling author and cleantech investor Tom Rand will give a public talk on the solutions to climate disruption at the Capitol Theatre in Nelson on March 16.
The first 100 people to arrive for the talk will receive a free copy of Rand’s latest book Waking the Frog, a $30 value. Admission is $10 and all students will be admitted free. Tickets are available at the Capitol Theatre box office and website.
A local panel discussion and question period will follow Rand’s address which will start at 7 p.m.
Rand is the author of two books Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit (2010) and most recently Waking the Frog: Solutions for Our Climate Change Paralysis which spent nine weeks on the Globe and Mail’s non-fiction best-seller list in 2014.
Rand’s appearance is being organized by the Nelson chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby and is co-sponsored by theCity of Nelson EcoSave Program, the Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce, the West Kootenay EcoSociety, the Kootenay Country Store Co-operative, the Nelson and District Credit Union, the Nelson United Church, Selkirk College, and the Nelson and Area Economic Development Partnership.
The Columbia Basin Trust provided additional funding for the event.
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to have Tom Rand present his ideas to our community.He is a global thought leader with an extraordinary record of achievements in the promotion of a low carbon economy,”said Laura Sacks, who organized the local CCL chapter.
“We are equally excited about the conversations that will ensue during the panel discussion and audience question part of the event,” Sacks added.
Rand holds a BSc in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, a MSc in philosophy of science from the University of London / London School of Economics and an MA and PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto.
He is a managing partner in ArcTern Ventures, a clean-tech investment company that seeks out and provides start-up capital (a minimum of $500,000) to entrepreneurial companies focused on problem solving technologies in the clean energy sector.
Randchallenges his audiences to recognize that there are concrete solutions to the climate change crisis. It is Rand’s belief that we have yet to have a serious, public conversation about the threat of climate change, and the economic opportunities afforded by the global transformation to a low-carbon economy.
Offering a perspective that is both pragmatic and optimistic, Rand’s approach is refreshingly straightforward, while balancing the economic, political, psychological, and technological sides of this important topic.
Rand and a partner renovated an historic building in downtown Toronto and turned it into Planet Traveler – North America’s greenest, low-carbon hotel.
A geothermal heat transfer systems warms and cools the building’s rooms. Lighting the entire building takes only 1,500 KW, less energy than it takes to run a hairdryer or a 4-slice toaster. Solar photovoltaic panels provide a portion of the building’s electricity and a solar thermal system provides the hot water. Wastewater heat is reclaimed.
As part of Earth Day Canada’s Beyond Green program, Rand has started a four-part webinar series to help youth learn how to make the business case for implementing solutions to climate change to people of influence in their communities.
Texas State Climatologist Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon says of Rand’s latest book: “Tom Rand explains why we’re stuck, and why we need to get moving and take up the challenge of climate change as soon as possible and most importantly, how and why we should engage the power of private sector capitalism to transform promising ideas into real solutions.”
Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) is a non-profit, grassroots advocacy group that trains and supports volunteers to engage elected officials and the media for generating the political will to find solutions for climate change.
There are over 200 CCL chapters in North America, covering over 50 ridings in Canada and more than half the congressional districts in the USA. A local chapter of CCL was started in Nelson last year.
