We
are also proud to announce the arrival of Peter Teague to the senior
leadership of Breakthrough Institute. Teague co-founded Breakthrough
Institute with the two of us in 2003 while at Nathan Cummings
Foundation. Teague will develop and oversee Breakthrough’s new work on
universal energy access.
This is the seventh year Breakthrough has conferred Senior Fellows.
Brand, Asafu-Adjaye, and Wernick join a group of 35 Senior Fellows
awarded in previous years. Breakthrough Senior Fellows advise
Breakthrough Institute staff, collaborate on scholarly and popular
papers and reports, and attend Breakthrough Institute’s annual
conference, the Breakthrough Dialogue.
Energy
access has become a high priority issue for Breakthrough and many others
concerned
with development and the environment. Evangelical Christians have
motivated Republicans to support energy access efforts in Congress,
while liberal leaders from Bono to President Obama point to
electrification as a core human need. Last year, the House of
Representatives passed the Electrify Africa Act, legislation to increase
energy access in Africa.
Forty years ago, and long before the current debate over a
human-defined Anthropocene, Brand declared in his landmark publication Whole Earth Catalog
that, “We are as gods, and might as well get good at it.” This
philosophy underlies much of Brand’s varied career, from his early ideas
about computers and Internet, to his praise for nuclear, to his recent
work on de-extinction.
Ghanian economist Asafu-Adjaye recently authored an important study
on the economic impacts of climate change on agriculture in Africa. Concerted efforts to
help Africa adapt and modernize — through agricultural intensification,
irrigation, and other modern infrastructure — will be
needed to keep the continent resilient and competitive.
Decoupling resource use from the environment is a process Wernick has long studied. Due to improved yields, slowing population
growth, changing consumer preferences, and growing affluence, the world
has reached “peak farmland,” he recently argued. With the land required to feed humanity at its apex, there are greater
chances for land once used for agriculture to become wilderness.
Last
December, Teague travelled through Rwanda and Congo visiting power
plants and conducting interviews to better understand the relationship
between energy access, development and conservation. “I’m excited to be
joining Breakthrough in this new role, to focus on
an issue I feel passionately about,” said Teague, who worked for two
years in Sierra Leone as a Peace Corps volunteer. “At a young age, I saw
up-close how fundamental access to modern energy is if we want people
to be able to live healthy, dignified lives.”
You can read more about these remarkable individuals here: Stewart Brand, John Asafu-Adjaye, Iddo Wernick and Peter Teague.
— Michael and Ted
____________
Michael Shellenberger, President, Breakthrough Institute
436 14th St, Suite 820 :: Oakland, CA 94612cell (best): 415-309-4200 :: office: 510.550.8800 x355 :: Skype: Shellenberger
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