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The challenges are clear.
The needs are urgent.
The time is short.
The options are available.

The 'Energy Rush' is on.

''Community Choice' cities are leading the way to the Century of the Sun.

The urgent search for sustainable alternatives to global climate change, energy wars, environmental injustice, economic decline, rising unemployment and the end of the fossil fuel era is now underway.
The key to all these challenges is energy.

Civilizations run on energy.
The energy our civilization has been running on for the last century is cheap fossil fuels - coal, oil and natural gas. Our industry, agriculture, transportation, clothing, electricity and communication grids are all essentially dependent on fossil fuels.

It's been a great ride. But it's nearly over. Despite it's many advantages, dependence on burning fossil fuels is causing global warming, oil wars, asthma and cancer epidemics, environmental racism, human rights violations and transnational insecurity...and world discovery and production of oil and natural gas have reached their peak and are now in inevitable decline. The glass is half empty and has nowhere to go but down.

What are our options?
There are those who say natural gas, nuclear, hydrogen, and even "zero point" ('free') energy are the power sources of the future. But natural gas causes greenhouse gas emissions, contributes to asthma and, like oil has peaked and is in decline.

Nuclear power is totally dependent on fossil fuels at every stage from mine to waste dump, produces waste nobody knows what to do with and which remains deadly for millions of years, produces raw weapons material, is vulnerable to terrorists, is financially un-insurable and would die of an overdose of market forces were it not for huge continuing government subsidies.

Large-scale hydrogen production would also be dependent on fossil fuel or nuclear power for its production, would require a huge buildout of infrastructure, and experts say the hydrogen fuel cell is still many years from mass production.

Zero point energy has lots of enthusiasts, lots of prototypes, lots of inventors and detractors, but so far, no deployment.

Then there are those who say that right here, right now waiting in the wings, ready for quick deployment are existing clean, renewable technologies based on a mix of solar, wind, biomass, tidal, and geothermal, which, if combined with conservation and high efficiency could cut greenhouse gas emissions, promote global environmental, economic and racial justice, clean the air we breathe, help fight climate change, make fossil fuel wars obsolete, increase real national security and form the basis for a world-wide economic boom.

The governments of the European Union, Iceland, Denmark, Japan and a growing number of others around the world agree with the renewables scenario and are taking steps to implement it. Washington's current rulers, however, are trying to implement the natural gas-and-nuclear scenario, so in this country the push for renewables is coming from the grassroots up.

Renewables and democracy go together.Renewables: The Bottom-Up RevolutionIn California - the once, and perhaps future leader in the development of wind and solar technologies - the drive for a rapid, large-scale transition to clean, sustainable energy sources is bringing together a broad and growing coalition of activist citizen organizations which have never before joined forces.

Environmentalists and peaceniks, environmental, racial and criminal justice campaigners, labor organizers, clean energy entrepreneurs, and progressive investor groups have recognized the confluence of their interests in this one over-arching issue - creating a transition to local, regional, and eventually national energy independence through renewables.

ENERGY RUSH: The Renewables Revolution - takes an in-depth look at this emerging, unprecedented social, political, technological and economic coalition and at the legislative and financial innovations they are creating and implementing at the state and local levels, designed to have national and even international impacts.

A shorter (20minute ) conpanion piece, COMMUNITY CHOICE: The Movement for Local Energy Independence - shows how ordinary citizens like you, working with elected officials, clean energy investors, green labor and ecological entrepreneurs, can create a grassroots-driven, bottom-up transition to a sustainable energy economy and set loose a 'green wave that can lift all boats.'Here's a preview of some of the scenes, people and ideas you will encounter in the documentary ENERGY RUSH and the organizing tool COMMUNITY CHOICE.