Energy transition communicator
Drivers of the energy transition: US American Craig Morris informs people about the German energy transition – with conviction and passion.
Craig Morris explains the German energy transition to an international audience with passion and conviction. The 48-year-old American is one of the authors of the Energy Transition blog at energytransition.org (The Global Energiewende), which is supported by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. In September 2016 he published a book entitled “Energy Democracy – Germany’s Energiewende to Renewables”. Morris visited Germany for the first time as a school exchange student in the 1980s. After studying for a Master’s degree in German, literature and Dutch in Texas, he accepted a job at the university in Freiburg, where he has lived since 1992. The journalist and author is currently working as senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, which aims to promote research on global sustainability. In addition to many other publications on the subject, Morris also founded the Renewables International website that regularly publishes information about renewable energies.
Witty and amusing videos
For some time now he has also been focusing on his favourite subject from the perspective of children and young people in a series of short videos that are always witty and amusing. For the recordings he travelled through Germany with his two nearly adult children to visit projects, such as wind farms, solar plants and energy self-sufficient villages, or people who are especially active supporters of climate protection. The films are in German or English with subtitles in the respective other language. “There are plans for more videos,” says Morris. He has also developed an online course on the subject of the energy transition, and participants’ results are currently being evaluated. “I want to convey complex interrelationships without simplifying everything too much,” he says. This idea characterises all his work.
