Hermann Scheer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hermann Scheer (born April 29, 1944 in Wehrheim) is a Social Democrat member of the German Bundestag (Parliament), President of Eurosolar (The European Association for Renewable Energy) and General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy.[1] In 1999, Scheer was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for his "indefatigable work for the promotion of solar energy worldwide".[2]
Scheer believes that the continuation of current patterns of energy supply and use will be environmentally damaging, with renewable energy being the only realistic alternative. Scheer has concluded that it is technically and environmentally feasible to harness enough solar radiation to achieve a total replacement of the fossil/nuclear energy system by a global renewable energy economy. The main obstacle to such a change is seen to be political, not technical or economic [2]. In 1999 he was one of the initiators of the German feed-in tariffs that were the major source of the rise of renewable energies in Germany during the following years.
Contents |
[edit] Life
Scheer has been a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany since 1965. As a student, while majoring in economics and law, he was active in student politics at the University of Heidelberg, and participated in the German student movement of the 1960s. In 1979, he graduated from the Free University of Berlin as a doctor of political science. He has been a member of the Bundestag since 1980, representing Baden-Württemberg; since 1993, he has also been a member of the federal steering committee (Bundesvorstand) of the Social Democratic Party. In the shadow cabinet of Andrea Ypsilanti, unsuccessful candidate for prime minister of Hesse in 2008, Scheer was pegged as minister for economics and the environment.
[edit] Books
- Energy Autonomy, The Economic, Social and Technological Case for Renewable Energy, 2006, Earthscan, ISBN 184473556
- A Solar Manifesto, 2005, Earthscan, ISBN 1902916514
- The Solar Economy, Renewable Energy for a Sustainable Global Future , 2004, Earthscan, ISBN 1844070751
