Billionaire philanthropist and renewable energy crusader Thomas Steyer has been asked to speak at this year’s American Renewable Energy Day (AREDAY) in Aspen, which takes place August 17 – 21. He was asked largely due to his help in defeating California Proposition 23, a corporate-funded initiative to suspend the state’s groundbreaking 2006 global warming law that aimed to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions down to its 1990-year levels by 2020.
Steyer, founder of Farrallon Capital Management, has been well recognized for additional environmental causes. He funded the creation of Stanford University’s TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy, which harbors the development of affordable renewable energy technologies and the promotion of public policies to make renewable energy more accessible. Additionally, last year, Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor, had signed the Giving Pledge, a pledge to donate half of their fortune to charity. Steyer commented, “It’s all about public health and clean air. It’s all about creating new jobs, and really what we’re fighting is self-interested, dirty energy companies.”
President of the National Wildlife Federation, Larry Schweiger, and Ted Turner will join Steyer at the AREDAY summit, with Sally Ranny, co-director of AREDAY, moderating. AREDAY founder and director Chip Comins is excited to have Steyer on board to speak. He comments, “As the champion of California’s clean energy laws, Tom will add a valuable component to the Summit by sharing his political savvy and the strategies that helped defeat Proposition 23.”
For more information, please visit www.areday.net.
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