Via Media Futurist

Jeremy Rifkin talks about this important observation in his new book “The Third Industrial Revolution” and in this New Statesmen piece excerpted below.

The meme of ’lateral power’ is a key topic in my new, upcoming book (“From Ego to Eco” - still very much in-progress) and is an important piece of  the puzzle, going forward. How can we truly change and address the issues that are crucial to our future success… or rather, survival:) ?

One answer will certainly include the switch to more lateral and side-by-side power as has been exemplified with the Internet: peer to peer, decentral, networked, real-time. More on this very soon. Comments would be very much appreciated.

“We take internet technology and transform the power grid of the world into an
energy internet. So when millions of us are producing our own green energy on site, storing it in hydrogen, our energy internet will allow us to sell and share any extra. We become our own energy producers. We then collaborate and share that energy in the same way as we share information on social media spaces on the internet.

Do you see this vision becoming a reality?
Young people now favour lateral and side-by-side power. That’s the new politics, and it’s favourable to a third industrial revolution. [They] grew up empowered on the internet to create its own information and share it freely. They now need to create their own green energy that they share in vast continental spaces…”

Related articles

• “To appreciate how economically disruptive the TIR is, consider the changes over the past 20 years….” (greenfuturist.com)
• Jeremy Rifkin videos: the empathic civilization, and the third industrial revolution. Must watch! (mediafuturist.com)
• “How would that translate into wider change? We take internet technology and transform the power grid…” (greenfuturist.com)