Aspen, Colorado | The Rocky Mountain Institutes 25th anniversary celebration closed Friday night with a swanky dinner at the Peace Ranch, a huge spread up the Frying Pan River from Basalt, Colorado. The Peace Ranch’s massive barn—a stone and steel sort of cowboy Dwell magazine monster whose floor converts from dressage arena to hockey rink—was gussied up with vine-covered chandeliers, an organic buffet of prosciutto replica Omega 1371.71 watch and heirloom tomatoes, and enough environmental-minded CEOs, funders, and policitos to start a new green party. I was up with the other journalists at the kids’ table, a picnic bench overlooking the draped round tables, a pig’s leg sticking up out of the buffet, and the top of former New York governor George Patakis head.
Unsupervised media are a little dangerous, and as we waited for the buffet line to die down, longtime Hard Way columnist Mark Jenkins was outside revving up the hybrid SUVs displayed for the silent auction.Greens from Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard to actor Val Kilmer were here to pay homage to Amory Lovins, the deceptively replica Omega 1211.30 watch mild-mannered science geek who founded RMI in Old Snowmass a quarter century ago. Lovins’s motto could be “I told you so”: A video retrospective showed him over the years in all his pocket-protector glory, patiently explaining to senator after president after congressional committee how they had it all wrong, always in the same black-rimmed glasses but with less and less hair.
Now, as he talked with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman on stage, Lovins was choked up that so many people were listening. For a replica Omega 3220.50 watch scientist who’s devoted his life to being, as he put it, a “cultural repairman, he sounded surprisingly hopeful about the future. FRIEDMAN: How do you balance fear and hope?LOVINS: I don’t see the glass as half full or half empty. I see it as having a 100-percent design margin expanded by efficiency. ….Optimism has its feet up on the table and a satisfied smirk, knowing the deck is stacked. Hope has its sleeves rolled up and is working to change the odds.
