Hermann Scheer is a German parliamentarian who has turned ideas into practical solutions. Because of the laws that bear his name, Germany is now a solar-paneled, windmill-building, job-producing green powerhouse of the industrialized world. Fifteen per cent of Germany's electricity now comes from renewable energy systems. Scheer predicts that, if his country continues on this course, that number could be 100 per cent by 2030.
In The Gospel of Green, the fifth estate's Bob McKeown travels to Germany to meet Scheer and find out how this green miracle has been accomplished. What he finds is a man with an evangelist's fervour and economist's drive for practical applications. It was Germany's renewable energy act — now known as Scheer's Law — that launched the country as a world leader in green power.
