WWEA team from four continents at WindEnergy Hamburg , September 2016
WWEA , the Voice for Wind Power and Global100 % RE – in Past , Present , and Future
By Stefan Gsänger , WWEA Secretary General
Remembering the ecological situation in the 1970s and 80s , it was hard not to become depressed about the prospects of mankind : Many of us still remember well the scary reports about dying forests caused by air pollution and acid rain . In addition , the scarcity of fossil fuels became apparent – long queues in front of fuel stations symbolised this problem during the oil crisis . Obviously we were too much dependent on polluting fossil fuels but there was no way out visible . Also , the public perception of climate change problems started to grow – and still almost all our energy came from burning oil , coal or gas . What future would mankind have ?
At the time , some still believed in nuclear power , but the nuclear accident of Chernobyl in 1986 demonstrated to the world that nuclear power cannot be seen as a long-term option . 25 years later , Fukushima proved once more that nuclear power is simply not a viable solution .
It was in the early 1990s when the author of this text , by pure coincidence , listened to a German politician who presented during a TV talkshow in brief a kind of masterplan of how to get rid of fossil fuels , how to develop a solar industry and how to convert our energy supply fully to renewable energy . His name was Hermann Scheer – later he was also involved in setting up the WWEA in 2001 .
In the 1980s and 90s , the first communities and small companies had started investing in renewable energy , even without expecting a profit , simply to contribute their part to the