White book with blue lightning bolt, book title reads "Electrify: an optimist's playbook for our clean energy future" by Saul Griffith

Electrify: An optimist’s playbook for our clean energy future

An optimistic — but realistic and feasible — action plan for fighting climate change while creating new jobs and a healthier environment? Electrify everything.

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Synopsis

Climate change is a planetary emergency. We have to do something now—but what? Saul Griffith has a plan. In Electrify, Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint—optimistic but feasible—for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. Griffith's plan can be summed up simply: electrify everything. He explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households to make this possible. Billionaires may contemplate escaping our worn-out planet on a private rocket ship to Mars, but the rest of us, Griffith says, will stay and fight for the future.

Griffith, an engineer and inventor, calls for grid neutrality, ensuring that households, businesses, and utilities operate as equals; we will have to rewrite regulations that were created for a fossil-fueled world, mobilize industry as we did in World War II, and offer low-interest “climate loans.” Griffith's plan doesn't rely on big, not-yet-invented innovations, but on thousands of little inventions and cost reductions. We can still have our cars and our houses—but the cars will be electric and solar panels will cover our roofs. For a world trying to bounce back from a pandemic and economic crisis, there is no other project that would create as many jobs—up to 25 million, according to one economic analysis. Is this politically possible? We can change politics along with everything else.

About the Author

Saul Griffith is the founder and chief scientist of Rewiring America. An inventor, entrepreneur, and MacArthur “genius” fellow, both Saul and Rewiring America are on a mission to electrify everything in order to fight climate change, create jobs, save households money on their energy bills, and enjoy zippier cars, cleaner air, and more modern appliances. In Electrify, Saul explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households to make this possible. To dig in to more details about Rewiring America’s plans to electrify everything, please see our research reports on households, jobs, the one billion machines we need to replace, and the policies we need to make it all happen in time to save planet Earth.

Contact the Author

For speaking engagements and any other inquiries for Saul Griffith, please contact Wes Neff, President of Leigh Bureau.