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Emergence of the Sharing Economy

Topics covered include the sharing economy, zero marginal cost and the three "internets" of the future that drive us towards a new economy. These are the information internet, the energy internet, and the internet of things.

Covered in this talk is Germany as the leading beacon of light for the energy transition to renewable energy and now being copied by China. What is not made clear by Rifkin is that this revolution, the solar revolution, was architected by Herman Scheer and is well documented in books like the Solar Economy that Scheer wrote based on is many years as a parliamentarian in Germany creating the economic levers that made this possible through the feed-in tariff system.

Critically, at the end, Rifkin makes a clear call for the critical need for rapid action without delay. He calls for the end of the fossil fuel companies in order to save the world from climate change destruction, and makes the case for a more resilient and fufilling economy based on renewable distributed energy. He also links this to energy democracy, so critical to real democracy, again a key concept developed by Herman Scheer, but who Rifkin does not reference nor acknowledge as he should.

Another important point made is that the 2008 financial collapse was a result and not a cause. The cause of the 2008 financial crisis was the price of a barrel of oil reaching $140 per barrel four months before the financial crash. Renewable energy is critical to preventing this kind of economic disruption in the future.