Look carefully - it's a solar panel.
Cliff has turned his van into a completely electric vehicle which is one step ahead of most electric vehicles, in fact, in that it could run entirely without electricity generated by burning coal.
How cool is that?! But, no surprise... Cliff is cool. He is an Alumni for the building project, is actively working on his Basics, and rode his bike over 80 miles last year during our "bike-a-thon" fundraiser.
In Handbook for Preclears, Ron says that "self-confidence alone is security." When viewed against the current world scene, this suddenly becomes very important. In Cliff's case, he had enough self-confidence to overcome any concern about high gas prices and pollution of the atmosphere by building his own solar-powered vehicle. Isn't it true that with enough self-confidence and knowledge, we all might be capable of inventing creative solutions to overcome the problems which confront mankind as a whole?
James Schall said in his book, The Order of Things, "The real energy or source of wealth is not, in the end, something finite like coal or oil supplies, but rather, the knowledge of how to use such resources... The ultimate energy, in other words, is the human mind and its capacity to apply what it knows. In this sense, the human race is not confronted with a resources problem, but a mind problem."
This is the essence of why we must continue to get our technology into use. It is why we must complete our building project as quickly as we can. All of the many difficulties that face humanity are "mind problems." I don't know what form the ultimate solutions to world hunger, global warming, crime or illiteracy will take. It would be easy to become overwhelmed by the enormity of each of these problems. However, I do know that if we can increase the self-confidence and knowledge of enough individual people, we will help them to discover and implement solutions to each - reason enough to continue, don't you think?
