The best way to stop an oil gush? Keep it in the ground. If you think that's impractical, or that it means shivering in the dark, or millions of people without energy, or millions of people without jobs, you'd be forgiven for thinking that. It's the line that we've all been fed by Big Oil and King Coal. It's wrong on all counts.

Greenpeace teamed up with more than 30 scientists and engineers from universities, institutes and the renewable energy industry to create our Energy [R]evolution Scenario. Using only existing technologies, it charts a course by which we can get from where we are now, to where we need to be: decreasing CO2 emissions after 2015; 95% renewable electricity by 2050; a phase out of nuclear power; 12 million jobs by 2030, with a third more jobs in the global power supply sector than in a business as usual scenario. The scenario respects natural limits, decouples growth from fossil fuel use, and proposes an investment system in which costs are shared fairly under a global climate regime. It also means finally providing energy to the two billion people currently without reliable access to energy services.

Why a [R]evolution? It's an evolution, AND a revolution. (And yes, electronics geeks, that’s the symbol for [r]esistance there as well.)

We need a [r]evolution because business as usual is not going to stop the tens of thousands of barrels of crude oil spilling into our waters, scores of workers losing their lives to accidents in coal mines around the world, or the countless other disasters we are all facing due to our reliance on dirty energy.
Jobs

The Energy [R]evolution scenario outlines how to create about 12 million jobs, with 8.5 million in the renewables sector alone, by 2030. If we continue under business as usual, global renewable power jobs would be only 2.4 million of the global power sector’s 8.7 million jobs. By implementing the Energy [R]evolution 3.2 million or over 33% more jobs globally will be created in the power sector alone. If that isn’t enough to convince you consider this - the overall annual market for renewable technology will increase from around US$100 billion today, to more than US$600 billion by 2030.