Here Comes the Sun
A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization.
From the acclaimed environmentalist, a call to harness the power of the sun and rewrite our scientific, economic, and political future.
Our climate, and our democracy, are melting down. But Bill McKibben, one of the first to sound the alarm about the climate crisis, insists the moment is also full of possibility. Energy from the sun and wind is suddenly the cheapest power on the planet and growing faster than any energy source in history—if we can keep accelerating the pace, we have a chance.
Here Comes the Sun tells the story of the sudden spike in power from the sun and wind—and the desperate fight of the fossil fuel industry and their politicians to hold this new power at bay. From the everyday citizens who installed solar panels equal to a third of Pakistan’s electric grid in a year to the world’s sixth-largest economy—California—nearly halving its use of natural gas in the last two years, Bill McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy. And he shows how solar power is more than just a path out of the climate crisis: it is a chance to reorder the world on saner and more humane grounds. You can’t hoard solar energy or hold it in reserves—it’s available to all.
There’s no guarantee we can make this change in time, but there is a hope—in McKibben’s eyes, our best hope for a new civilization: one that looks up to the sun, every day, as the star that fuels our world.
Every eighteen hours, the world puts up a nuclear power plant’s-worth of solar panels. At the same time, combustion continues to melt the poles, poison our bodies and drive global inequality. It is no longer necessary: For the first time in 700,000 years, we know how to catch the sun’s rays and convert them into energy.
In Here Comes the Sun, Bill McKibben tells the story of the spike in power from the sun and wind. McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy, which, if it accelerates, gives us a chance not just to limit climate change’s damage but to reorder the world. Getting there means overcoming obstacles like Big Oil, but McKibben sees a chance for a new civilisation that looks to the sun as the star that fuels our world.
