Strike Debt Bay Area Book Group: Here Comes the Sun, by Bill McKibben

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.

Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Our first book was  Doughnut Economics, and our most recent books were Pacific Circuit, A Paradise Built in Hell, What’s Left – 3 Paths Through the Planetary Crisis, The Age of Insecurity and Elinor Ostrom’s Rules for Radicals. For the rest of our reading list see here.