HERE COMES THE SUN

Communicating about climate change and environmental concerns presents unique challenges. First, these are huge and complex topics to summarize in easily digestible bites for most people who are naturally focused on more immediate day-to-day concerns. These issues can certainly grab folks’ attention when they or their loved ones’ livelihoods become threatened by disasters, but most of us usually have little time otherwise to be that well informed.   

Second, these issues have long taken on strong political overtones. Segments within our society very often have special priorities and opposing viewpoints. Proponents for various stances can raise apparent evidence that can be difficult for most people to understand and evaluate fairly. Viewers of news and commentary increasingly follow those media outlets that reflect their existing political predispositions. What we know is often based on memory of a limited number of certain media “talking points.”

Third, both climate change conditions and energy technologies are constantly changing. What seemed to be the case five years, three years, or even a year ago is not necessarily the reality today. Arguments made for and against various energy alternatives are being uprooted as newer technologies are maturing. That’s certainly one of the themes of Bill McKibben’s new book Here Comes the Sun (2025). McKibben might well be the world’s most noteworthy solar energy advocate.

McKibben highlights how dramatically experts underestimated solar growth. The International Energy Agency's 2009 prediction for 240 gigawatts (240,000,000,000 watts) of solar capacity by 2030 was reached by 2015 - fifteen years early. Only Greenpeace came close to accurate projections, and even their estimates proved conservative. It estimated in 2009 that we’d hit 921 total gigawatts by 2030. We were more than fifty per cent above that by 2023.

A dramatic transformation is occurring in energy markets. McKibben emphasizes that energy from the sun and wind is now the cheapest power on the planet, and it’s growing faster than any energy source in history. Beyond the climate and biodiversity appeals that McKibben and other environmentalists have long made, he presents numerous and compelling statistics of the practical economic reasoning now favoring much increased use of solar and wind energy.   

 The book's subtitle, A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization, captures the author’s dual message of urgency and hope, even in the face of climate change deniers holding current American legislative and executive sway. Despite his full acknowledgement of the severe consequences that will be unleashed by climate change, he believes that rapid action soon can prevent the more catastrophic outcomes.

The book explores the political, economic, and social barriers that have slowed renewables adoption and provides a roadmap for overcoming them. Solar and wind energy, according to McKibben, are not only what it will take to help remove us from the worst of environmental degradations. These alternatives have a chance to reorder our world on a saner and more humane basis. Solar and wind energy resources are less subject to cartel and corporate hoarding tendencies than fossil fuel resources.   

Current American energy policies are certainly not slowing renewable energy developments in the rest of the world. These controversial American energy policies, as well as tariff actions and threats, are triggering both security fears and cleaner energy economic opportunities elsewhere. Europe, particularly, is seeking to avoid geopolitical and financial risks from dependency on fossil fuel supplying countries like the USA and Russia.

The author reports that China currently installs more than half the world’s renewable energy and storage within its own borders, and it exports most of the solar panels and batteries used by the rest of the world. India and South America, also, are swiftly moving toward renewable energy production. Even petroleum cartel countries like Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Qatar are building vast fields of solar panels.  

Concerns about renewable energy storage costs seem to be much less than before. Technology development is continuing to improve the life and storage capacities of batteries and energy storage devices. Many once feared that we might run short of the minerals necessary for solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. With vast new sources for lithium, an essential ingredient of batteries, being discovered, costs of key minerals for renewables transition have decreased as demand has increased. Lithium and less expensive minerals that are being developed for energy storage devices can last for decades and then be recycled, while fossil fuels are immediately consumed and must be continually replaced through the costs and consequences of mining or drilling.

Here Comes the Sun provides a lot of statistics and additional arguments for cleaner energy advocates and those unsettled by recent American energy priorities. McKibben views solar and wind energy transition as more than a climate change imperative. It’s a force for economic revitalization and democratic renewal. Renewable energy options can help democratize energy production worldwide and reduce the power of fossil fuel corporations.