For today’s episode, I’m excited to share a talk from renowned environmentalist and author Bill McKibben. On Tuesday this week, McKibben visited Boulder, CO to discuss current trends in renewable energy adoption as well as his new book, Here Comes the Sun, about the rise of solar and wind energy.

Personally, I was not familiar with McKibben’s work before the presentation, which is probably why I was so moved by his erudition on the topic. As someone who has been writing about these issues since the 80’s, McKibben has a remarkable ability to contextualize geopolitics and energy trends to paint a picture of where the country - and the rest of the globe, is headed. For me, the talk both affirmed some of my biggest fears regarding the Trump administration’s aggressive attack on renewable energy projects and research, while also providing a great deal of hope in terms of global renewable energy adoption, innovations, and the potential impact of grassroots campaigns.

In this talk, Bill covers

• The acceleration of global solar energy development and installations,

• China’s recent, exponential scaling of solar deployment and its impacts,

• Comparisons between the environmental impact of fossil fuels vs. renewables,

• How oil execs and the Trump administration are irredeemably setting the U.S. back on energy policy and climate change,

• The Vatican becoming the first country in the world to go 100% renewable,

• And why every tenth of degree in global warming attenuation is critical.

In this incredibly strange and frightening moment, where the president of the United States has stood in front of the rest of world at the UN assembly, calling climate change a “hoax” when the past ten years are the hottest on record, when natural disasters are happening with increased frequency and intensity across the globe, and when the scientific consensus overwhelmingly supports anthropogenic climate change, it has never been more important to educate ourselves and resolutely move in the direction of the future that we want to create. McKibben is a beacon of hope in these dark times, inspiring us to move towards the light through resilience and collective action in the face of a government abandoning our right to a future.

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Purchase Here Comes the Sun from a locally-owned bookstore near you.

Thank you to Martin Voelker, Chair of the Jefferson County chapter of the Colorado Renewable Energy Society, for allowing me to share his recording of the event, to Boulder Bookstore for organizing the talk, and Unity Center Boulder for hosting the event.

The music for this podcast is Siesta by Ikson, part of the “Tell Your Story” project—a library of free music for content creators. Visit ikson.com to explore the full catalog.