The 15th Monthly Dose of Climate Hope event took place on August 12, 2026! Sam Matey-Coste hosted an in-depth conversation with Bill McKibben, the legendary veteran climate activist, founder of Third Act, and writer of The Crucial Years! The YouTube recording is above! Below are a few recent highlights from Bill’s work.
“I can’t stress enough how quickly it has arrived.
In 2012 California generated about one percent of its electricity from solar power.
Last week we learned from the think tank Ember that in May it became the first large economy to generate more than half its power directly from the sun for an entire month….
This is among the most significant statistics the climate fight has yet produced.
In the fourth largest economy on earth, an extensive buildout of renewable energy has immediately and radically undercut the use of fossil fuels.
No other intervention in the last forty years has come even remotely close to this scale of decarbonization.”
“That charge long leveled at sun and wind—that they provide “intermittent power”—is probably truer now of other energy sources (including the natural gas that can get shut down if, say, a war breaks out in the Strait of Hormuz).
See the numbers on batteries above—I think it’s pretty clear that once you connect them to a solar or a wind farm you’ve got some of the world’s firmest power.”
“Sun and wind and batteries are not like oil—they are small, interchangeable pieces of infrastructure, easily subbed in. There aren’t chokepoints like refineries and tankers and terminals; there’s no cascading failure…
Once you can run cars and heat pumps and cooktops off the power those panels and turbines generate, then you’re far more protected against attack. If Vladimir Putin had an electrified Russia he would worry far less about Ukrainian drones. Of course, if the world ran on electricity Russia would never have built up the treasury required to act like a bellicose beast…
The peace dividend from sun and wind could be very real.”
“In a world where many, many, big things have taken a very dark turn this decade, this is the one big thing that is going right.
We have, quite suddenly, the opportunity to build a clean, abundant future if we simply seize it…
So the mantra for this moment is clear.
Energy from heaven, not from hell.”
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.