{"id":4845,"date":"2025-09-09T10:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T10:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/4845\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T10:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T10:53:07","slug":"solnit-calls-the-renewable-energy-revolution-nothing-less-than-astonishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/4845\/","title":{"rendered":"Solnit Calls The Renewable Energy Revolution “Nothing Less Than Astonishing”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In an editorial<\/a> in the Guardian, writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit rises above the fray and reminds us how renewables are now adequate to meet almost all our energy needs. The renewable energy transition is happening all around us, and \u201cit is nothing less than astonishing and unbelievable that we have achieved so much progress in so little time,\u201d she states. No, it\u2019s not nearly fast enough, she acknowledges, \u201cbut the key thing to saving the planet is whittling down the fossil fuel industry and use of fossil fuels to almost nothing by making the energy transition to renewables and an electrified world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Solnit calls on advocates of all kinds to illustrate the power and place of renewables in everyday life, as making them more visible would make more people more enthused about them \u201cas a solution, a promise, a possibility we can, should, must pursue swiftly and wholeheartedly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new and productive turn to renewables \u201cis underway. And, arguably, unstoppable.\u201d Renewables are now adequate to meet almost all our needs, and \u201cit\u2019s just a better way to do everything.\u201d She describes a world ahead in which fossil fuels are identified widely \u201cas the main driver of climate chaos. And wasteful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Solnit\"<\/a>Solnit photograph credit: Adrian Mendoza<\/p>\n

I first came across Solnit with her post-2009 financial crisis analysis, Hope in the Dark<\/a> (a new 2020 edition has been published). In it, Solnit reminds us that \u201cto recognize the momentousness of what has happened is to apprehend what might happen.\u201d She speaks about \u201can entirely different sort of hope or faith: that you possess the power to change the world to some degree, that the current state of affairs is not inevitable, that all trajectories are not downhill.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are words to live by during the tumultuous times of the authoritarian Trump administration.<\/p>\n

She describes a different approach to activism that can generate hope \u201cbecause in itself it constitutes an alternative and turns away from the corruption at the center to face the wild possibilities and the heroes at the edges or at your side.\u201d Even if actively undermined by the Trump administration and many fossil fuel corporations and US states, Solnit says, we know exactly how to move away from fossil fuels. \u201cThe solution is a mosaic of many changes,\u201d with the most pressing obstacles facing us coming from the political sector.<\/p>\n

Solnit<\/a> recently launched the climate project Not Too Late<\/a>. She wants to invite newcomers to the climate movement, as well as to provide climate facts and encouragement for people who are \u201calready engaged but weary.\u201d Solnit insists we don\u2019t have to wait \u201choping for national politicians to act.\u201d Moreover, she reminds us that many of our challenging emotions about climate emerge \u201cfrom commonly held frameworks about how change works, where power resides, and what possibility looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are still important choices to make about climate, a Not Too Late guide to advocacy<\/a> outlines. \u201cBig public protests remind politicians and the media what the public cares about and ramp up the pressure for climate action,\u201d the guide outlines. This works because, as we see other people care about renewables, we become strengthened.<\/p>\n

What a Difference Two Decades can Make<\/p>\n

Solnit offers a bit of a review of the earliest years of renewable energy.<\/p>\n

First, she notes how solar panels and wind turbines were \u201cexpensive, primitive, utterly inadequate solutions to power our machines at scale.\u201d The result of that thin renewable energy veneer was for climate activists to focus on minimizing consumption. \u201cIt helped power the fossil fuel industry\u2019s weaponization of climate footprints,\u201d she reflects, which made \u201cpeople think personal virtue in whittling down our consumption was the key thing.\u201d Limiting our use of resources was warranted, yet it was not then the consummate answer to the climate crisis \u2014 fossil fuels were and continue to be.<\/p>\n

Next, because the renewable energy transition entered the mainstream slowly and in technical ways, many people seemed not to notice its impact as one decade turned into another. And, when they did notice, they saw before them \u201can era of austerity and renunciation.\u201d That was an error that made people conclude \u201cwe had no real alternative to burning fossil fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, another renewable energy \u201changover\u201d that Solnit describes from early in the millennium is the idea that renewables were expensive. \u201cThey were. They\u2019re not anymore,\u201d she says. Sure, building new systems<\/a> cost money, but solar power is now the most inexpensive method to produce electricity in most of the world, \u201cand there\u2019s no sign that the plummet in costs is stopping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Renewables Surge Ahead \u2014 Yet Need More Visibility in Everyday Life<\/p>\n

Renewables, the author of the 2025 No Straight Road Takes You There<\/a>\u00a0repeats, are an \u201castonishing\u201d and \u201cpowerful solution to the climate crisis.\u201d The \u201cdepredations of the fossil fuel industry and for-profit utilities\u201d need to become pass\u00e9 as clean energy takes center stage. The old system of fossil fuels \u2014 \u201cdirty, toxic to human health and the environment \u2013 and our politics\u201d will succumb to a quickly changing energy culture<\/a>. \u201cBurning is going to look like a primitive way to operate machines,\u201d she envisions.<\/p>\n

The new energy system grounded in renewables is, oh, so much cleaner. The ubiquitous nature of sun and wind \u201cmeans that the corrosive politics of producer nations and their manipulations of dependent consumer nations\u201d could become a fleeting memory for generations to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking it more visible would make more people more enthused about it as a solution, a promise, a possibility we can, should, must pursue swiftly and wholeheartedly,\u201d Solnit explains. Here are some of the ways she suggests we go about enhancing the transparency of renewable energy \u2014 \u201cto get people to recognize that is what\u2019s on offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wind and sun are free and inexhaustible. Free energy!
\nDevices are needed to collect the energy and transform the wind and sun into electricity.
\nTransmission lines to distribute it must be expanded.
\nRenewables mean energy independence.
\nIf done right, we could build cooperatives, local, hyperlocal, or just autonomous individual energy systems.
\nWe\u2019d undermine predatory for-profit utilities companies as well as the fossil fuel industry.
\nRenewable energy could be energy justice and energy democracy, as well as clean energy.<\/p>\n

We have a tangible grasp<\/a> of renewables, Solnit concludes, and so we have a message to disseminate to everyone who\u2019s sick and tired of pricey utilities, polluting corporations, and political subterfuge. Now that there is an alternative to fossil fuels, there\u2019s a more common \u201cadmission that fossil fuel is a wasteful and poisonous way to produce energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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