Here Comes the Sun

Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization by Bill McKibben
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bill McKibben spoke about this book at the New Bedford Whaling Museum a couple months after it was published. I had been using another of his recent books (The Flag, The Cross, and the Station Wagon) in my introductory environmental class. Just a few minutes into his discussion, I decided that this was likely a better choice, and reading the book confirmed it.

Although he admitted that he would need to "bum you guys out" early in his talk, this book is mainly positive. Climate change and the ridiculous politics surrounding it in the United States are still dire threats, as he concedes. But in this book, he demonstrates that just as petroleum almost inevitably replaced whale oil, wind and solar technologies are now replacing fossil fuels. He makes the case that this will continue, whatever happens at the political level.

Of course, this does not mean we should be complacent: quite the contrary. Even though positive transformations are under way, our attention is still required. The harm of climate change is already underway and will continue, making the embrace of already-available technologies worthwhile.

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NOTE: I have published this review to my blog using a little HTML tool in Goodreads. I am doing this mainly because I recently noticed what seems to be a change on the Goodreads site. I used to be able to share links to my many reviews that anybody could read. Not the site seems to require viewers to login to see those reviews. It is not exactly a paywall, since accounts are free, but it is a hurdle that I'm hoping the site operators remove soon. Meanwhile, some of my reviews will show up on this or other blogs.