here comes the sun: solar power for all=poetic justice

 

Greetings, Poetry People! I'm here today just to wish you an even-keeled Autumn Equinox for Sunday, and to point you to some really good news on the climate front--if we can keep it! Bill McKibben started out as a journalist, writing what some call the first general-audience book on climate change in 1989 [THE END OF NATURE]. Many years, many movements and many books on, his new book, HERE COMES THE SUN, highlights a crucial moment. 

"The clean energy revolution is here. Solar, wind and batteries are now the cheapest form of power on the planet. Solar is no longer the Whole Foods of energy—alternative, fringe, nice but pricey. Instead, solar is the Costco of energy—cheap, available in bulk, on the shelf, and ready to go. And anyone can have it, because no one owns the Sun.

"Here Comes the Sun tells the story of the sudden spike in power from the sun and wind. From the everyday citizens who installed solar panels equal to a third of Pakistan’s electric grid in a year to the world’s sixth-largest economy—California—nearly halving its use of natural gas in the last two years, Bill McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy. And he shows how solar power is more than just a path out of the climate crisis: it is a chance to reorder the world on saner and more humane grounds.

There’s no guarantee we can make this change in time, but there is a hope—in McKibben’s eyes, our best hope for a new civilization: one that looks up to the sun, every day, as the star that fuels our world."

Here's an example of how relatively cheap solar panels can lead to energy independence for individuals, localities and nations that don't have their own relatively rare supply of fossil fuels.  In Germany it is both easy to go to your neighborhood Home Depot equivalent and purchase a balcony solar panel that plugs directly into your ordinary socket and feeds microinverted energy into your home's circuit!(Video here.) But guess what? Balcony solar is literally illegal in every US state except Utah.  Why?

Because fossil fuel billionaires like the Koch Brothers and Vladimir Putin do not WANT your average Josephine to enjoy free sun energy. They want us to BUY our power from them. Breaking free from this energy dependence is an opportunity to shift the balance of power based on wealth all across the planet.*

So get out there and USE solar wherever you can, to increase the demand, and advocate for easier solar access in your area or state. We can't wait for market forces to make solar the no-brainer default; we don't have time.

Use this link to look for a SUN DAY event near you this Sunday. And now, gear up to support a just transition to clean energy, and enjoy a couple of sunny poems!

Summer Sun | Robert Louis Stevenson

Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven without repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad,
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles,
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.

• 
  

For the Children | Gary Snyder

The rising hills, the slopes, of statistics lie before us, the steep climb of everything, going up, up, as we all go down.

In the next century

or the one beyond that,

they say,

are valleys, pastures,

we can meet there in peace

if we make it.

To climb these coming crests one word to you, to you and your children:

stay together learn the flowers go light

Thanks to Jama for hosting today at Jama's Alphabet Soup, on the 18th anniversary of her blog!! That's a big deal. 

*There is, of course, some reckoning to do with the conditions that allow China to be the world's largest producer of solar panels. How DO they crank out, every 8 hours, enough solar panels to match the energy output of an entire coalfire plant? It probably involves labor violations. There's hope,  but there's work to do, too.