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Solar panels can eliminate the need for a buffer zone between the spaces we inhabit and the source of our energy.
The concept of Balkonkraftwerke is becoming increasingly popular also beyond Germany
In the 1970s, US President Carter endorsed the use of solar power as part of a comprehensive plan to strengthen national energy security
state of Vermont was axed because “the trees planted to screen the view would take ‘several years’ to grow and that wasn’t enough.” Yet for all the tangled rules and regulations, as well as the open hostility from one political party with regards to renewable energy, McKibben remains optimistic that although it may be too late to stop global warming, solar energy’s recent gains might be a final chance to “restart that civilization on saner ground.” A paperback edition of his book, due in August 2026, includes a new epilogue that provides an update on some of the fast-moving things that have happened with our planet in the year since the hardcover was released, which, given the recent geopolitical news and its earth- sized implications, is quite a bit. Of course, at the speed the climate is changing, solar energy’s time to enact its own change is razor thin. After all, in the Beatles song that the book takes its name from, George Harrison sings “I feel that ice is slowly melting.”
by the year 2000. He even installed solar panels on the White House roof. When his successor Ronald Reagan took office not long after, he slashed solar research and removed the panels; a senior administration official even said they were a “joke”. (The current incumbent is building a ballroom.) In the USA, politics from state to state can dictate how many hoops one must jump through to put solar panels on your own home. That’s why you see seemingly counterintuitive situations like the per capita solar PV being higher in tiny Rhode Island than in sun-rich Arizona. Of course, the political obtuseness runs in both directions. Deep red state Utah has one of the most streamlined regulations when it comes to installing balcony solar systems; and unlike most other places in the USA, the state’s residents do not need to get a utility company’s permission to install small- scale plug-and-play solar panels. On the other end of the political spectrum, McKibben writes about how a proposed 10-acre solar farm in his deep blue home
McKibben remains optimistic that although it may be too late to stop global warming, solar energy’s recent gains might be a final chance to “restart that civilization on saner ground.”
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