An energy revolution is underway in this century, though most people have not noticed itI know progressives are supposed to be technophobes, but there is one technology we probably love more than anyone else (except the engineers who created it): renewable energy. It is nothing less than astonishing and unbelievable that we have achieved so much progress in so little time.At the turn of the century, sun and wind in the form of solar panels and wind turbines were expensive, primitive, utterly inadequate solutions to power our machines at scale, which is why early climate activism focused a lot on minimizing consumption on the assumption we had no real alternative to burning fossil fuels, but maybe we could burn less. This era did all too well in convincing people that if we did what the climate needs of us, we would be entering an era of austerity and renunciation, and it helped power the fossil fuel industry’s weaponization of climate footprints to make people think personal virtue in whittling down our consumption was the key thing.Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of No Straight Road Takes You There and Orwell’s Roses Continue reading...