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Our Last, Best Chance to Cool the Earth | Bill McKibben | TED
Our Last, Best Chance to Cool the Earth | Bill McKibben | TED
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0:04
The Earth is producing about a third
0:07
more power from the Sun this spring than
0:10
last.
0:11
That solar power is suddenly so cheap
0:14
and abundant that Australians will soon
0:17
get 3 hours of electricity free every
0:20
afternoon. Free.
0:22
After 400,000 years of working hard for
0:25
energy from gathering firewood to paying
0:28
the power bill, some humans will
0:31
suddenly have access to this commodity
0:34
for nothing.
0:35
California, fourth largest economy in
0:38
the world, now produces most days more
0:42
than 100% of its electricity from
0:44
renewable energy at night. When the Sun
0:47
goes down, big new batteries on the grid
0:51
turn dark into daylight. In Pakistan,
0:55
peasant farmers who used to pay through
0:57
the nose for diesel power to run their
1:01
irrigation pumps are using 30% less of
1:05
the fuel than they were 2 years ago.
1:08
In large part because they've imported
1:10
millions of cheap Chinese solar panels
1:13
and gone on YouTube to figure out how to
1:15
connect them up. They often lack the
1:19
money to build the
1:21
steel scaffolding we're used to seeing
1:23
at solar farms. No matter, they just lay
1:26
them on the ground and point them at the
1:28
Sun.
1:30
In a world where many, many big things
1:33
have taken a very dark turn this decade,
1:36
this is the one big thing that is going
1:40
right. We have quite suddenly the
1:42
opportunity to build a clean, abundant
1:45
future if we simply seize it, but most
1:48
of us don't recognize how huge this
1:51
moment is.
1:52
In part, that's because we've spent
1:54
decades calling this stuff alternative
1:57
energy and it's blinded us to the fact
2:00
that it's now the obvious common sense
2:03
straightforward way to power the future.
2:07
Roughly 90% of new electric generation
2:10
around the world last year came from the
2:12
sun and the wind and that in turn is
2:15
because earlier this decade we crossed
2:18
some invisible line where it became
2:20
cheaper to produce power from the sun
2:23
than from burning coal and gas and oil.
2:26
Let me repeat, we live on a planet where
2:29
the cheapest way to make power is to
2:32
point a sheet of glass at the sun.
2:36
>> [applause]
2:39
>> If we can keep the staggering growth of
2:42
the last 36 months going, then we could
2:45
enter an extraordinary new age.
2:47
Consider,
2:48
8 or 9 million people a year die from
2:51
breathing the combustion byproducts of
2:53
fossil fuel. That's one death in five on
2:56
this planet.
2:57
But the Chinese cities whose air was so
3:00
foul a few years ago that you couldn't
3:02
see across the street are suddenly much
3:05
cleaner. Most of the cars sold there now
3:07
come with a plug and it connects them to
3:10
the vast solar and wind farms that the
3:12
Chinese are building faster than anyone
3:15
on Earth.
3:16
More fundamentally, this energy
3:18
transition is our only real chance of
3:21
even starting to catch up with the
3:23
physics of climate change. It's too late
3:26
to stop global warming.
3:29
But it's not too late to shave tenths of
3:31
a degree off how hot the planet
3:33
eventually gets and each tenth of a
3:36
degree that we raise the temperature
3:38
moves a hundred million of our brothers
3:40
and sisters out of a safe climate zone
3:43
and into a more perilous one.
3:46
This new age would come with one other
3:48
great bonus.
3:49
Unlike fossil fuels, which are
3:51
concentrated in a few places, the sun's
3:54
energy is available everywhere. Instead
3:57
of, say, attacking Venezuela to secure
4:00
its oil or threatening to cut off
4:02
Europe's gas supply to force the
4:04
subjugation of Ukraine, we get to
4:07
imagine a world where hydrocarbons no
4:09
longer equal wealth and power. Imagine
4:13
how many fewer wars and coups and
4:15
terrorist plots we would have seen in
4:18
the last century of oil and been of
4:20
trivial value.
4:22
As this spring has reminded us, humans
4:24
are all too good at starting wars, but
4:27
even for us, figuring out how to fight
4:30
one over sunshine will be tricky.
4:33
Sunlight travels 93 million miles to
4:37
reach the Earth, but none of those miles
4:39
go through the Strait of Hormuz.
4:43
>> [applause]
4:48
>> So, what good news.
4:50
Unless, of course, you own an oil well
4:53
or a coal mine.
4:55
Then the rise of clean energy becomes an
4:57
extraordinary threat, one that mobilizes
5:00
you to fight back. In the US, for
5:02
instance, candidate Trump told the oil
5:05
industry that if they donated huge sums,
5:07
he would have their back. In his first
5:09
year in office, he shut down huge wind
5:12
farms off the Eastern Seaboard, killed
5:14
solar farms across the country.
5:17
Now,
5:18
Trump can't stop clean energy
5:21
single-handedly. It's not like he's
5:23
Jesus or something.
5:25
Um
5:27
It It Indeed,
5:30
indeed, the economics are so favorable
5:33
that even in the US, most new electric
5:35
generation last year came from the sun
5:37
and the wind. And the biggest growth was
5:40
in the state of Texas, the home ground
5:43
of big oil.
5:45
But Trump and Russia and Saudi Arabia,
5:47
and a handful of other world powers may
5:50
be able to slow that shift. America's
5:53
Secretary of Energy, against all global
5:56
evidence, has said there's no climate
5:58
crisis and we're not in the middle of an
6:00
energy transition, either.
6:02
So, he's been subsidizing coal instead
6:05
of embracing the clean energy that would
6:08
say, "Let us build any data centers we
6:11
actually needed quickly and cheaply." As
6:14
the Chinese have amply demonstrated,
6:16
solar fields can sprout in a matter of
6:19
weeks.
6:20
America's effort to delay this
6:22
transition is not just economically
6:25
stupid, it also endangers the last best
6:28
hope of cooling this Earth. Sure, in 40
6:31
years we will run the planet on sun and
6:33
wind because it's cheap, but if it takes
6:35
us anything like 40 years to get there,
6:38
then the planet we run on sun and wind
6:40
will be a broken planet.
6:42
So, those of us who hope for a different
6:44
future need to fight for it, and with
6:47
the cheap solar panel we finally have a
6:49
real weapon in that struggle. We need to
6:52
push in every country and at every level
6:54
of government for a faster move toward
6:57
cheap, clean power.
6:59
We started Sunday in the US last year on
7:02
the autumnal equinox. Across the nation,
7:05
500 events from solar-powered concerts
7:08
to the installation of solar panels on
7:10
Habitat for Humanity homes helped spread
7:13
this new energy gospel. We'll do it
7:16
again on the summer solstice in 2027,
7:20
and this time we will do it globally.
7:23
Days like this help us build the
7:25
political power we need to push these
7:29
things ahead.
7:30
Americans, for instance, right now pay
7:33
three times what Europeans or
7:35
Australians pay for solar power, mostly
7:39
because of unnecessary bureaucracy at
7:41
the state and local level. So, free the
7:44
rooftop is a cry that appeals to
7:46
conservatives as much as liberals. Utah
7:49
became the first American state last
7:51
year to legalize small-scale plug-in
7:54
solar, opening the door for the kind of
7:56
simple installations that have sprouted
7:58
on the balconies of millions of European
8:01
apartments in the last 3 years.
8:03
Maine and Virginia joined Utah last
8:05
week.
8:07
So, yeah, as we push ahead with this
8:09
work, we need to talk about its
8:11
scientific necessity and its economic
8:13
pragmatism, but we have one other ace to
8:17
play, and that's the sheer beauty of
8:20
power from the sun. We have a deep human
8:23
connection to our local star.
8:25
We don't
8:27
know for sure how prehistoric people
8:29
thought about things because being
8:31
prehistoric, they failed to write it
8:33
down, but we do know that every pile of
8:36
rocks they left behind, like Stonehenge,
8:38
seems to point to the equinox or the
8:41
solstice.
8:43
Do you not break into an involuntary
8:45
grin when the sun comes out from behind
8:48
a cloud and hits you on the shoulder
8:50
blades? If you don't get enough sun, you
8:53
literally get can get sad, seasonal
8:56
affective disorder.
8:58
So, the mantra for this moment is clear.
9:02
Energy from heaven, not from hell.
9:06
And
9:06
>> [applause]
9:11
[applause]
9:12
>> And with that slogan, what a
9:14
breakthrough moment this could be. I
9:16
mean, humans have been burning things
9:19
since the dawn of time. Uh Darwin said
9:21
language and fire were the two things
9:23
that set our species apart. And fire was
9:26
mostly good. We learned to cook, which
9:28
gave us the big brain. We could move
9:30
north and south from the equator. The
9:32
anthropologists even think that eons of
9:35
standing around the campfire every night
9:37
help explain some of the social bonds
9:40
that mark our species. Think of it as a
9:42
sort of primitive TED Talk. Uh
9:45
when we learned to control the
9:47
combustion of coal and oil and gas, that
9:50
was the Industrial Revolution and it
9:52
gave us modernity.
9:54
But now the cost of those fires has
9:57
simply grown too high. The very future
10:01
of the climate on which we depend is
10:03
being overwhelmed by their smoke. So,
10:06
what sweet relief that in this exact
10:09
moment we can, if we want, put out those
10:12
fires. The big ones in our power plants,
10:14
the smaller ones in our furnaces and
10:17
under the hoods of our cars.
10:19
The sun already gives us light and
10:22
warmth and via photosynthesis our
10:25
supper. Now it is willing to provide us
10:28
with all the power we could ever need.
10:31
This gift has come at the last possible
10:34
moment. It would be an extraordinary sin
10:37
to waste it and it would be a beautiful
10:41
beautiful project for humans to build it
10:44
out across our hot and tired Earth in
10:48
the next few years.
10:50
In advance of your participation in that
10:53
fight,
10:54
let me just say thank you.
10:58
>> [applause]
11:03
>> Woo!
11:04
>> [applause]
