Here Comes the Sun
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Bill McKibben’s book, Here Comes the Sun, explores the world’s transition from burning fuel extracted from below the earth for energy, to gaining an unending source of energy from the sun and wind above. The combination of renewable energy production with battery storage has recently achieved a point where renewables are more efficient, far less damaging, and now even less expensive than fossil fuel energy.
McKibben writes:
“…we’re also potentially on the edge of one of those rare and enormous transformations in human history—something akin to the moment a few hundred years ago when we learned to burn coal and gas and oil, triggering the Industrial Revolution and hence modernity. But now, quite suddenly, we’re learning not to burn those fossil fuels, and to rely instead on the large ball of flaming gas that hangs 93 million miles distant in the sky. We’re on the verge of realizing that the sun, which already provides us light and warmth and photosynthesis, is also willing to provide us the power we need to run our lives. We are on the verge of turning to the heavens for energy instead of to hell.”
McKibben’s book was published in August 2025 so the information is current as of the Spring/ Summer 2025. In the colloquy we will discuss the information in his book and investigate the progress (or lack of progress) towards this important transition in the intervening year.
Judy McGeorge bought her first all electric car in April 2025. She has a solar array on her old farmhouse in Ellsworth Maine and has a lake house heated only with heat pumps powered by another solar array. She has no other expertise in the subject but was very heartened in October 2025 by reading Bill McKibben’s book, Here Comes the Sun. Judy is a member of the Colloquy Downeast Steering Committee and wants to explore McKibben’s book with others.
Syllabus/Reading
Participants should read McKibben’s, Here Comes the Sun, before starting the colloquy. In the four weeks of the colloquy we will follow McKibben’s structure which has an introduction and three sections. Participants will look for and share sources of information relevant to this topic. Links to these sources of information will be posted on the colloquy webpage. In the final session we will try to understand what progress has been made in the last year.
Session 1:
Here Comes the Sun – Introduction and Section One: “We could Do This”
Session 2:
Here Comes the Sun – Section Two: “There’s No Reason Not To Do This”
Sessions 3:
Here Comes the Sun – Section Three: “Let’s Do This !”
Session 4:
Where are we now, one year later ?
We will use this final session to share and discuss current developments found by participants which relate to this global energy transition project.
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