By Emily Engel
The sun came out on Sun Day 2025 at the Santa Barbara Public Library Plaza on September 21st.
Hundreds of residents, activists, and leaders came together to celebrate the potential of renewable energy to power the 21st century. As part of an international effort led by Bill McKibben, Santa Barbara joined cities from New York to Berlin to highlight renewable projects and progress while advocating for continued development and deployment.
Sun Day 2025 Santa Barbara was hosted by the Community Environmental Council, Sierra Club Santa Barbara/Ventura, the Society of Fearless Grandmothers, Clean Coalition, the City of Santa Barbara Sustainability & Resilience Department and Santa Barbara Clean Energy, and the Santa Barbara Public Library.
Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps kicked off an afternoon of panels highlighting successes and pointing community members to actions they can take now. UCSB Professor and activist Leah Stokes spoke at the event saying, “The amazing thing about Sun Day is that it is about saying yes to the technologies we need. Our movement has often been about saying no because there has been really bad stuff to say no to, but now we are blessed to have the technologies that we need to make a difference whether that’s solar energy, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, and we can’t forget electric bikes. We can act in our own homes and communities.”
Sun Day was a beautiful celebration and an inspiration to us all to keep going in the work toward expanding renewable energy production across our communities and state.