Join Sierra Club and Third Act at our Sun Day rally on Sunday, Septemer 21. Houston's event will be one of a hundred events across the nation. It will be at 2pm, at Christ the King Lutheran Church, 2353 Rice Blvd, near Rice University Stadium.
Bill McKibben, the founder of Sun Day, will speak in Houston on September 11 hosted by the Progressive Forum. Bill will talk about his new book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization. Bill is also a founder of Third Act, elders for climate and democracy.
“Paradigm shifts like this don't come along very often: the Industrial Revolution, the computer revolution. But, when they do, they change the world in profound and unpredictable ways.” wrote Bill McKibben in the New Yorker.
Not long ago, solar and wind were expensive. But prices fell so fast that now renewables dominate new power plant construction. Solar installations are doubling every three years. We can hope to end the climate crisis.
By April 2025, for the first time ever, clean technologies were producing more than half of American electricity. In 2024 California used 25 percent less natural gas to produce its power than it had in 2023. In 2025, that rose to 44% less gas.
In Pakistan, homeowners and storekeepers installed huge amounts of rooftop solar. Peasant farmers, often just laying the panels on the ground, started pumping their irrigation water with electricity instead of generators powered with fossil fuels. Diesel sales dropped 30 percent in the course of a year.
With clean energy, by 2050 we'll enjoy twice as much GDP with a fraction of the emissions says Rocky Mountain Institute. The graph below is from RMI's CleanTech Revolution, a free download.
The graph above shows efficiency as a huge part of our future prosperity. Fossil fuels waste two thirds of their energy. Energy is wasted in shipping it to be refined. Then more is wasted when it is burned. In a car, a third of gasoline's energy is lost as heat.
The sun shines everywhere so solar energy production is distributed instead of centralized in places like Texas. Solar panels are simpler than refineries so there's no need for mammoth corporations to produce energy. Solar liberates us from the oily oligarchs. McKibben says "Even humans will have a hard time figuring out how to fight a war over sunshine."
For more information, contact Nan Hildreth 832-244-7814 or Carol Woronow cworonow@gmail.com