Bill McKibben on the Power That Could Save the Planet
The fight against climate change is at a crossroads.\n\nThis past year, the climate movement in the United States achieved significant success. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act represents the single largest investment in emissions reduction in U.S. history. More than a dozen states have taken some form of climate action in 2022 alone. Earlier this year, California \u2014 which, if it were a country, would have the fifth largest economy in the world \u2014 approved a record $54 billion in climate spending alongside sweeping new restrictions on fossil fuel development. These investments coincide with a wave of technological transformation: Over the past decade, the cost of solar energy has declined around 90 percent and that of onshore wind around 70 percent, making these energy sources economically competitive with fossil fuels for the first time.\n\n\u201cThe new numbers turn the economic logic we\u2019re used to upside down,\u201d writes the climate activist and journalist Bill McKibben. To him, the import of this moment is clear: For the first time, McKibben argues, humanity has at our fingertips the tools needed to end humanity\u2019s millenniums-long dependence on burning things for energy \u2014 and to save our climate in the process.\n\nTo those familiar with the climate movement, McKibben is a familiar name. His book \u201cThe End of Nature\u201d has been compared to Rachel Carson\u2019s \u201cSilent Spring\u201d in terms of its impact on the climate movement. He\u2019s founded organizations like Third Act and 350.org, the latter of which is among the largest climate activist organizations in the world today. He was a key leader in the fight to block the Keystone XL pipeline. And he currently writes the influential newsletter \u201cThe Crucial Years.\u201d Ask anyone in the climate movement today about their inspirations and McKibben will almost certainly top the list.\n\nBut in McKibben\u2019s telling, the climate movement\u2019s successes in getting us to this point actually require it to change. A movement founded on blocking bad things from happening now needs to turn to building at intensified speed; a movement that has long fought to preserve the natural world now has to help usher in a wholesale transformation of the global landscape; a movement that has long been critical of capitalism and economic growth now has to align itself with those forces in order to achieve its ends.\n\nThose shifts will require new tactics, new animating ideas, new motivations and new priorities \u2014 with the future of the climate hanging in the balance. So I wanted to have McKibben on the show to talk about this dawning era of the climate fight we\u2019re entering, and what changes the movement will have to make to meet this moment.\n\nMentioned:\n\n\u201cThe Single Best Guide to Decarbonization I\u2019ve Heard\u201d by The Ezra Klein Show\n\nBook Recommendations:\n\nNew York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson\n\nOrwell\u2019s Roses by Rebecca Solnit\n\nHow It Went by Wendell Berry\n\nThoughts? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. (And if you\u2019re reaching out to recommend a guest, please write \u201cGuest Suggestion\u201d in the subject line.)\n\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of \u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\u201d at\xa0nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at\xa0https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.