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and wind from quirky backyard DIY projects 5
to cutting-edge technology. Batteries had
plummeted down the same cost curve as
renewable energy, so the fact that the sun went Bill McKibben
down at night no longer mattered quite so
much — you could store its rays to use later.
And the third realization? People began 5
to understand that the biggest reason we
weren’t making full, fast use of these new
technologies was the political power of the
fossil-fuel industry. Investigative journalists had
exposed its three-decade campaign of denial
and disinformation, and attorneys general and
plaintiffs’ lawyers were beginning to pick them
apart. And just in time.
These trends first intersected powerfully on
Election Day in 2020. The Halloween hurricane
that crashed into the Gulf didn’t just take
hundreds of lives and thousands of homes; it
Greta Thunberg, shown here at age 16, has revealed a political seam that had begun to show
profoundly influenced the climate-change up in polling data a year or two before. Of all the
conversation. In this issue, Time magazine issues that made suburban Americans — women
credits Thunberg with “transforming millions especially — uneasy about President Trump, his
of vague, middle-of-the-night anxieties into a
worldwide movement calling for urgent change.” stance on climate change was near the top. What
Why has Greta’s voice commanded the had seemed a modest lead for the Democratic
world’s attention? What aspects of this challenger widened during the last week of the
cover help explain why McKibben referred campaign as damage reports from Louisiana and
to her age group as “the Greta Generation”? Mississippi rolled in; on election night it turned
into a rout, and the analysts insisted that an
One, we weren’t getting out of this under appreciated “green vote” had played a vital
unscathed. Climate change, even in its early part — after all, actual green parties in Canada,
stages, had begun to hurt: watching a California the U.K. and much of continental Europe were
city literally called Paradise turn into hell inside also outperforming expectations. Young voters
of two hours made it clear that all Americans were turning out in record numbers: the Greta
1
were at risk. When you breathe wildfire smoke Generation, as punsters were calling them,
half the summer in your Silicon Valley fortress, made climate change their No. 1 issue.
or struggle to find insurance for your Florida And when the new President took the oath
beach house, doubt creeps in even for those who of office, she didn’t disappoint. In her Inaugural
imagined they were immune. Address, she pledged to immediately put
Two, there were actually some solutions. By
2020, renewable energy was the cheapest way
to generate electricity around the planet — in 1 A reference to Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (b.
2003). She started an international movement addressing the
fact, the cheapest way there ever had been.
seriousness of climate change when she began skipping school
The engineers had done their job, taking sun to protest outside the Swedish Parliament in 2018. — Eds.
63
Copyright © 2021 by Bedford, Freeman & Worth High School Publishers. Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample chapter.
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