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3105 Redefining Americathe Inflation Reduction Act was a pot of money for electric car chargers and offshore wind turbines. It seemed as if some of our leaders were finally in the fight.But the third realization was the hardest. People began to understand that the biggest reason we weren%u2019t 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%u2019 lawyers were beginning to pick its harmful practices apart. But energy giants continued to expand their operations, fracking new gas fields and finding new export markets. Every time you looked at social media, you%u2019d stumble across ads from Big Oil explaining that their products were vital to the future%u2014and yes, we should move towards a clean energy world, but slowly.In other words, we were in a race. And at the time, we didn%u2019t know who would win.In the late fall of 2023, at the end of that hottest year, the world%u2019s nations gathered in the United Arab Emirates for the 28th annual U.N. Climate Change Conference, where scientists and activists finally forced governments to use the f-words. For the first time in all the years of negotiations, heads of state signed a paper saying that they would %u201ctransition away from fossil fuels.%u201d It wasn%u2019t a binding law, but it was a crucial statement. And it began to have an effect. Other countries started copying the American Inflation Reduction Act (spurred on not just by environmental concerns, but also because the Russian invasion of Ukraine had reminded them of the dangers of relying on anyone else for energy %u2014 the fact that fewnations had oil wells but all had sun and wind suddenly seemed more important).5As America%u2019s new leaders began trying to mend fences with other nations, climate action proved to be a crucial way to rebuild diplomatic trust. China and India had their own reasons for wanting swift action%u2014mostly, the fact that smog-choked cities and ever deadlier heat waves were undermining the stability of the ruling regimes. When Beijing announced that its Belt and Road Initiative would run on renewable energy, not coal, the energy future of much of Asia changed overnight. When India started providing financial incentives for electric vehicles, the future of the internal-combustion engine was largely sealed. Teslas continued to attract upscale Americans, but the real numbers came from lower-priced electric cars pouring out of Asian factories. That was enough to finally convince even Detroit that a seismic shift was under way: when the first generation of Ford E-150 pickups debuted, with ads demonstrating their unmatched torque by showing them towing a million-pound locomotive, only the most unreconstructed motorheads were still insisting on the superiority of gas-powered rides.At the tail end of 2023, the American government launched a Climate Corps, modeled on the Peace Corps, that put young people to work learning the skills this new society would need. Before long, many of those young people were figuring out that there were great lives to be made as, say, electricians%u2014the demand for their services just kept rising. While elections continued to be close, America did keep choosing presidents who told the truth about climate change. But that didn%u2019t mean Congress worked fast on the issue%u2014%u201cfast%u201d is a word that doesn%u2019t really apply to Capitol Hill or most of the world%u2019s other Congresses, Parliaments and Central Committees. It took constant demonstrations from ever larger groups like Extinction Rebellion, and led by young activists especially from the communities suffering the most, to ensure that politicians 10What are the three realizations McKibben imagines Americans having?11Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.