HUMANITY IS RAPIDLY EVOLVING into a solar-powered civilization – with China leading the way and the US making a u-turn to go backward 人類正快速邁向太陽能文明 – 中國引領潮流，美國卻逆轉倒退

Fully 95% of new generating capacity for planet Earth last year came from next-generation clean sources, says ‘Here Comes the Sun’ by Bill McKibben, a top U.S. climate science writer.

Yet his own country has moved into reverse, he warns. New US President Donald Trump “shut down windfarms off the coast of New England that were 80% complete, or put the kibosh on a huge solar farm in Nevada that by itself would have powered two million homes,” McKibben said in a recent interview.

‘VISIONARY’ REPORT: NEW SCIENTIST

McKibben’s new 224-page book is a rare scientific bright spot in a world of gloomy news. It shows how communities from Asia to Australia are racing to snap up efficient, inexpensive, next-generation clean-energy equipment, just at the moment when an energy crunch is hitting western countries, including his own.

The book, described as “visionary” by New Scientist, is filled with extraordinary facts and figures. But one of McKibben’s most astonishing stories is a little China-Pakistan tale he shared in a recent interview with Steve Curwood of Inside Climate Change (ICC).

“Pakistanis, mostly working by themselves, without government help, have put up so many solar panels in the last few years that the Pakistani government last month cancelled the delivery of 27 huge cargo-loads full of liquefied natural gas from Qatar,” McKibben said. “They had to pay a penalty, but it was cheaper to pay the penalty than to import this gas that they didn’t need any more because now they’ve got lots of solar panels.”

CIVILIZATIONAL CHANGE

The panels from China are so cheap and efficient that people living humbly in Pakistan are achieving what trendy Guardian-readers in the UK have tried to do for decades: they’ve found a way to instantly live off-grid with free energy for life.

If such tales were shared more widely, poor people in every country would do the same and growing global inequality could come to a halt. But that would require western energy companies to give up some of their power and western mainstream media to stop demonizing China: two unlikely events. The US fossil fuel industry is “doing everything they possibly can to stop that transition”, he adds.

This is nothing less than a civilizational change, McKibben argues. “Human beings for 700,000 years have worked hard to get energy for our lives, if it meant collecting firewood, if it meant paying your electric bill. Now you don’t have to do that any more, at least if you’re in a place that’s had the foresight to build the solar panels and the wind turbines.”

McKibben became famous in 1989 when he wrote a book, The End of Nature, which highlighted scientists’ predictions of dramatic weather changes and a steady rise in the global average temperature. Since then, his predictions proved true and most countries made such feeble attempts to support clean energy that any kind of clean energy revolution appeared to be doomed.

CHINESE ARE ‘BUILDING THE PYRAMIDS’

But then something changed. About three years ago, China started moving so far ahead in the clean energy transition that it began taking other countries with it.

He started hearing about people from places such as Pakistan and Australia getting free energy. The scale of the effort made McKibben, who is a journalist at heart, realize that this was a really important story that was not being told.

“All of a sudden there were stories coming in from around the world, especially, it must be said, China, which is providing the leadership here, and which is doing things on an almost inconceivable scale,” he said, in the Inside Climate News interview.

“In May, the Chinese were building three gigawatts of solar panels a day. A gigawatt is the rough equivalent of a big coal-fired power plant. They were putting up one of those out of solar panels every eight hours. This is like building the pyramids or something, the scale at which this is going on.”

BIG CRUNCH COMING

McKibben says that a big crunch is coming for his own country, the United States. The government is approving vast numbers of power-gobbling datacenters while cancelling solar and wind energy projects. “You don’t need to be a Nobel prize-winning economist to know that when you increase demand and decrease supply, prices are going to rise, and that’s exactly what’s happening,” he said.

He pictures what’s happening this way: Imagine the world’s shoppers going out to buy electricity in the same way they buy other essentials, like food or clothing. Someone suddenly opens a hypermarket where everything is affordable—of course, people will rush there. That’s what the new, easy availability of clean energy tech means. “This is the Costco of energy, man – cheap, available in bulk, on the shelf, ready to go,” he said.

LIGHT IN THE BLEAKNESS

Yet he remains somewhat bleak, acknowledging that a deadline has been missed. All we can do now is mitigate the problems.

“But as of the last three or four years, we finally have a tool, not at this point to STOP global warming – it’s too late for that – but perhaps to at least shave some tenths of a degree off how hot the planet gets,” he told ICC.

Yet ultimately, most governments have seen the benefits of the great energy transition. The finer points of climate change science will continue to be debated, but the key fact—that human society is evolving into a solar-powered civilization—remains a positive note for the future.

美國頂尖氣候科學作家比爾·麥吉本在《太陽能時代來臨》中指出，去年全球新增發電容量中高達95%來自新一代清潔能源。但他警告，自己的國家卻在開倒車。麥吉本近期受訪時表示，新任美國總統川普「叫停了已完成80%的新英格蘭海岸風電場項目，還扼殺了內華達州一個足以為200萬戶家庭供電的大型太陽能電站」。

《新科學家》雜誌評價這份224頁的新作是「具遠見卓識的報告」，為陰霾籠罩的世界帶來罕見的科學曙光。書中揭示，當西方國家正陷入能源危機之際，從亞洲到澳洲的社區正爭相搶購高效廉價的新一代清潔能源設備。這本被譽為「充滿非凡事實與數據」的著作中，最令人震撼的是一個關於中國和巴基斯坦的小故事。

麥吉本在氣候內幕新聞網訪談中透露：「過去幾年，巴基斯坦民眾主要依靠自力更生，在缺乏政府援助的情況下安裝了大量太陽能板，導致巴政府上月取消了從卡達進口的27艘液化天然氣巨輪訂單。他們雖支付了違約金，但比起進口不再需要的天然氣，賠償金反而更划算。」

這正是文明變革的縮影。來自中國的太陽能板如此廉價高效，使得巴基斯坦的普通民眾實現了英國《衛報》讀者數十年來追求的目標：找到了即刻脫離電網、終身享受免費能源的方式。麥吉本指出，若這類故事廣為傳播，各國貧困群體都可能效仿，全球日益加劇的不平等或將止步。

但這需要西方能源公司放棄部分權力，同時西方主流媒體停止妖魔化中國——這兩件事都難以實現。他補充說，美國化石燃料產業「正竭盡全力阻撓這場轉型」。麥吉本強調，這無異於一場文明變革：「七十萬年來人類始終為獲取能源辛勤勞作，無論是撿拾柴火還是支付電費。如今至少在那些有遠見建造太陽能板與風力渦輪機的地區，人們不必再如此奔波。」

1989年麥吉本憑藉《自然的終結》一書聲名鵲起，該著作警示了科學家預言的氣候劇變與全球均溫持續上升。此後他的預言逐一應驗，而多數國家對清潔能源的支持力度薄弱，使得任何能源革命看似註定失敗。

但轉機在約三年前出現。中國在清潔能源轉型中突飛猛進，並開始帶動其他國家共同發展。記者出身的麥吉本意識到，這個未被充分報導的故事極具重要性。他在訪談中說：「突然間全球各地湧現相關報導，尤其必須承認中國正發揮領導作用，以近乎難以想像的規模推進變革。今年五月，中國日均建造三千兆瓦太陽能板——相當於每八小時建成一座大型燃煤電站。這種如同修建金字塔的宏大規模令人震撼。」

麥吉本預警美國即將面臨重大危機：政府批准大量耗電數據中心的同時，卻取消太陽能與風能項目。他犀利指出：「當需求增加而供應減少時，價格必然上漲——這正是正在發生的現實，其道理連諾貝爾經濟學獎得主都無需贅言。」

他如此描繪當前景象：設想世人像購買衣食般採購電力，此時有人開設萬物皆廉價的能源超市，民眾自然蜂擁而至。這正是清潔能源技術普及的意義所在：「這好比能源界的開市客——廉價、批量、現貨供應。」儘管如此，他仍懷憂思，承認已錯過最佳時機，當前僅能緩解問題。

但他向氣候內幕新聞網表示：「過去三四年間，我們終於掌握了一種工具，雖無法阻止全球變暖，但或許能將地球升溫幅度降低零點幾攝氏度。」最終多數政府已認識到能源大轉型的益處。儘管氣候科學的細節仍存爭議，但人類社會正演進為太陽能文明的核心事實，始終是未來值得期盼的曙光。