Senior Editor
Staff

By now, it’s clear that the future of energy isn’t in fossil fuels. Unless you’re blind, stupid, have some vested interest in a dying industry, or some disastrous mixture of all three, you know that the world is heading towards renewables. The UK just broke a record that proves it: for the first time ever, renewables, including wind and solar and nuclear, produced more energy in the UK than both coal and gas combined.  The energy generated met more than half of the country’s demand.

On Wednesday, the company that owns Britain’s energy network released the news that solar produced nearly 8 GW of power throughout the day, while wind farms in contributed a staggering 9.5 GW.  It did, of course, happen during particularly strong winds, but all the same, it’s an indicator that the technology is there, and we should be using it.

Real quick, here’s an issue I have with climate change deniers: even if the vast majority of researchers are wrong, why fight FOR pollution? It’s proven that solar employs more people that coal, oil, and gas combined, at least in the US. It’s proven that there are huge health benefits for the general population if we move away from fossil fuels. Even if you don’t believe what science is telling us, even if you’re blind to the very obvious signs around us that science is correct, from a purely economic standpoint, renewables are awesome and fighting against them is stupid.

According to The Telegraph, “despite the fact that there was a drop in the amount of money invested in renewables during 2016, the capacity of green energy generation around the globe still increased. This is thought to be due to an incredible drop in the cost to manufacture and install renewables, such as solar and wind.”

While the US under Trump is funneling money into the last gasps of the coal industry, Germany, Denmark, and Belgium are building enormous wind farms that, if projections are correct, could increase their wind-generated energy capacity by up to 500 percent. And for God’s sake, the whole “wind farms kill birds” argument? Well, windows kill more birds than wind farms, and your windows aren’t producing enough power to run a blender.

I’m not some tree-hugging hippie, either–I worked in the oil industry for years–it’s just so obvious that looking backward is a terrible way to go into the future.

 
Newsletter

Only the best. We promise.

Contribute

Join our community of contributors.

Apply