The
book I chose to read was The Great
Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels
to Solar and Wind Energy, by Lester R. Brown. What drew me to read this
specific book was because I have such a fascination about alternate forms of
energy. As you can tell from the title of this book majority of the topics
revolve around the more recent solar and wind energy markets.
The
beginning of the book started off quite similar to Bill McKibben’s Eaarth, and it also has the same feel in
regards to having a large number of statistics thrown at you all at once.
Though this is where things changed completely from Eaarth. As most of you who are reading this know, McKibben’s book
is quite depressing, going on and on about the almost infinitive reasons on how
we are destroying our planet. This book how ever put a smile on my face quite
quickly. The statistics in this book really show that us humans are actually
trying to make stride to step away from fossil fuels in a positive way.
Right away on the first page of the
first chapter Brown states, “The worldwide transition from fossil fuels to
renewable sources of energy is under way.” (Page 16) Then goes on to give a
very powerful statistic saying, “We can now see this new economy starting to
take shape. We saw it in 2013, when Denmark generated 34 percent of its
electricity from the wind. In January 2014, wind supplied a whopping 62 percent
of that country’s electricity. Portugal and Spain each got over 20 percent from
wind in 2013, and Ireland, 17 percent.” (Pages 16-17) These statements really
do show that first world countries, who are the leading causes to climate
change are making large strides in renewable energy.
The
book goes into detail about many different topics like nuclear power, fossil
fuels and how they affect the economy. Also about how large companies like
Exxon-Mobil, Shell, and Chevron are trying to keep fossil fuels in the
mainstream economy. Some other topics include the price of wind and solar energy
and how technology is bringing down the cost so eventually it can be cheap
enough for everyone to switch over.
These
are some of the interesting topics in the book thus far! I am excited to see
what else has to come, but so far it has been a more positive experience!