Solar energy is powering more of our lives, but the Earth keeps getting hotter—and we’re nearing what has been called a “point of no return.” Plus:
• Why bother posting on social media?
• A marriage unfolding on the high seas
• Amy Bloom recommends her favorite family novels
Photograph by Hu Huhu / Xinhua / Redux
Daniel A. Gross
A story editor at The New Yorker.
A ray of good news: this summer, the sun is generating record-breaking quantities of electricity—steadily displacing energy production from coal, oil, and gas, which are the leading causes of the climate crisis. In a new piece about the rise of solar power, Bill McKibben reports that at one point in May, California was producing more than one and a half times the energy it needed with renewable sources alone. There have been similarly impressive gains across the world, in places from Texas to China. “If this exponential rate of growth can continue,” he writes,…
