For over 40 years, Bill McKibben has been raising the alarm about the climate crisis, starting with his groundbreaking book, The End of Nature. Now McKibben says, for once in his life, he is spreading good news. In his latest book, Here Comes the Sun, he explains why the recent boom in solar and wind power has given him hope for the planet’s future, and he implores everyone to buy in. We hope you can join us for this inspiring and important conversation.
Speaker
Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the “alternative Nobel,” in the Swedish Parliament. He’s also won the Gandhi Peace Award and received honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. He has written more than 20 books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature, published in 1989, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened, and his latest, Here Comes the Sun.
Panelists
Rebecca Henderson is one of 25 University Professors at Harvard, a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a fellow of both the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She also has more than 25 years of experience serving on major public boards. Rebecca’s research explores the degree to which the private sector can play a major role in building a more sustainable economy. Her publications include Accelerating Energy Innovation: Insights from Multiple Sectors (University of Chicago Press), Leading Sustainable Change: An Organizational Perspective (Oxford University Press), and Political Economy and Justice (University of Chicago Press). She is also the author of Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, which was shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey 2020 Business Book of the Year Award.
Oliver Wainwright is the architecture and design critic of The Guardian and a Loeb Fellow (2026) at the GSD. He trained as an architect and worked at the Mayor of London’s Architecture and Urbanism Unit, OMA in Rotterdam, and Muf Architecture/Art in London. His first book, “Inside North Korea” (Taschen, 2018), featured his photographs, which were exhibited internationally, from the International Center of Photography in New York to Seoul City Hall.
This event is supported by the Melissa Kaish and Jonathan Dorfman Makers Fund. It is co-sponsored by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability through its Climate Crossroads: Debating Energy’s Next Frontier series, bringing leading voices confronting the intertwined challenges of climate change and the global energy transition to Harvard University.
