Both the emotional valence and the structural understanding of different energy sources has shifted, and for good. Meaning takes a very long time to erode, but when it does the switch can come quickly; we’re living at a hinge moment, and on the other side of the door is a different world.

We tend to think about energy in hard terms—kilowatts, dollars—but in the end our visceral sense of the path forward is what matters most, because attitude informs decision without us even quite realizing it. The world between our ears has changed, decisively, in the direction of renewable power from the sun and wind.