A cheap and accessible form of energy lies in a large ball of burning gas 93 million miles up in the sky: the sun. So why haven’t we adopted solar energy more widely? “How We Survive” host Amy Scott recently talked with longtime climate writer and activist Bill McKibben about his upcoming book “Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization.” 

In this exclusive extended interview, McKibben explains how solar power has had explosive growth in the past few years, why it’s not widely adopted in the U.S. (and ways to change that) and offers some hopeful examples of how solar power has been adopted around the world.