We live in an age of both scientific miracles and superstition about science, increasing in tandem. One year we're creating novel vaccines that arrest a global pandemic, and four years later we've got measles outbreaks because people believe nonsense about vaccines, disseminated by the nation's chief health official.

Solar power is another example. Here is a technology that, rather than digging up fossils and burning them to unleash solar energy collected millions of years ago, miraculously sucks that energy directly out of the sky. Unlike fossil fuels, it's harmless, limitless and doesn't generate greenhouse gases that heat up the planet.

Solar is cheaper than fossil fuels, which helps explain its exponential growth. Global solar power generation grew by 636 terawatt-hours in 2025, a 30 percent increase, according to research firm Ember. That was the fastest growth in a year for any energy source on record, aside from a temporary rebound in coal use after lockdowns during the covid-19 pandemic. New solar alone met three-quarters of the world's new energy demand last year. Over the past decade, solar power has increased 10-fold, rising 27 percent a year on average.

Still, not everybody loves solar. In the US, installations fell 14 percent in 2025 from a year earlier, bucking the global trend, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association and the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

Solar was still the biggest source of new........

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