Bravo Wired for proposing an epidemic, so to speak, that we can all get behind: “Solar Panels Could Be the Best Fad Ever.”

I don’t know about your neighborhood, but in mine I have a hard time finding solar installations to emulate. Still, Clive Thompson reminds us of the potential energy stored up in solar social uptake: “Installing an array on your roof is environmental exhibitionism—and it’s contagious.”

Last I heard, the consensus among architects is to keep the solar as invisible as possible, but Thompson argues for bringing it out front — flying your panels like freak flags if, like most early adopters, you want to inspire your friends and neighbors.

Solar, it turns out, is a virus—a good one. Researchers have been documenting this, and it offers some intriguing hope for climate-change mitigation. Now that we know solar uptake has a social spread, we may be able to make it spread faster.

The “Yin-Yang House,” Venice, CA. All images by the author. 

Even as panels get cheaper, home solar arrays are apparently being installed by snails and turtles. But even if the pace is raining on our solar parade, there’s hope for a pandemic yet, because individual actions and government mandates reinforce one another. It’s a snowball effect.

Understanding the viral nature of solar also helps us reconsider the power of individual action. Often, when we argue about how to address the terrifying enormity of climate change, the personal decisions we make seem insignificant. Look, hippie, who cares if you buy LED bulbs or avoid plastic straws? Nothing’s gonna change until the government puts a price on CO₂ that forces corporations—our biggest economic actors at scale—to behave more sustainably.

Solar is one of those places where local policy discussions would get really interesting if anyone cared to have them. Carry on with the policy wonkery:

Now, it’s clearly true that mandates are both powerful and crucial. But peer effects have a propulsive energy of their own, argues economist Robert Frank in his latest book, Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work. People stopped smoking at a stunning rate not merely because of government mandates, like higher cigarette taxes and bans in restaurants. They also stopped because it became a social cascade. Your partner stopped, so you stopped, so your friend stopped, and then their spouse stopped.

A good government mandate can work hand in glove with our social nature. In other words, your individual actions matter because they are, in a weird way, not merely individual. They spread, outward, like a wave.

Yes, outward, like a wave… like a virus. Let’s take off the masks and spread this one.