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In his talk on Deep Optimism, Ridley presented a coherent, integrated, and astoundingly thorough case for progress in all degrees. For one easy-to-visual metric, Ridley showed how it takes less time each year to work for a constant benefit, say on hour of artificial light at night. It 1800 it took six hours of typical labor to purchase an hour's worth of candles, so few working people did. In 1880 it took fifteen minutes of work to purchase an hour's worth of kerosene for a lamp. In 1950 it took eight seconds of work to pay for an hour's electricity for a light bulb. In 1997, it took only half a second -- a blink -- of work to light a compact fluorescent bulb for an hour.

Hoping to accelerate the adoption of solar energy by a wider audience, the city of San Jose, together with the Bay Area Climate Collaborative, recently launched a new program that will allow businesses and governments throughout the region to take advantage of similar "solar group buys."