
292 Initiating a Solar Revolution in Germany
I felt that all of this was faint-hearted. So, I wrote my first article
on solar energy in the mid-1980s, at a time when there was talk
everywhere of the “Star Wars” programme—the Strategic Defense
Initiative (SDI) of US president Reagan. My article bore the title “For
an ecological SDI—the Solar Development Initiative”: just as new
armament technologies were being driven forward costing billions,
so, too, must solar energy be driven forward—as a political mission
to defend our environment. Now I was accused of morphing from
realist to dreamer by embracing such an unrealistic cause. One
friend told me: “Wh