The bedrock principle underlying my book Solar Dividends is that nobody owns the sun. That’s an obvious fact, but it leads to some interesting conclusions. If nobody owns the sun, then nobody owns the sunlight energy streaming off it in all directions into space. That means nobody owns the small sliver of sunlight colliding with Earth as it travels through space. That means the sunlight streaming down out of the sky is owned by nobody.

It’s not a stretch to say that everyone could have a share of that sunlight since nobody owns it. And from there it’s not a stretch to say everyone has a right to a share of that sunlight that nobody owns. At this point our laws have not yet defined this as a legal right, nor has the United Nations declared it as a human right. It’s more of a natural right, equivalent to your right to breathe in the air from the atmosphere we all share.

Solar Dividends takes that notion a step further by turning that natural right into a practical program, showing how we can eliminate poverty by helping everyone to collect their share of solar energy.