PowerShift: the real energy question by Indra Adnan and Pat Kane, Spring Consortium

The Spring Consortium propose powerful cohesive and holisitic steps across the board as THE way to confront locally the daily worsening global polycrisis which faces us in energy, sustainability, rising fascism and revived imperialism, and climate meltdown. The first big event is SATURDAY JANUARY 18TH at CELTIC CONNECTIONS in Glasgow – Get involved!

On Jan 18th the Spring Consortium will have its first outing at Celtic Connections, Glasgow festival of music, dance and workshops (tickets here). Called Power Shift, the event introduces ceilidh theatre – a new form of participation, somewhere between Theatre of the Oppressed, Showstoppers and, well, a ceilidh.

As we’ve previewed recently, the subject we’re exploring is the abundance of clean energy in Scotland coupled with the highest fuel bills in Europe.  It’s a complex and varied history. There are fully community-owned windfarms, earning £100,000 per megawatt generated at one end of the scale. And then there’s corporately owned windfarms, compensating communities with £5000 per megawatt and less, at the other end.

There are many suggestions for good responses to this injustice, in the form of a slew of new manifestos for change (see blog this week) have come up from the large and deep field of clean energy activity.  Take this one from Community Land Scotland, published last November which focuses on land reform as the first step to energy regulation. 

But our aim in Power Shift is not to stage a protest demand, but to generate an energy in the room for action on a number of fronts. Firstly participation: there is a myriad of different perspectives on the issue, but citizens are not being consulted. The danger is if communities turn against the massive rush for renewables, driven by Westminster in the interests of Net Zero across the UK, it is an open door for Reform who want to drop renewables altogether.

But it’s difficult to organise across the Highlands and Islands – it’s a vast, mostly rural territory. Communities are having some success at gathering separately but it’s tricky to get momentum or traction. Ceilidh theatre will whip up the energy in the Green Room at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, with music, dance, comedy and improvisation. 

Then we’ll introduce pol.is – new tools for thought mapping – as a way to capture ideas arising. Both in real life on that day and on-line, nationwide, over the months leading up to the election. That way we can take part but also see each other, in our plurality, and find the common and uncommon ground that helps us to come together.

Secondly, at various points in the afternoon we will have a chance to listen to and question experts on land trusts (Josh Doble) , community buy outs, political strategy (Mike Small) and more. Then Scottish Makar (poet laureate) Peter Mackay will take us into the world of deep belonging with the land and history. With these new resources, we will be able to generate new stories about the future together. These stories will live in our imaginations – and our local and social media – as genuine alternatives to the frustration and helplessness offered by the mainstream papers.

Thirdly, having gathered together, enjoyed the conviviality of theatre, we will walk away with a range of options for further action. Join a land trust in your local area, start a conversation about land buy-outs, envision building a micro-grid or your own wind turbine. Once you can understand the wind around your ears as your power, enabled by the power of community organising, there will be a new energy available to all of us.

How does this change anything, in the bigger picture? When your daily head is filled with the reality of revived imperialism in the shape of Trump’s America, having taken over Venezuela and now shaping up to take over Iran, Cuba and Greenland? Each of these targets motivated by the addiction to oil, itself a planet-destroying fuel? Surely we are powerless?

No, we are not. Reclaiming our own attention from the media frenzy, turning instead to a new story about the clean, regenerative fuel futures and – significantly -embodying that new story as dance, poetry, participation… This what we described last week as the onto-shift. Getting a new feel for the future which we will build on again and again. The role of improvisation in these events is precisely for each of us to experience that hidden in our own bodies, the internal energy that will fuel the future. A better future, with ourselves embedded in its very fabric.

So how does this tiny shift in the corner of Glasgow Concert Hall make any difference on a bigger scale? We can quote Margaret Mead’s well known saying, “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”. But we can still ask her: how? For this we need to think more about soft power than hard power. 

Hard power is coercion, forcing results through controlling – people, environments, nations, media – largely through the use of guns and money.  Soft power is influence and attraction – drawing people into a new story, shaping behaviour, establishing relationship. One is not more effective, or better (we all need both to be effective as parents, for example). American soft power – the American Dream – played at least as big a part in the States’ global domination over the centuries, maybe more. Both are tangible forms of power. 

More on that here.

However in this age of seemingly inescapable misery caused by the polycrisis, any story offering hope has a different kind of traction. It attracts, engages, causes new relationships to rise within previously fragmented fields. Particularly a story that is not simply an inspirational idea, but one based on practical, physical and scalable activity. 

Powershift works like this on a number of levels.

1.        People coming together in an age of division, experiencing joy and sharing tools

2.        People feeling energised and hopeful within a wider, depressed society

3.        People acting autonomously in the face of corporations and governments who claim their hands are tied

4.        People originating new forms of democracy that help them understand each other better

5.        People designing new clean energy plans for the future, in the face of escalating carbon disaster aka resilience prepping

6.        People learning from each other, but also the wider internet, how to become energy efficient from where they are – rural or urban – through wind, sun, water and light. This is where cosmolocalism is more than localism

7.        First regional, then national, then global networks of people sharing intelligence and vibe – profound resonance arising from the onto-shift

Of course, none of this is guaranteed at our event. We could have a low turnout due to weather and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Any one of our great contributors – Simon Sharkey, Pippa Evans, E.M Kane, Pat Kane and others – could be prevented from taking part. Our sound system could break down. But from the moment we conceived the event, all of the above becomes possible. And it will still be possible whether our event is successful or not. 

The only thing any one person can do is show up, ready to be part of a new story that in turn, makes history.

Let us know if you’d like us to show up in a community near you.

For more info and routes to action, go to www.spring.site