Level four
Things you can do IN THE NEXT THREE YEARS…
Be part of a movement…
“Identify a major & challenging local or national climate-related issue and join others in pushing for change. Commit time to it, get to understand the issues in a bit of detail, become a local expert (you don’t need to know everything), don’t just identify problems but also develop solutions, work closely with others that share your concerns but importantly also engage courteously & constructively with those having a different view.” Kevin Anderson
Build your own power station
“We’ve let other people make decisions about energy for us, and most of them seemed to have picked coal, gas or oil. It doesn’t have to be that way though. Get together with some people in your community, find some space (an unused field, or a large roof top) and fill it with renewable energy. You can crowdfund it from people who live locally (or even just people who live further away, but want to invest their savings ethically) and even use any profits you make to run other climate change projects in your local area.
It might sound like a utopia, but this is happening all over the country (all over the world) and has done for decades. There are networks of solar schools, for example, solar churches, community wind farms, and villages who have made use of their river with a small community-owned hydro. In Balcombe, West Sussex, the community were inspired by anti-fracking protests in 2013 and built a solar farm that was big enough not only to power their own village but the one next door too.
In the last few years, the government have made it harder for community energy projects to get off the ground. So the first step might have to be battling politicians to lift the ban on onshore wind and start supporting solar again. But once that’s out of the way, there really isn’t anything stopping us!” Alice Bell