The Power of Small

Research
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I’ve been inspired by this fabulous succinct theory of change by a community resource centre in the UK. (as an aside providing all the little things groups need to thrive seems like a very important service). They provide a little snippet on three main arguments that we need for the community energy sector too:

I can’t find anything like this for the Australian context - any ideas?

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and another fabulous read that was linked is this report about what it takes for communities to feel powerful in the 2020’s
“In particular, it (the report) highlights the need for sustained investment in supporting community-level infrastructure – places to meet, organisations to bring people together and people to facilitate engagement.”

And there’s a practical guide here for how community groups improve people’s lives

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Abstract from engage don’t preach: Active learning triggers climate action

Traditional communication of research on climate change fails to encourage individual, corporate, and political leaders to take appropriate action. We argue that this problem is based on an overly simplistic unidirectional model of science communication. Conversely, theory shows that active learning processes are better suited to initiate and mobilize engagement among all stakeholders. Here, we integrate theoretical insights on active learning with empirical evidence from serious gaming: communication should be understood as an integral design feature that relates active learning on climate change to tangible action.

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and here are some thoughts I wrote in another context - what do you think?
(I am working with some friends on climate adaptation and community resilience. I can’t fully embrace Clive Hamilton’s view that we need to focus on this, but I can embrace his conclusion that working together at the community scale is essential)

Connections that protect.

The time we’re in

It’s hard for us to imagine our lives and the world around us beyond business as usual. But business as usual changes quickly these days - have you noticed? We are in an age of acceleration, consuming what was once our planet’s abundance at ever faster rates and leaving mountains of waste - in the oceans, the atmosphere and the land. Even if we knew how to stop, enormous climate disruption will remain with us for the rest of our lives and the regeneration task will take centuries.

Ignoring and despairing don’t help

Most of us are tempted to look at the problem and then look away. It is always easier to focus on the day to day. It is always easier to imagine that it is someone else who need to pull the lever of change.

Many of us feel a deep sense of dread and powerlessness.

But the problem is coming to us. Climate events will increasingly become part of our lives and we are not ready.

If we are not prepared for climate surprises, we will not bounce back, change and recover.

And it’s not enough to be individually prepared. The social impacts of change will fray the fabric of our society into frightening tatters.

Community protects

Although some work is underway to make our places and people strong, it is nowhere near enough at the scale required, and national, state and local coordination is lacking.

Preparation is key. We know that those communities who are better prepared, with stronger social networks and developed systems, respond better during a crisis and recover faster afterwards.

But building of trust and institutional resilience, and the strengthening of civil society, culture, and systems takes time, investment and practice. Time we scarcely have.

Community empowers

The best way to build community is to work together on a project. It can be a climate ready project but working together on anything will help strengthen relationships ready for when you need them.

Many of the investments a community can make to prepare for climate events, can be done in ways to help reduce our emissions and ensure our energy systems work better. For example, emergency power to community buildings and telecommunications, can be done with solar and battery power, giving everyone better functioning community services.

Community makes sense

And working together helps us all make sense of the enormous changes we confront. When we make sense of the future, we also have a deeper understanding and stronger motivation to build it in better ways.

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a bunch of great resources here for building community and understanding the “assets” that a collective has once you look - ABCD (asset based community development) Tool Kit | Resources | ABCD Institute | DePaul University, Chicago Resources