Recording and Resources: Reimagining with Energy Democracy

On January 25, Side With Love hosted a webinar on Reimagining with Energy Democracy. You can review the slides here and recording here.

Reimagining with Energy Democracy was part of two larger events, Side With Love’s 30 Days of Love and our Clean Energy as a Human Right series. Throughout this series, we’ve invited folks to embrace a visionary approach to clean energy, not just as a technical solution, but as a moral imperative. Rather than falling into the scarcity mindset so common in climate spaces, we encourage you to embrace abundance and ensure that our clean energy work nourishes thriving communities for all. The Clean Energy as a Human Right series includes:

• Visionary Approaches to Federal Clean Energy Funding

• Creating Hubs of Climate Resilience with Federal Clean Energy Funding

• The UU Ministry for Earth’s Solstice Celebration, “Light for All” which featured the Energy Democracy Project

• Reimagining with Energy Democracy

While this was the last in our Clean Energy as a Human Right Webinar Series, it marks the beginning of a dedicated focus on Energy Democracy. Here are some ways you can get involved right now. Watch What Does Energy Democracy Mean To You and sign up for the Energy Democracy Project’s REFOCUS Campaign, check out their zine, messaging guide, and list of collaborators where you can connect with local energy democracy campaigns like Cleveland Owns Solar in Ohio, POWER Interfaith in Pennsylvania, and People Power Solar Cooperative in California.

This webinar was also part of our 30 Days of Love, Reimagining :: Climate Justice. Reimagining encourages us to shake off our can’ts and embrace our coulds. What could the future hold if love was at the center of our selves, of our relationships, of our actions, of our world? When we embrace reimagining, we move past myopic, my-way-or-the-highway thinking and into the space of possibility; shifting from scarcity into abundance.

Our focus on Reimagining started last May with our Abolitionist Visions of Climate Justice webinar. We’re happy to share the graphic illustration and printable coloring page from that event as a gift to our community.

If we are to realize a world with no fossil fuels, where clean energy is a human right, and all beings thrive, we need new systems, norms, approaches, and ways of being to bring that world into existence. Without a clear vision of the world we want, we prioritize short term gains and false solutions; we advance goals disconnected from cultural shifts, we divide our focus, and our movements are out of alignment with justice. Consider what this radical reframing could look like. How would it feel? What does not exist in that future world? What is the shift that needs to happen in you to commit to this future? Bring this reimagining to your work in your relationships, congregations, and communities.

Big thanks to the sponsors of this event, including: the Energy Democracy Project, Cleveland Owns, People Power Solar Cooperative, POWER Interfaith, The Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth, Reamp Network, UUs for Social Justice, UU Service Committee, UU College of Social Justice, JUUstice Washington, UU Women’s Federation, UU Justice Ministry of North Carolina, and Peace Education Center of the Hudson Valley.

We do this work together, with love at the center of our climate actions, and I am so grateful for the support and collaboration and unique work of each of these amazing organizations.