Solar Story Circle: How Narrative Powers Democracy & Social Change

Bill Cleveland: 00:00:02

What if the solution to the climate crisis and the key to democratic renewal were powered by the same thing?

In this episode of Art is Change, we'll explore Bill McKiibben new book, here Comes the Sun, and draw a powerful parallel between the emerging solar energy story and narrative of as a force for democracy and social change.

From the center for the Study of Art and Community, this is Art is Change, a chronicle of art and social change where activist artists and cultural organizers share the strategies and skills they need to thrive as creative community leaders. My name is Bill Cleveland, so I'll ask again. What if stories could be fuel just like solar energy?

What if the narratives we share could help shift the tide against authoritarian fear?

In this episode of Art is Change, we draw the connection between hopeful breakthroughs on the climate front and the power of story making in the fight for democracy. The provocation for these audacious questions is Bill McKibben's new book, Here Comes the Sun, which isn't just another climate manifesto.

It bags hope with data.

In it, we hear about communities far from power are installing cheap solar tech and how solar capacity is accelerating worldwide and how these shifts are quietly changing what people believe about what's possible.

Then we explore how stories, real shared personal stories, might be the narrative equivalent of solar panels generating power for social change when politics fall short. In it, we'll hear how ordinary farmers in places like Pakistan are transforming energy access without big subsidies, just.

Just affordability, imagination and a DIY spirit.

Then we'll explore how mythic stories of fear and scarcity get reinforced and how we might actively replace them with notions of abundance, possibility and connection.

And finally, we'll consider how something as simple as story circles neighbors telling each other what they see and feel can be a solar array of for democracy, act one, here comes the sun with a vengeance.

So we start with Bill McKibben, one of the grandfathers of the environmental movement, the climate change awareness movement, and maybe now the hopeful Next Chapter movement. As I said, his new book's called Here Comes the Sun with a subtitle and a last chance for the climate and a fresh chance for civilization. And it's.

Well, it's a game changer. Hopeful, but not in a floaty incense burning on a hilltop kind of way. No, it's truth grounded hope. It's got data, it's got proof.

And more than that, it shows a real path forward happening right in front of our eyes, whether we notice it or not. The story is pretty simple.

Consider the climate crisis, the fossil fuel Dependency, the climate change, the social upheavals, the wars, the power imbalances. I know it's a drag, but as McKibben makes clear, it's no longer an intransigent, impossible dilemma. We, meaning the human race, have created the.

The technology we need to shift from fossil fuels to clean, ubiquitous, cheap solar energy. And I know that sounds like an old song being sung in a pub by a bunch of aging hippies, but it's not.

Here's one small story among many in the book that stopped me in my tracks. China, through a combination of planning, investment and market domination, now makes 90% of the world's solar panels.

In fact, they've made so many that they've got more panels than they can use. So now you can go to markets in other countries that are not the US and buy solar panels and batteries very cheaply. Take Pakistan.

It's a poor country with a barely functioning energy grid. Millions of small farmers there rely on dirty diesel powered pumps to irrigate their crops.

Diesel, but by the way, is one of the most toxic fossil fuels out there. And those little two stroke engines, well, they're the least efficient machines you could ask for. But here's what's happening.

Because Pakistan shares a border with China, and because China needs to offload its burgeoning solar inventory, Pakistani farmers, who are not suburban early adopters, mind you, are getting incredibly cheap solar systems, the whole shebang. Panels, batteries, cables, and they're installing them themselves with help from YouTube.

Assalamualaikum, everyone, and welcome to part nine of my solar guide. And mind you, this is not a government initiative. No subsidies, no mandates, just farmers doing what they can to thrive and survive. And the result?

How about creating the equivalent of 1/3 of Pakistan's energy grid in under a year and reducing diesel consumption by 30%. And the best news, it's continuing and growing. And it's unstoppable. Now that is not fake news. It's not wishful thinking.

It's an amazing DIY energy transformation unfolding on the other side of the world that nobody's talking about. But that just scratches the surface. And in his book, McKibben reveals a staggering transformation in solar infrastructure.

Around: 2021

Since then, the next terawatt took just two years and the third is coming even faster. How about this?

By mid: 2023

In that same year,: 2024

China is emerging as a solar behemoth poised to become the first electro-state, having installed nearly half of all the world's clean energy. McKibben shares dozens and dozens of stories like these that shine a bright light on an exponentially expanding solar rampage.

Act two stories we're just not hearing. So what's Bill McKibben doing here? Well, he's telling us a story that's not getting told. If you're familiar with his work.

You know, he's been the doomsayer, the guy with the compost pile and the grim forecasts. But this time, he's shifting the narrative.

Bill McKibben: 00:08:43

We can have a world that runs on a resource that's available to everyone, everywhere. That's a very different thing than a resource that can be hoarded and held in reserve and doled out as needed.

And it's here, by the way, that I think that the rest of the world is really catching on.

Bill Cleveland: 00:09:08

In his conversation with Chris Hayes on the podcast why Is this Happening? They talked about how American journalism has somehow managed to miss this boat.

A 200,000 ton solar power miracle ship has been gliding into the world's metaphorical harbor. And most folks have no idea.

Meanwhile, headlines here in the US were all about Google's plan to build a 500 megawatt nuclear power plant for their AI operations. Now, 500 megawatts, or half a gigawatt is enough to power about 300,000 homes. So, big news, right? The dawn of a new nuclear age.

But in May: 2025

Act three virtuous and vicious cycles. Here's what McKibben makes so clear. Solar energy is different. It doesn't just provide power. It changes the system.

It also changes the way we think and believe, which can also change how we behave. Fossil fuels create a vicious cycle. The more you extract, the more destruction you cause, and the more concentrated that destructive power becomes.

But solar. Solar creates a virtuous cycle. The more we use, the cheaper it gets.

The more we deploy it, the more people benefit, the more it spreads, the less we have to depend on authoritarian petro states and extraction economics. And because the sun shines everywhere, no one can own it, no one can hoard it.

And most importantly, the more people who know firsthand that this story is true, the truer it becomes. This is the virtuous cycle at work.

Solar energy doesn't just solve our climate problem, it fundamentally changes the power dynamics of what people believe and how societies organize themselves. McKibben is revealing a much needed light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

But he also documents the desperate political battle by fossil fuel interests like Koch Industries and other MAGA magnates to hold back this inevitable shift. So what you may be asking, does all this have to do with art stories and democratic renewals? And here's where I'm going to change the channel.

stealing our attention since: 2016

Put simply, I think what Bill McKibben has done by telling his story is to shine a light on another energy source that can help us change the authoritarian, anti democracy trajectory of America and other places in the world. Namely our stories. And what I'm saying is our stories are the solar power for social change.

Yeah, I know it's a metaphor, but I actually think it works. Here's why. We humans are naturally given to inventing, cooperating and making stuff.

When the conditions are right, we build and improve on the ideas and things we make by imagining what's next and then sharing what we've imagined through our stories. That's how we've always worked, and for good and for ill. That's how we both survived and thrived and wrecked havoc as a species.

Another way of saying this is that stories have always powered the future. Given this, it's good to be reminded that unlike fossil fuels, our stories, like sunlight, are abundant and free.

But sunlight without focus is is just glare. To ignite change, these stories, like the sun, need to be harnessed, concentrated and aimed with purpose.

And like any energy source, they can heal or harm depending on who's focusing the lens and to what end. Unfortunately, these days there are a lot of zero sum scorched earth stories that seem to be gaining strength and influence. You know I win, you lose.

Oh, boy. But we cannot alter that scarcity story that's gripping our communities without two important things.

First, accurate feedback about the harm that that us versus them story is doing every day. And then the news stories like McKibben's that point to the possibility of a real, abundant collective future.

These new stories can be the solar power we need for shifting worldviews from the vicious cycles of fear based scarcity to the virtuous cycles of cooperation for mutual benefit and new ideas.

So now you're probably thinking, that's all well and good, but how does that story power get concentrated and focused enough to push back and make real change in the real world? Act four STORY CIRCLES as SOLAR Arrays so here's my thought. It's not new by any means. In fact, it's the oldest story in the book.

Just folks sitting around the fire or the kitchen table shooting their shit. Not speeches, not conferences, not Twitter fights, just circles and stories.

During the: 1960

John O'Neal: 00:16:15

We used to do discussions after performances, but what I noticed in the discussions first was that there were some people who loved to talk so much that they would just dominate the sessions.

Then I introduced the idea of sitting more in a circle, and I'd suggest a three minute time limit, but then I noticed there was still a lot of pointless arguments coming up.

Bill Cleveland: 00:16:47

Mmm.

John O'Neal: 00:16:50

And then I noticed that when people told stories, it, you know, the room brightened up and the discussion got hot. Somebody else would have a matching story over here. This one would have a nightmare. Oh, yeah. And the room would get hot like that.

And I said, damn, that's the way to go.

Bill Cleveland: 00:17:13

Since then, a lot of activists, organizers and artists mostly have been using story circles to find out what people are thinking, spread the good word, make plans, and help solve some problems. In this moment, where our world is in upheaval and trust is in short supply, I think this simple process makes sense.

Joining a circle of 15 to 30 people from the community and responding to questions like, how's it going? What's working out there? What's not, what's changing? And what do you need?

Not just complaining or arguing, but telling a story that illustrates what they're thinking, feeling and seeing.

Real stories, personal stories, hard stories that are often hidden or ignored, helpful stories that seem too small to mention one after another, layer upon layer, with room for everyone to take a deep breath and be heard, to listen and maybe, just maybe, trust what they're hearing enough to learn from and join with their neighbors and take action. Kind of a Solar Panel for democracy Act 5. Turning light into power.

Now, of course, the question is, how do we harness the energy that's rising up in each circles? Where are the connectors and the batteries and the transmission lines? Well, for starters, right there in the moment.

Those circles can generate human connections, belonging, respect and mutual understanding, which is no small thing these days.

But they also have the potential to cohere and generate power beyond the moment of their sharing, the kind of power that changes hearts and minds, that shifts worldviews.

Because when stories are collected, remembered, shared and shaped into something that extends the circle, their potency and influence can grow and spread and they can start powering something larger.

d Bogalusa, Louisiana, in the: 1960

This is what happened when story circles produced transformational community changing theater like Swamp Gravy and the Laramie Project. This is what continues to happen in communities across the country where circles like these have spawned plays and songs and poetry. You name it.

I guess you could say this is what happens when all those solar story panels start to heat up and glow.

Here, of course, is where I make the case that artists like those I mentioned, writers, poets, playwrights, creators of all stripes, are the ones who can help convert that raw story energy into usable cultural power, into meaning, into movement. I'm not saying that every artist in every community has the chops or the willingness to do this, not by a long shot.

But over the past five decades, there's been a growing community of change making artists that I think will be up for the challenge with the proper support. So here's my dream.

A national network of creative story wranglers, folks who shepherd those circles started small, staying hyper local and diyish, listening, documenting, helping people see and translate the beauty and meaning in sharing the good word and the pain, spreading it naturally, connecting the dots, harnessing the power in and among our communities and across the country.

And a tsunami of real stories that everyday people will believe, not as a branding exercise or a cynical grift, but as a Persistent blast of sun powered truth in more flavors than you can imagine.

Like I said, community plays and poems, but also graffiti, street chalk and gospel songs, improv interventions, clown marches and community sing alongs. How about doo dah parades and second lines with infectious chants producing micro documentaries, macro movies, light shows and QR codes.

And don't forget social media reels, T shirts, flash mobs, social soaps.

And then there's the stragglers like bumper stickers, wall projections, shadow art, billboards, street theater, gorilla buskers, coffee cup sleeves, comedy jams, poetry slams, and of course, fortune cookies. All of it everywhere, all at once. Raw, wild, organic and yes, revolutionary.

Just like that solar panel upheaval in Pakistan, which of course was impossible. Until it wasn't. Now, I know this is a lot to take in, so I'll close with a recap.

On one hand, we have authentic stories about the authoritarian sea rise and the narrative antidote about the rising tide of pushing back and marching forward like solar energy. These stories are powerful, abundant and free, and the more we share them, the more connected we become.

The more we listen, the more we recognize our common issues and humanity. The more we amplify our power, the stronger and more resilient our communities and their resistance becomes.

On the other hand, there's the authoritarian story machine runs on fossil fire, on scarcity, on fear, on narratives that divide and deplete. So here we are, standing in the middle of these two realities. One is hot, divisive and powered by fear.

The other is cooler, sustainable, powered by connection and community. The question isn't whether we have the means. We do.

We have the stories, the circles, the artists, and certainly the communities out there hungry for this. The question is, will we organize and deploy fast enough, widely enough, boldly enough?

Because as McKibben says, there's no guarantee we'll make the shift in time. But the sun is rising and the stories are percolating and we have a lot of panels to build.

Art is Change is a production of the center for the Study of Art and Community. Our theme and soundscapes spring forth from the head, heart and hand of the maestro Judy Munson. Our text editing is by Andre Nebbe.

Our effects come from freesound.org and our inspiration comes from the ever present spirit of OOC235. So until next time, stay well, do good and speak. Spread the good word. Once again, please know this episode has been 100% human.