STREET/S
STREET ACTION AS TEMPLATE AND DEMAND
The chimney pot-covered rooftops of our cities are remnants of fossil capitalism—built at a time of industrial revolution—of coal and steam. How do these dwellings, home to so many different people, botched building work and escaping heat adapt rapidly to this age?
We begin on our street in Waltham Forest built for those working in the new industry of the Lea Valley at the beginning of the Twentieth century. We look to its history, materials and future. Electricity came to these terraced streets in the 1930s. Big changes can happen fast and big changes are needed now.
We act hyper locally as a way to instigate street by street grassroots action radiating out and demanding action on a national scale.
The cost of individual solar arrays is prohibitive for many/most. Finding existing models do not work for equality in renewable domestic energy, we are giving ourselves the power of Government to unleash vital financial stimulus in the face of the climate crisis. By increasing paid members of the POWER membership site and printing our own money (a new currency called the ‘GREENBACK’) and a recent rooftop crowd funder we raised enough for the step one but we have ambition and need to raise £1 million for this retrofit action as a problem solving journey of collective education and imagination.
ROOFTOP CROWDFUNDER
We slept on top of the roof of our house for 23 nights through November and December 2023 as part of a crowdfunder to raise the £113,000 needed for phase 1 of this street action. See: news coverage, videos from the rooftop and a rooftop journal. This first phase of solar pv has just been installed by Octopus Energy and we are working hard on developing a ‘street by street’ plan that can evolve and adapt to other streets and communities.
Photo by Peter Searle.
MESSAGES TO THE ROOFTOP FROM SUPPORTERS
