DR GABRIELLE JAMELA HOSEIN
LAST Wednesday's national blackout should direct us to lessons from sister isle Puerto Rico.
In 2017, after Hurricane Maria demolished swathes of the electricity grid, leaving some without power for as long as a year, Casa Pueblo (the People's House) provided a solar power 'energy oasis.' The lights never went out and hundreds of residents turned to the non-profit to plug in cell phones, fridges with medicines and dialysis machines in the following weeks.
Spurred on by their survival, Casa Pueblo continued to lend and instal thousands of solar panels, solar lights and solar-refrigerators throughout the community in Adjuntas, as they had been doing since 1991, to provide cheap, renewable energy, grow a network of microgrids and break dependence on fossil fuels.
This is an important example for us here. We saw how easy it is to shut down the national grid, without even a hurricane or earthquake in sight. The first knocks down transmission lines. The second rattles power plants themselves, challenging the resilience of centralised grids.
We are also still limping along with our fossil fuel addiction, in need of fast-tracked, alternative paths to economic and energy development. In Doha, we are still calling gas 'the fuel of the future.' Look up. Renewable power is right over our heads.
Local electricity is over-produced and cheap so these issues haven't been taken up, but they should be, as they could help prevent what happened last week. More than that, solar energy can reduce business and household bills, provide clean and dependable power, decarbonise our footprint and reduce our contribution to climate change, and democratise energy infrastructure - meaning return decisions about power and management of microgrids to communities.
Again, this is important for us. There's a tug of war between those who believe in big government with central authority and those pushing for privatisation as more efficient, but that's a false choice.
Casa Pueblo's 'energy insurrection' shows this, precisely because its vision is centred in community-based development and a right to energy self-sufficiency, which for Puerto Rico is also part of movements seeking environmental justice and decolonisation from the US.
What is being called a 'decolonial future' is additionally about imagining a world of social justice, freedom, equality, peace and collective care for our shared commons of land, air and water, as well essential services related to education, health, housing and food.
Mobilising communities around these interconnected concerns challenges models of increasing accumulation of wealth and power with ones of sovereignty, solidarity and mutual aid. It's about challenging both state bureaucracy and corporate control, after all the sun shines for free and each home should be able to generate electricity.
Imagine communities not having to beg for connection and supply. Imagine low monthly bills without having to hear about the costs of state subsidies.
Our current a
