CamSocTalks: Power to the People…Ending the reign of Fire

Fire is the friend that betrayed us. As the ‘fire ape’, flames delivered cooking for more nutritious food, feeding bigger brains and the time to think, not just graze. It then gave us smelting, iron, weapons, Ferraris and flight – even to space. But the price could see us perish. Climate change is killing thousands through extreme weather and threatening millions through collapsing food systems and, ever more plausible, tipping points.

And fossil fuels haven’t just made us an enemy of the natural world, they’ve made us enemies of each other. Be it coal, oil or gas: power politics is the politics of who owns the power: repeatedly demonstrated over the last 50 years and the last 50 days. War is fuelled by hydro-carbons not because they are our lifeblood but because that lifeblood is limited, located and owned.

Renewables are not. Renewables are everlasting, everywhere and free – you can’t cage the wind. Sunlight isn’t held up in the Strait of Hormuz.

And did I mention cheap? Every nation can deliver more of its own energy, every community can own a power plant, many homes can source their own wattage. That’s power to the people. We must seize it.

About our speaker

Tom Heap is the co-presenter of the BBC Radio 4 environment series ‘Rare Earth’. He also presents the investigations on BBC 1’s ‘Countryfile’. His first book and accompanying podcast series ’39 Ways to Save the Planet’ is about available solutions to climate change. His second, ‘Landsmart’, reveals the characters who are solving land use challenges on a crowded Earth. He has also had a climate show on Sky News and presented many BBC Panoramas on energy and the environment. For many years he was a BBC News producer and correspondent. Outside of work he likes to ride bikes, grow tomatoes, watch movies and bodge carpentry.

The Evening

Guests can arrive from 6.15pm to meet for a drink and get comfortable before we move to our seating for the talk starting at 7pm sharp. The talk will be up to an hour and this will include the opportunity for audience questions. The talk will be finished by 8pm at which point we can move back to bar area for drinks and more conversation. There will be a cash bar before and after the talk.