I died last Saturday. With 16 other people. In the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Five of us from BANZAI joined an XR Die-In on the morning of 27th August 2022. Deliberately theatrical, and scheduled to coincide with the last week of the Fringe, the action drew attention to the continuing failure of the government to urgently address climate and ecological breakdown.
“Will clearly carry the memory of the last thing I see: a bright blue sky, J’s smiling face and a white sheet fluttering over my head.”
None of us in the BANZAI group had been rebels in one of XR’s Non-Violent Direct Action events before. We were impressed by how well organised the Die-In was, and by the level of care and mutual support that was manifested by the participants. We gathered 30 minutes in advance of the Die-In for a group briefing and were reminded that even though global warming was still lower than 1.5 C, the people of Pakistan had lived through extreme heat this summer, followed by devastating floods.
It’s hard to know how much impact such actions have. The Die-In attracted lots of attention from Festival goers and press photographers, and was sympathetically reported on by Reporting Scotland, Yahoo News, STV News and The National. All this helps, in a small way, to bring the climate emergency to public consciousness. And, as one of our group said, “doing something must be better than doing nothing!”
We will be holding a public meeting on the topic of Home Energy and Retrofit, 7.00 pm – 9.00 pm, Monday 20th June, at Bruntsfield Evangelical Church, 70 Leamington Terrace,=.
The Retrofit Challenge
Home energy and retrofit present major challenges, both for individuals and for society as a whole. This public meeting will focus on how to approach the task of retrofitting typical Edinburgh tenement flats and homes in order to increase their energy efficiency. On the plus side, fixing the problem of wasted heat will reduce bills and improve domestic comfort. It is also going to be crucial in realising the Council’s ambition of making Edinburgh a net zero city by 2030. On the other hand, retrofitting older buildings, especially tenements, requires money, good planning, and reliable, skilled contractors. So it is important that we gain as much information and insight as we can about the options open to us.
Finding the resources to change the fabric of our homes is daunting. This meeting will address topics such as:
What retrofit measures can individuals take to improve energy efficiency in their homes?
When does it make better sense to look at retrofitting groups of properties, for example in a whole tenement, rather than just on an individual level?
How might we deal with the social and financial challenges of retrofit and low-carbon energy distribution at a communal level?
Meeting Schedule
We will start with brief presentations from three experts:
Jo McClelland — architect with EALA Impacts, a social enterprise for sustainability in managing our built environment
Calum Duncan — Calum Duncan Architects, locally-based RIAS Sustainable Building Design and RIBA Conservation accredited architect
Cat Magill — Dark Matter Labs, a non-profit collaborating with communities to shape institutions and infrastructure in responding to the climate crisis
The talks will be followed by a refreshments break, a panel Q&A session and an opportunity for informal discussions in breakout groups. The panel of presenters will discuss how their different areas of interest align and address questions from attendees, both in the plenary session and in informal discussion time.
Maybe that’s not a question you ask yourself. Many people don’t.
Yet the climate crisis evokes lots of feelings, in all of us. And sharing these can be helpful. You will have an opportunity to do so at the Bruntsfield Climate Café, 6.00 pm – 7.30 pm, 5 May, Eric Liddell Community (Café Annex).
A climate café is a safe, confidential space to express thoughts and emotions around what’s happening to our climate, without being judged. That’s the only agenda. The focus is not on debate or activism — there are plenty of other spaces for that.
We call it a café because it’s a relaxed environment and there will be refreshments (tea, coffee and cake).
Everyone is welcome. The only requirement is that you are willing to listen and respect what other people bring.
If you’d like to come, please let us know in advance. Expect up to 10 people per café, including two facilitators.
You are warmly invited to a community event on Saturday, 5 March, 2.00 – 4.00 pm: the Sustainable Community Café, in the Upper Hall, Bruntsfield Evangelical Church. It will be a welcome opportunity to catch up with each other (and make new friends!) as we emerge from winter and the ups-and-downs of Covid.
There will be cake, coffee, tea and soft drinks, a raffle and silent auction, kids’ activities, and plenty of blether. And BANZAI will host stalls on themes such as:
Despite the very un-springlike weather of gusty winds and cold drizzle, nine of us gathered together for the first Leamington Terrace Spring Clean. We had already advertised the date — Saturday 5th February — and decided to persevere with our plan, albeit with some misgivings. The initiative emerged from the GatE group, inspired in part by the leaf clearing project started last autumn by Merchiston Community Council, and we also received expert advice and the loan of street cleaning equipment from Helen, one of the leaf clearing project’s organisers.
We mainly focussed on cleaning the gutters on the west side of the street, which were clogged with wet leaves, rubbish, mud, weeds and a huge amount of grit. Not being very invested in metrics, we failed to count exactly how many bags we filled, but probably around 10 of them, together with a large amount of Christmas tree debris, which went to garden composting bins.
In addition to being able to relish the visible effects of the clean-up, there was a cheerful team atmosphere that we all appreciated. It’s great to meet new neighbours and to get to know others a bit better. And even it was only a small contribution to making the world a better place, there is something very empowering in working together on a communal goal.
If you suffer from FOMO, don’t worry: we will do it again soon! Perhaps it will become a monthly ritual.
On 23 September 2021, we organised a film screening plus discussion as part of Climate Fringe Week as well as for the European Day of Sustainable Communities (EDSC21). The event took place 6.30pm–9.00pm and was kindly hosted by Bruntsfield Evangelical Church (with generous assistance in person from LT resident Fraser McLaren), which provided first-rate facilities for seating, screening, food and group facilitation. We received a small grant to help cover costs from EDSC21, via their local representatives, the Scottish Communities Climate Action Network (SCCAN).
The film we screened was Not Without Us (12+, 72mins), a documentary following seven grassroots climate action campaigners from across the world, before and during COP21, Paris 2015. The film was made available to us at minimal cost through What the COP?, an initiative organised by Take One Action. After the film, we held open discussions in four small groups to air ideas on what aiming for Net Zero might mean to us as a community and what actions we could take locally.
A total of 50 people attended the event and most of them stayed through to the end (when there was a draw for some honeycomb and honey generously donated by Jeanna Brady from her family’s back-garden hives). Here’s a breakdown:
39 people registered via Eventbrite, of whom 27 turned up.
Of the total attendees, 29 were previously unknown to us.
25 were from the Bruntsfield area; others came from nearby parts of the city, plus some from Leith, Granton and Dunbar.
External representation at the event came from Dig In and from the Hiya Car car-sharing scheme.
The Event in More Detail
Mick Patrick from the LTA group welcomed everyone and introduced the idea of the event, of BANZAI and the planned structure of the evening.
The film was interesting. Despite being made only six years ago, the world portrayed — pre COVID, pre Greta Thunberg, pre-Extinction Rebellion etc – seemed so different from now. And yet, so much that needs to change remains the same. The film focused on individuals working at a high level to help encourage systems change, rather than local change. However, it stressed that change at all levels is required, and clearly showed how working together helps people stay positive and create change.
After the film there was a chance to grab some more refreshments before dividing into four smaller groups, roughly based on home neighbourhood. Each group was facilitated by one of the organising team in discussions and idea-sharing for about 30 minutes. In each group session there was an opportunity for everyone to introduce themselves and to consider the kinds of net zero supporting actions that might be suited to small community groups and that they’d like to see. Topics that came up included:
reducing home energy consumption (e.g., insulation, heat pumps);
coordinated campaigning for measures such as street-level EV charging;
and many more.
The facilitators made notes of the group sessions and the organising team will consider everything that came up, and work out how to proceed.
What Next?
We will encourage the many attendees and BANZAI followers from neighbourhoods other than the Leamington Terrace to consider setting up their own street-level community groups to act on Net Zero. We will use the information gathered at the event to put any near-neighbours from such areas in touch with each other to make that a bit easier. We hope that BANZAI will work as an umbrella organisation to help the various groups share ideas, resources, experience, campaigns etc. It should be noted that BANZAI is not yet formally organised, constituted or funded in any way.
We also have the notes from the discussions on the kinds of actions that people consider might be attractive and successful at that level, which are being used to seed our planning.
In the meantime, BANZAI’s online presence provides opportunities to continue to spread the word, garner interest and facilitate further discussion and sharing of ideas. A website is also being created which may be useful in future.
Further work will be done to make the Leamington Terrace Area group for Net Zero action more organised and distinct from the broader BANZAI concept. The LTA group will then consider what ideas to proceed with in our community. Some members will also work on the development of BANZAI, at least in its early days, until responsibilities can be shared among members of a wider collection of street-level groups.
