Power to the people

IT WAS the longest day of my life. When I flicked the switch and nothing happened, I knew we had a crisis on our hands. I was plunged into darkness, time stood still – at least on the cooker clock – and there was no reassuring hum from the fridge. An evil villain from another dimension had disrupted the space-time continuum and only I could stop him. That was my first thought. Then I realised there had been a power cut.

I weighed up the options between fight and flight… Handbag in hand, I prepared to leave, cursing the fact that Jack Bauer has bigger environmental problems to deal with at the moment. Then came inspiration from a superhero with a longer green track record than the team of 24: “What would Ray Mears do?” Was I so hooked on energy that I’d forgotten the most basic human survival skills? Maybe this power cut was a wake-up call. If the oil’s going to run out before the windfarms have been built, we’d better start learning how to cope without electricity.

At first, I pretended it wasn’t happening. God bless the battery power of my laptop. Then it was lunchtime. I’d seen Ray build a primitive cooking pit on TV and felt sure I could do the same. It was raining, though, so I decided to have a cheese sandwich instead. Hunting for small mammals and gathering berries could wait. I stared into the environmental abyss as I opened the silent fridge. Our need for warmth and cooking power could be solved by fire (neighbours had a barbecue in the snow during the Hogmanay power cuts). But what about keeping things cold? What did they do in the old days? Something to do with pantries and salt, I think.

[…]

I was beginning to think that maybe we could all get by without electricity – an excellent prognosis for the planet. Then I thought again – what about banks and businesses? If you’ve ever stood in a supermarket queue while the red-faced person on the checkout says, “I’m sorry, but the computers are down,” you’ll know what kind of crisis a power cut could spark off. But once the looting had stopped, it might actually be a good thing. Can you imagine going into a shop and paying with real money instead of plastic? The shopkeeper would ring your purchases up on an old-fashioned till or write things down in a ledger. People would stop shopping in supermarkets as this process would take too long, and instead start revisiting specialist shops, building community spirit and supporting local producers. What a beautiful sparkly green future it would be.

Scotsman