‘Below the surface of daily events flows the endless progress of time in which everything in the universe evolves through an ordered sequence of states towards its final purpose’ (Lee, 2012, 1)
Envisioned futures make assumptions about, and have far reaching implications for everyday lives but these are seldom explored (Timms et al., 2014; Strengers, 2013). Throughout this thesis, the future has already existed in the present and attention is drawn to the social structures and practices which are perpetuated and maintained for the future through everyday action. This chapter speculates on how futures may be made in ways that are beneficial to those whose voices are often excluded from official narratives of change and futures thinking. As Anderson (2010) has highlighted there are many ways of thinking about the future. Presented in this chapter is a scenario that considers a blackout in Lancaster, in 2056, created using concepts explored in the previous two chapters, treating these two case studies as an archive of the future, as well as the findings of a scenario workshop that involved those who had experienced the 2015 blackout.
Attention to the future has throughout this thesis been embedded into the case studies. The narratives of ‘what comes next’, goes against the view that in order for change to occur and have a significant impact, it has to be on a large-scale (for example, revolutions or catastrophic events). Instead this research looks at a smaller breakdown that can be ‘restored’ and uses it to demonstrate that the maintenance of various power systems is important. Anticipation is integral to change in everyday life and understanding complexity, there are multiple futures for each individual, institution and system.
187 In order to explore the potentials of a near future in 2056, seeking to build on the ideas of memory and the belief that experience of disruption in the past allowed for greater resilience in the future a workshop was delivered; ‘recreating’ and remembering the emotions of the Lancaster blackout of 2015, this is detailed later in this chapter. Within modes of future-making there are many ‘entanglements of matter and meaning’ (Adam, Groves 2007). The case studies of 1974 and 2015 as well as data collected at the workshop is used in this chapter alongside media commentaries, archival sources, social media, reports, interviews and opinion pieces to create a narrative from the future. These are used here in a similar way to the narratives presented about 1974 and 2015 (Chapters Four and Five) by involving those who experienced a similar event helps gain an understanding of how futures are formed and extrapolated from the past and present, whilst highlighting possible futures. Blackouts offer a power paradox. In order to eliminate blackouts, a stable grid is needed at all times. With the shift to renewables this stability does not exist as energy production becomes dependent on weather conditions and battery storage. A scenario with a constant threat of blackouts opens up conversations about governance, security, energy practices, climate and social lives that could be seen as suggestively dystopian in their form. As a well-established tool of futures thinking, the narrative developed in this chapter represents a 'scenario space' of some of the many possible futures that could emerge, depending on the emphasis placed on different ecological, socio-political, technological and economic changes.
Considering a ‘long range’ future (Masini, 1992: 32) explores how those who have experienced the event will partake in what comes next. During the 41-year interim between 1974 and 2015, publics were formed using memories of infrastructure disruptions past and changes to policy utilized these impacts. For this reason, the chapter uses 2056 as a fixed future point, 41 years after 2015. Dator specifies the need to be transparent when practitioners refer to ‘the future(s)’ (2002: 16). Masini (1993) defines future time frames as short-term, medium-term and long-term futures. Groff and Smoker (2015) present future time frames by adding two new categories: the ‘future’ as near-term future (present to 1 year), short-range future (1 to 5 years), middle- range future (5 to 20 years), long range future (20 to 50 years) and far future (50 years and more). Using 2056 as a fixed time horizon in this chapter enables a discussion of the maintenance that will be projected into the future. The
188 concept is revealing as it can highlight threads from previous moments of disruption, such as 1974 and 2015.
Investigating different futures thinking in relation to a blackout in 2056, the chapter takes a local small-scale scenario that highlights how the multiplicity of power, central to understanding change, is important and needed within futures thinking, where the complexity is an under-researched area (Fergnani, 2018), regardless of whether it considers the everyday life of the lay public. Often, new systems and their impact in transforming societies are central to future scenarios. However, within the four decades between the 2015 blackout and the 2056 scenario, as well as developing anticipations of 2056, the idea that there will be a radical overhaul driven by innovation should be exercised with caution. To suggest technologies are enabling new forms of practice ignores the maintenance of the system which enables development. The electrical networks, as well as the power structures in place in communities are historical and transforming entities. To meet carbon policy goals and the Paris Agreement goals, there needs to be radical transformation. This chapter relates to these issues by understanding how the characters of futures are shaped by pasts and presents, taking disruption as the focus of the event once again. Climate goals set 2050 as the year by which targets must be met; setting the scenario in 2056 demonstrates a possible future after this point.
Projecting a transformative societal change that challenges existing assumptions for problems of significant complexity with a long enough time horizon to allow for making determined choices is the key role of futuring techniques such as backcasting (Porritt, 2013), used to identify signals of change and also to determine short-term planning and policy goals that might facilitate a long-term outcome. This thesis does not use backcasting to look to an ideal future and how to get there: it is used to connect the past, present and future differently.
Porritt’s The World We Made presents an analysis of key events and changes that occurred during the scenario to reach the year 2050. Written from the perspective of a history teacher (born in 2000) the text presents short illustrated snapshots detailing the previous decade’s social, political, economic and technological developments, detailing an agenda calling for a sustainable world. Porritt starts from a ‘good’ desirable future and uses the method to explore
189 how to get to this point. The scenario presented here is not what would be considered ideal within a backcasting framework, disruption is still occurring, people still have to adapt to external pressures. The connection of 1974 and 2015 to 2056 is an element of the technique that will be adopted in the scenario.
This chapter serves as a way of appreciating the historic contingency in the multiple dimensions that the 2056 scenario encompasses. However, such extrapolations may ignore changes in the relationships between components in the near future and how these disrupt linear pathways. Whereas Geels and Smit (2000) note that anticipated growth and innovatory practices are envisaged and only developed to a certain extent, often changes in expectations correspond to particular constitutive moments. The fact that similar predictions have been made every decade or two (Urry, 2016) highlights again the need for maintenance as a vital practice of not only creating the future but enabling future scenarios (Geels, 2000: 874-6).
Innovatory practices are often the scenarios that are pushed to the forefront of futures thinking. This chapter does not serve as a way of thinking ‘how do we get to a situation where there are no blackouts’, such a viewing of power as an all or nothing factor of day to day life is not viable, people are busy trying to build power. Instead, vignettes are used to suggest how change might impact on the ways power exists during moments of infrastructure breakdown. This is demonstrated through a shift in responsibility, seen previously in both the case studies of 1974 and 2015, or by shifting approaches to maintenance. By briefly introducing futures of potentially emergent systems, setting out new ways of being, not to be judged by the extent to which the scenarios ‘get the future right’ (Candy 2010), but solely by the extent to which an exploration of futures enables us to perceive the present in a new way, leading us to ask more questions about the nature of power and change.
Thinking about the future in this way is important, as it brings together not only the linear structures of past, present and future, but also small localised futures, which are too often ignored in grand scenarios of utopian or dystopian visions. In the workshop held to visualise 2056, the use of a particular type of constructed object – maps – was used as a tool to enable dialogue in groups, allowing participants to connect together past, present and futures; to build new stories about futures, and to put themselves, as well as their past experiences in
190 the picture. Building on the infrastructure mapping introduced in Chapter 5, a dialogue was created about the nature of disruption and power in the future. The need to pay attention to
‘the role materials and spaces play in shaping collaboration and knowledge production’ (Pang, 2010: 31) has become a central part of futures studies (Curry: 2010). Through exploring a scenario that utilises both space and material elements, the workshop sought to think not only about future disruption, but additionally to bring production into scenario planning methodologies. In this thesis, the scenario is driven by practice-led research that invites members of a community to use an established problem, to intervene and produce an outcome using their own knowledge (in the next section, this creation of an experience of the future will be explored).
Scenarios are plausible, challenging and relevant stories about how the future might unfold (Hunt et al. 2012), using them as method allows questioning of what can happen, what will happen and how can we get there. Such scenario work in relation to infrastructures is already in place; however, their involvement of the public not only in the narratives and outcomes they suggest but additionally the creation of the scenarios is non-existent. One example is the report ‘Pathways to 2050’, produced by the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC 2010), which claims to explore future energy needs and identify ways in which these might be met through the adoption of a low carbon energy system. The social is not incorporated into its analysis, taking current practices for granted, the document assumes a continuation of current standards and high electricity use with increasing dependence on power. The scenarios that are presented are addressed as issues of supply, but do not acknowledge the social aspects of daily life, including users actually going about their daily practice within these frameworks. The futures workshop was specifically designed to incorporate attention to social practices and social structures into ideas of power futures. This is something that Jasanoff and Kim contend that new energy futures will need ‘to reconfigure the physical deep structures of civilization—grids and pipelines, seashores and pastoral landscapes, and suburbs and cities—that were shaped by the energy choices of the past’
(2013).
191 Another such report: ‘Generating the Future: UK energy systems fit for 2050’ has no mention of the social or blackouts when considering the shift in systems.138 Although the scenarios will also have serious resilience issues, with around 40% of the electricity supply coming from intermittent supplies in each presented scenario, the system would be moving into new territories not currently encountered in simulation or in practice. The report notes that it is unlikely that the overall scale and appearance of the system will change to any great degree given the same level of demand; this again highlights the importance of presenting a scenario where maintenance is at the forefront as a key theme. Written from an electrical engineering perspective, the report concludes by stating the ‘huge impact on the public’ through lack of electricity. Once again, the role of the everyday in energy scenarios is ignored, suggesting that publics will not be involved in the creation of future presents; rather the future will happen to them. The scenario explored in this chapter argues the need to incorporate publics into the creation of futures, to understand the way in which people not only act on what is to come through maintenance (See Chapter 6), but additionally the way that they think about futures as well in the present. The next section will detail the method employed to do this and explore how to go about futures thinking in a way that considers new methods on how to engage publics.