BCS Hosts a “Silent Storm”

BCS Hosts a “Silent Storm”

Brattleboro Common Sense is creating apolitical spaces that allow folks to explore thoughts and feelings about facing the end of humanity at the hands of climate catastrophe. A “silent [brain-]storm” event was held this Summer at 118 Elliot, and attracted a crowd of 25 participants.

We watched the new documentary, Ice on Fire, which focuses on many “never-before-seen solutions designed to slow down our escalating environmental crisis… The film goes beyond the current climate change narrative and offers hope that we can actually stave off the worst effects of global warming.”

Storm Table

After the first thirty minutes of the film, which framed the crisis itself, the gathered sat with our response to the crisis in a silent reflection. We wrote whatever words came to heart and mind, and created an improvised montage from our written words on a table set up for that purpose (see embedded video). We then watched the rest of the film, which highlighted its featured proposed solutions.

After the movie ended, the group co-created another silent storm in which we wrote down thoughts and feelings in response to five themes: Declaring climate change an emergency; Conservation and sacrifice; Stewardship and indigenous wisdom; Inventions and innovations; and Local political action. The words and phrases were arranged on poster boards with those themes, which were then placed at separate tables where people clustered at will. Each cluster then broke the silence and discussed their experiences, current state of mind and heart, and visions of rescue and regeneration that arose from the theme.

BCS will continue to host a variety of creative spaces, private and public, for this kind of exploration.