Hey, is this real?

A link was posted into the chat. Then another. Finally, from Granite Shore Power itself: “Last coal plants in New England to voluntarily close, transitioning to renewable energy parks”. We had played out this scenario many times already. We held a retirement party (with cake), we brought our own artistic solar panels to help them envision what Merrimack Generating Station could become, we helped get their transition started by renovating their driveway and landscaping, and we donated closing signs for them to use. And we have also held each other through arduous and scary legal processes, we have grieved, raged, and hoped. Closing Merrimack Generating Station was always No Coal No Gas’ third goal; the first and second of community and possibility remain. And accomplishing this goal feels at once momentous and complicated. The dissonance between the unfettered public celebration of this positive development and the residue from over five years of facing a seemingly impermeable barricade of bureaucracy, law enforcement, and corporate power lives with us more than ever.

The closure announcement from Granite Shore Power is a win. For us, for the Conservation Law Foundation, for the Sierra Club, and most importantly, for the people of Bow, NH and for all living things who care about the Merrimack River, the Abenaki lands and people, and the air around us. We all want to live without fear of being poisoned by water, land, and air contamination. But this win isn’t without complexities. The news of Merrimack Generating Station’s closing has been picked up by major national outlets like the New York Times, The Hill, and Fox News, all pointing to the lawsuit and resulting closure agreement between Granite Shore Power, the Sierra Club, Conservation Law Foundation, and the EPA. Granite Shore Power is in a renaissance of its own making, having shaped its new identity as a leader in clean energy transition. The 2028 closure deadline is enough time to seem intentional; not too urgent to suggest that this wasn’t the plan all along. But evidence suggests that financial and mechanical factors were already leading to its closure even sooner. Funding from the grid operator ends in 2026, and as of this writing has not passed the stack test needed to return to emissions compliance due to mechanical failures. For the past five years, Granite Shore Power has also funneled significant resources into pushing back against sustained resistance from those of us who knew to our core that the status quo is not invincible, nor will it bend of its own volition.

Systems of power put a lot of effort into making us believe that they are broken. It seems odd to spend so much effort trying to convince society of its own brokenness, but there’s a strategy behind it. A broken system can be inherently good, just in need of some fixing. And as long as the system offers up a few tools to fix itself, legislation, ballots, and lawsuits, then it deserves to maintain power. Our responsibility as citizens then becomes utilizing those tools within the system to steer it back on course. And if we fail to make change, doubt is cast over whether our experiences were legitimate in the first place. We are told that our evidence isn’t compelling, that we are outliers, that the flaw isn’t in the system at all, but rather in us. When change does happen, the story is crafted to confirm the success of the system’s own safety valves, assuring us that change is possible if only we persist at pulling the levers offered to us. The directive is clear: utilize the avenues that are offered, and the system will right itself. Use the regulations available to negotiate change, and corporations will be empowered toward altruism. 

In the sentencing hearing for several of our friends in 2022, the judge expressed his belief in an imperfect but ultimately good system, telling defendants:

“…if you want to challenge [a] decision, make yourself part of the process in this state…Anybody who wants to talk on any bill can show up. Anybody who has something serious and wants to speak to the governor’s representative or the governor can. Anybody who lives here and is desirous of serving in state office? They can. So it’s not that the political process, certainly in this state, has shut down. And my sense is that while it’s fine to say that you don’t like coal, that people aren’t paying enough attention to climate, what’s not fine is to stop the coal train… I do believe that this type of this particular mechanism of trying to do something about climate change should end.”

How we tell the story of change matters. Not in terms of who gets the credit, but in how we imagine the possibilities for a more just world and acknowledge what it will take to get there. The story that the system tells not only curtails the changes that can actually be made, but also has reverberating implications to the emotional and physical safety of dissenters. During the civil rights era, peaceful Black activists were met with fire hoses, attack dogs, and beatings by police and civilians alike. Recently in several states, nonviolent climate activists have been charged with domestic terrorism, racketeering, and other organized crime. The narrative that the system can fix itself creates a culture where dissent through this particular mechanism is painted as self-serving, unnecessary, and irrational, eroding empathy for the escalated consequences rained down on dissenters. And the consequences are made more severe in order to deter dissent from continuing. If you don’t want the charges, you should work within the legal avenues provided and be grateful for the scraps. 

There is a concept called the radical flank effect that argues that “a radical flank—a discrete activist group within a larger movement that adopts an agenda and/or uses tactics that are perceptibly more radical than other groups within the movement—will increase support for a more moderate movement faction.”¹ In the face of direct and sustained confrontation, disobedience, and uncompromising visions of radical, as in from the roots, change, conceding to the incremental demands from systemic levers is a more attractive option to both satisfy the calls for change and maintain power. For some, this might seem like a call to focus our strategy on helping the more moderate factions succeed; throwing ourselves into wild escalation to make the lawsuits and the legislation seem inherently reasonable even within a conservative frame. But I see this as an invitation to continue peeling back the layers of systemic power, to make visible the inherent compulsion for self-preservation that grounds systemic concessions, and to keep going.