Week 4...What I think could be done to encourage people to consume more sustainably, practical policies...

I am working with a concept which seemed relevant in my reading of A. Mol's "Ecological Modernization and the Global Economy" last week, (yes! there was one), which is that the majority of environmental protection measures have started in the E.U. and filtered out through the rest of the world. If systems can be developed to persuade people to consume more sustainably in Britain there is a good chance that these will evolve and spread globally, so by working in a limited framework measures can still take on a global significance in time.

I think most people in Britian are unaware of the real nature of the crisis bearing down on the planet. There has been much green consumerism and much talk of climate change over the past forty years but, due to the ostrich- inspired nature of the government, (regardless of party, politics is one more distraction here), nothing much has been done to bring about the necessary changes; in other words it's all been about Mainstream policies. Its pretty obvious why, the kind of changes in policy that I am about to advocate would not be popular, and would take political courage to implement.

I would like to see a thorough education programme about the nature of the changes we can expect to see in the next thirty to forty years. This will include the changes inherent in the situation of dwindling oil resources for all of us, and the best current predictions about the climate change, and the effects this will have here. I hope never again to see a complacent member of the public interviewed during a heat wave addressing the television camera with a bland smile and such words as "Yes, climate change, lovely isnt it?". I want people to actually understand what it means, not just to the people on drowning islands in the South Pacific, or polar bears in the arctic, but to ALL of us, if the average temperatures climb three or four degrees.
This information could be delivered (as I see it has just begun to be, last week), through public education films on tv , but also through all forms of media and, most importantly, through mainstream education in schools.

I know, (from work done on language skills, social and cultural influences in the immigrant
community in the 19th century U.S.), that there is no better way of educating society than by educating children. They not only carry the information into another generation but rapidly teach their parents what they have learned and import it to every social and working environment they enter.

Important as this is, vital in fact, it would only be the precursor paving the way to an initially small but widening path of taxation on all carbon emissions, in industry, aviation, transport and the general public. This would be unpopular, but given the education which would now be "out there" in the general domain, it would be impossible to give a logical or morally defensible stand to resistance. Only pensioners will, (through the logisitics of time), be unaffected by the situation to come, and the necessary support on winter heating will continue although I hope it becomes increasingly from renewable resources; everyone else is a stakeholder in a future which will be fundamentally altered from the present and for which we must construct new foundations set at a steep trajectory from our current position.

I echo "Diamonds" views on reproductive responsibility and believe that non financial incentives,(dont want to get consumerism climbing again!) for women who choose to have only one child could be offered at either sterilisation, (already offered free on the NHS), or at the menopause for those who have "delivered". This is because limiting the human population limits in every way the difficulties we confront with regard to sustainable consumption. (N.B. The reason why I stress women having the incentives for one child is because it is impossible to as easily identify the male parenthood of babies born, but in the 1980s, in the then "Norfolk and Norwich Hospital" there was evidence that one in 3 babies was not fathered by the purported father.)

Education with regard to the new social values, (discussed in last weeks blog), should take place alongside the education on life post-oil, climate change and sustainable consumption so that there is an understanding that life need not be less enjoyable but must be based on different social premises that are less expensive for the planet and therefore inevitably and intrinsically, for ourselves. The requirement here is to reduce the fear of loss and replace it with stoicism and a motivation to tackle the problems, individually and, more importantly, as a society.

A thought on psyche, which is based on a British situation but may be applicable globally. When Margaret Thatcher told the British public that we, as a nation, had problems and they could not be dealt with rapidly but would have to be worked through, (in 1979), the response of that public was to elect her, at least partly on the grounds she was dealing in truth, albeit unpalatable. It may be that an honest appraisal of the situation and the necessity in facing up to the measures required to deal with it will not be a disaster for a party or a leader. We need one to take the risk.