May 12, 2008
Trying to stay green when Britain is in the red
It was Sian Berry, the Green candidate for London mayor, who told me - a while back - that people care less about the environment during difficult economic times.
“In about the mid-1980s, environmental issues started to appear spontaneously, and it kept rising up to 1989,” says Ms Berry. “At the top of the economic cycle it was considered more important than health and immigration. During the recession it dropped like a stone.”
There is even a word for it: Maslow’s theory (look it up on Google).
Hilary Benn, environment secretary, will tackle the theme in a speech tomorrow in Washington.
“Some will say that these pressures mean that we must put our economic interests first - that we must choose economic stability over environmental stability. We need both. So I believe that this is a false choice….” he will say.
“We must resist temptation to put off dealing with climate change for another day, when the world economy is stronger.”
But there is growing evidence that green issues are sliding down the policy priority list; the lukewarm path to bin taxes and road taxes…the possible cancellation of autumn’s fuel duty rise…
Nor are the Tories banging the green drum any more. There was little or no mention of the environment in David Cameron’s big policy speech last week.
Policies, whether environmental or economic, will always move up and down the priority list. For example, unemployment has not been a focus for several years. Verdantix research suggests that since 2007 business activity on climate change is driven by energy costs and corporate strategy. Even 76% of equity analysts, across all sectors, believe it is now a strategic business issue.
Posted by: David Metcalfe | May 12th, 2008 at 11:52 pm | Report this commentWhilst it is to be expected that in the political world, the fashionable expulsion of hot air about the environment will shift to some new bright chatter, the underlying issues will not change and will reappear in any sustainable set of policies.
The current economic yardstick is scaled to the tail end peak of the fossil fuel era. The future promises and requires significant changes of measurement to accommodate unprecedented world population levels, rapidly improving lifestyles in the developing world, saturated ecosystems and exhausted natural resources. The period of mining and dumping is coming to a close.
A sustainable balance needs to be found, which includes adequate social and environmental as well as financial accounting. Commerce can be a good servant though is showing it’s self to be a very poor master.
Our society is very weak in its appreciation and celebration of inner human values. The human is a “spiritual” being living in a physical world.
We have the opportunity to take the material benefits of the past 250 years and apply them to form a sustainable basis for our physical lives whilst our minds move up the hierarchy of needs to realise the enormous and potent potential of our inner spiritually aligned lives.
There is an abundance of data to show that commercially driven values won’t make us happy, and they certainly won’t be sustainable.
Posted by: David Roe CEnv IEng | May 13th, 2008 at 12:12 am | Report this commentIf you think that Maslow’s theory applies, then you see economic wellbeing as fundamental, and environmental issues as an optional luxury, like, say, opera.
In my world, the survival of our ecosystem matters at the ‘physical security’ or bottom level of Maslow’s pyramid. Air travel is just a frippery at the ’self actualisation’ level.
Posted by: Ian Slater | May 13th, 2008 at 7:16 am | Report this commentMaybe the absence of a wide general culture prevents people from appreciating the fact that we are heading for a wall.
Posted by: Esther Phillips | May 13th, 2008 at 8:01 am | Report this commentHowever in a depressed economy fortunately there is automatic “carbon rationing” for most via inflation. We can afford less so the “true value” of goods will come to the fore and there will be less wastage. Hopefully unnecessary one-way use products will disappear from the shelves for good.
Finite resources cannot be divided by an exponentially growing number, the sooner we talk about this and reign in our insticts to procreate at any cost the better.
Berry is right and makes more sense than most environmentalists. People will go into survival mode as the economy nosedives. They will be fixated on getting and/or keeping a job. They will look for ways to save money, no matter what that is. That’s why we see people turn to cheap, fill-you-up quick junk food, not organic chicken.
For those who care about the environment, they should get off their own equivalent of junk food (government grants, high-paid corporate consultancy, trips to global conferences) and lead by example: show people how to save money and be healthy and happy. I remember the time in the 90s when the environmentalists went off the public agenda, but were very much enjoying the free trips around the world to shag interns. It is time to be more honest and honourable.
Posted by: Bob Macdonald | May 13th, 2008 at 9:49 am | Report this commentSurely this idea that increasing taxes on fuel with pursuade poeple to give up their cars has been consigned to the rubbish bin (the green one).
Within the last year fuel costs have increased (without additional tax) by far more than any govenment would have forced them to (in trying to promote a green policy) and yet there are still the same number of vehicles on the roads and the general populace are still driving like Formula 1 wannabees.
thanks
L
Posted by: Lee Threlfall CHav | May 15th, 2008 at 9:57 am | Report this comment