Climate change, terrorism and social injustice

What is the link between preventing terrorism, combatting climate change and tackling social injustice?

One link is that they all depend on the good will and consent of the public in implementing solutions; another is that each is being handled badly by the authorities who currently run the world.

Perhaps most important, however, is how they fit together: social injustice, with its extremes of wealth and poverty, power and powerlessness, is at the centre. Social injustice is the key factor, contributing on the one hand to natural instability in the form of ecological deficit (overuse of resources) and emissions leading to climate change, and on the other hand to the human response to such instability - terrorism (aggression born of impotence) and the witch-hunting, intolerant fear of 'the other'.

If you accept this analysis, then combatting both climate change and terrorism can be achieved only by tackling social injustice.

This is actually not such a tall order, given the enormous power of the electronic media, but it involves major changes in attitude - changes which are eagerly awaited by much of the population of the world. It may sound simplistic, but here goes.

Three new attitudes
1. Respect the poor and those who use few resources: this is not to say that we should glorify poverty, but we must start respecting and rewarding moderation - constant growth is not the best way of measuring success, as we are finding out to our cost.

2. Listen to the poor and allow 'ordinary' people to act: we assume that the world has to be run centrally, all of a piece, but is this natural? only mankind tries to control any more than a small section of territory. Listening is not the same as having a Big Conversation. Solutions must be implemented quickly by those who are most closely involved, not necessarily expert, sometimes whose only qualifications are that they belong to a particular area.

3. Be honest about failures, limitations and imperfections: in our consumer-driven society we try to achieve perfection and total safety, forgetting that we do so at someone else's expense and at the expense of the planet. We have no absolute right to total safety, because we are human, fallible, mortal and part of the fabric of the planet. If we are encouraged to demand it ('How can we make sure this never happens again?'), we lose sight of the fact that we are demanding for ourselves something that at least four fifths of the world will never be able to have.

Community media have a role to play
Media literacy (as in participating, ie. questioning, reporting and disseminating a message) and community media have a central role to play in making such changes happen. Whilst we still have the luxury of the internet and electronic communications (dependent as they are on the luxury of reliable electricity) we must make the widest use of them to spread this message and achieve such changes.

Let's move the focus away from hunting out extremism and instead focus on providing media access for all, so that people can share their own concerns and offer their own suggestions, no matter how small.

To paraphrase a Biblical saying: he who stops worrying about his own safety, and starts listening, will be safe.

My Climate Challenge

We welcome the Climate Challenge website and campaign from Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). In the Get Involved section, you can comment or add your own Bright Ideas.

You are also welcome to comment and add your own Climate Challenge ideas here. Look for Comments at the bottom of this post, then click on this link and a new screen will open. Read any comments already there and add your own in the box (moderated).

Here are some of my Climate Challenge ideas:

First, some challenges for individuals:

One Warm Room - heating a whole house or building is a luxury we can't afford. Instead of central heating, when it's cold try heating one central room in your home.

Do It In Daylight - our modern 24 hour lifestyles are unsustainable, especially during the winter months with their longer hours of darkness. Rethink and reorganise your time. If you can't (eg. because of outside constraints such as night working etc), think about how you would manage if 24 hour resources were not available to you.

Stickers For Stick-In-The-Muds - attach stickers to (or place information leaflets near) items which still use excessive and unsustainable resources (high food miles, unnecessary plastic packaging etc).

Put That Light Out! If you live near an office or public building which leaves lights and computers on all night, call and leave messages, or give out leaflets outside the building, asking them to switch off and save energy.

Lower Income, Lower Emissions - the richer you are, the more emissions you create and the more resources you use up - check your local authority's ecological footprint* against the highest and lowest in the country (Highest = St Albans, Kensington & Chelsea, Guildford, Epsom & Ewell at 6.5+ global hectares perperson; Lowest = Merthyr Tydfil, Blaenau Gwent* at less than 5 gha per person). A good reason to be proud if you're not among the country's 'top' people. Whatever your rating, lobby your council to reduce its footprint even more.
*source: Stockholm Environment Institute York, REAP website (free but requires registration)

Don't Borrow Tomorrow's Resources for Today - reduce your debt, don't borrow for today's pleasures from the resources your children will need tomorrow.

And an important challenge for the Government:

Economic Growth Is For Dummies - we urgently need to rethink how we judge economic success: to be sustainable and to combat climate change we need to measure success and progress on sustainability, stability and social cohesion instead of on financial growth alone.