If you didn’t read part one, here it is.
Natalie Bennett dismisses the idea that the global population level is a problem. She is right of course, consumption levels of the richest are a key problem, as the 2023 Oxfam ‘Climate Equality’ report states. The richest 1% of the world’s population produced as much carbon pollution in 2019 as the five billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity. Referring to ageing populations in many States, Bennett makes references to pressure on women to produce more children (pp39-40), amongst a number of references to the significance of feminism. Since about half the countries on the Planet have birth rates below replacement levels, a more liberal migration regime which I heard her talk about, seems very appropriate.
Skills
Skills shortages and what Bennett describes as the “great siloisation of knowledge” (p.55) affects many universities and may be getting worse as students avoid subjects they might have taken if intending to teach in UK schools. Having taught Development Studies, European Studies and environmental policy at university level, it is clearly important that students understand that the world is a holistic, inter-disciplinary experience and a narrowing of perspective is unhelpful. Certainly, those of diverse knowledge and experience are not going to be ready candidates for far right and/or populist thinking (see pp.57-59).
Democracy
The UK would struggle to describe itself as a true democracy. A 2020 YouGov survey said that:
“Three-quarters of Britons (75%) describe the UK as a democratic country, but six in ten (60%) complain that they cannot freely say what they think, and a third (34%) feel they have absolutely no say when it comes to how things are run”.
Apart from the lack of proportional representation (PR) in many types of elections, the internal arrangements of the Conservative and Labour parties do not appear as shining beacons of democracy. That about 80% of Labour Party members support PR and the Shadow Cabinet blocks its implementation is bad enough, but Labour conferences are dismal exercises in block voting too. Imagine what the UK would be like if Labour had stuck to its 1945 manifesto and introduced PR. Would there ever have been Thatcherism dominating Westminster?
Centralisation of power in the UK seems to deter the population from participating in voting, especially in local elections, and certainly from joining political parties. Curious how PR is acceptable for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales but not for the UK Parliament including the House of Lords. Bennett advocates a written constitution for the UK to bring it towards true democracy and sustained support for rights and responsibilities. But political parties need to be democratic under such a constitution too.
Environment
Chapter 4, Restoring the Earth, offers a brief, precise picture of what has been done to the UK environment by Governments, councils, companies and notably the group misnamed as ‘developers.’ Restoring local food supplies and the natural environment can both be amongst the processes of restoration, subject to major changes of values and objectives in the planning system and in what constitutes acceptable land use. Whilst there is a considerable lobby for such change, in the broadly-based environmental movements, the UK’s green parties and in initiatives such as the Real Farming Conference, there is a big problematic issue here of corporate resistance and what might politely be called mindless conservatism. West England Bylines called for a new plan for rural communities quoting Oxford Real Farming at the beginning of last year.
Regulating those whose attrition of our environment is well-established over decades, and who are responsible for the UK being one of the most nature-depleted countries in Europe, will be very challenging not least since the Environment Agency will need powers and personnel like never before to make substantial, constructive change possible. See too our ‘Sewage Watch’, a regular blog of press coverage of pollution of our rivers and beaches.
Sustainable Economy
Realigning the economy to emphasise sustainability and localisation as Bennett suggests requires embedding of these concepts into policies that are implemented, rather than as means of polishing up the rhetoric of politicians and corporate representatives not actually minded to change. We have certainly seen a great deal of this rhetoric and associated behaviour in the UK since the 1987 publication of the Brundtland report (World Commission on Environment and Development – Our Common Future). But whilst sustainability and sustainable development have some presence within planning and politics here in the UK, localisation remains an obscure term. Bennett recognises and outlines how communities she is familiar with have benefitted by local-level oriented planning decisions supporting sustainability (pp.101-104). But localisation, to be achieved, would mean empowered local government able to control its own tax levels – ideally under Land Value Taxation – and fundamentally altered planning laws. Localisation is elaborated by Colin Hines in ‘Localization: a global manifesto’ (2000) and Helena Norberg-Hodge in ‘Local is our future: steps to an economics of happiness’ (2019).
Conclusion
The above requires significant changes to the economy and the financial system that may be considered revolutionary by some. Bennett offers a picture of why such changes are needed and what is involved (pp.101-136). We are definitely in the area of system change here, in the sense of stepping briskly away from the neoliberalism which has failed us all causing inequality, environmental destruction and catastrophic failure to bring about a decent society for all. Bennett’s remarks do sit within a large body of Green Economics.
In the dark days of Thatcherism, I remember early green champion, Tim Eiloart, at one conference I attended handing round a brief paper on ‘Four Million Low-Growth Jobs’. This preceded a considerable body of Green Economics works to which Bennett provides a snapshot introduction, like Herman E. Daly, ‘Steady-state economics’ (1992) and Molly Scott Cato, ‘Green Economics: an introduction to theory, policy and practice’ (2009).
What Bennett calls “rebalancing the world” and “reparation” have appeared in the literature of development studies and in the campaigning efforts of liberal international development and Aid organisations for many decades. Economics based upon unequal power and competition between states of very different resources and capacities is going to require global system change involving the most powerful, and often most-damaging, states and corporations. Achieving such change in the presence of deteriorating climate, environment and social conditions is going to be very challenging indeed. But necessity drives what needs to be changed. What is true for the UK is emphasised globally by the declining quality of life for humans and other species on Earth.
We do have to change everything, as we failed to start on this with any urgency in recent decades. What else of greater value could you do within your own lifespan?
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