My short video this morning laments the lack of green policy from our major political parties at this election. In it, I argue that William Blake might have written about England's green and pleasant land, but it seems that most English politicians are intent on ignoring green issues during this election. That's going to leave us with a whole pile of problems - and a grubby, unpleasant, and even uninhabitable land in time to come.
This is the transcript:
Most people watching this video will be familiar with the hymn, ‘Jerusalem' and Blake's poem all about England's green and pleasant land.
So why haven't the Liberal Democrats put anything in their manifesto costings about green policy?
Why has Labour dropped green policy from its agenda?
Why are the Reform Party so opposed to Green policy that they attack it?
And where are the Tories? Well, nowhere as usual.
What is it about this ‘green and pleasant land' that we hate so much that we won't actually try to preserve it?
When we make it our second national anthem, in England at least, what is it that then inspires us to loathe the very thing we aspire to?
I wish I knew, because I can't answer that question, but what I do know is that we definitely need green policy, or we are all in very deep trouble.
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One of yesterday’s blog’s covered memes – which are shortcuts often with useage which means the opposite of the expanded explanation (e.g. woke)
“Green” – guaranteed to be polarising – in the same way as the labels: left – right.
Different framing:
Would you (or your children) like to be able to swim (or paddle) in a nice clean river – with fish etc? Would you support policies that enabled this?
Would you (or your children) like to walk through countryside filled with birds and wildlife? Would you support policies that enabled this?
You would be a brave (mad?) person to not want the above.
The phrase “green policies” is a a useful shortcut – but is then hijacked by politicos – e.g. Reform. But once expanded – clean rivers, beautiful and interesting countryside the idiots that oppose this are left with nowhere to go. Perhaps we should use fewer shortcuts.
At the moment our best bet seems to be invasion by China. Their leaders appear far more responsible than ours.
No, thamk you
Tinamen Square?
Hong Kong
@mike
It is because there is no easily articulable expression of the underpinning values that conservation and environmental protection have.
We can all see that your list of clean rivers etc, are essentially good, but there is no quick way of saying why.
We can have cause and effect ‘shortcuts’ or memes .. say ..
“Your profits mean dead fish”
“Unregulated business burns forests”
but nothing at the elementary level of ….
“I can’t thrive on a dying planet” even though there is a phrase … “Earth Abides” that covers it.
The problem then is that the dismissive pushback always falls back on the trope that the environmental lobby is scaremongering and is against ‘progress’ .. which is patently untrue given the current series of environmental crises we face collectively.
Absolutely, this is not left and right, and ‘green’ has been hijacked….
The actions most necessary are in arming against the actual mindset of the ‘fook the externalities’ brigade.
Yet, shaming the corporates has worked in past campaigns, but shaming mainstream economic thinking has not. Now there’s another set of shibboleths.
One depressing message from the European elections was the ground lost by Green Parties (ground gained by the far right). The moment people realise that things must change if our kids are not to bathe in sewage and stew in ever rising heat they swerve rightwards towards anti immigrant, anti tax rises parties. The problem isn’t merely these opportunist demagogues – it’s a general acceptance that putting oneself first is a rational and adult way to behave. Doing things for the good of the whole community (the global community even) is viewed with hostility by those who put “me” first, with the backing of decades of neoliberalism.
Agreed
I was reading yesterday the Tory and Labour housing policies, and how low in terms of priorities for both of them, housing is as an issue in the election.
When it comes to green policy and housing, it is an area of total neglect, especially when you look at it from a renting point of view.
There are around nine million renters in the UK, about half renting with a private landlord.
https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/number-homeowners-and-renters-uk
It is the landlord that controls what happens to the property. The tenant can be the “greenest” person alive, but they have no power to make any changes to the property they live in, solar panels, heat pump, etc. The Tories, when they put back the net-zero date, also put back the date for landlords to upgrade their properties. Renters have no say. No power. Nothing. This is the “free” market, backed by Tory government, at work. Looking after the financial interests of landlords.
There is nothing from the Tories that recognise this connection between green policy, who owns property, and who doesn’t. Not even an issue. Too busy concerned with boats, getting you people into slave labour national service, and unfunded tax cuts to the already well off.
And Labour is silent.
For many, Britain has become a largely not so green and unpleasant land.
Its Newspeak again
Along with ‘public spending’ = ‘waste’, now ‘green’ also = ‘expense’ or ‘cost’
Govt seems to have helped to make this inevitable – almost deliberately fostered ‘farming’ vs ‘green stuff’ polarisation
The loss of habitats and biodiversity in the UK has been depressing, even by industrial nation standards. We are the worst in Europe and the purveyors of Brexit always intended to remove environmental policiies and constraints on business.
I just cannot believe how few birds, butterflies and moths there are nowadays.
A few successes at the top of the food chain like red kites and white tailed eagles mask huge failure across the rest of the ecosphere.
The fundamental problem stems from growth without responsibility.
GDP and GDP per capita are utterly useless measures.
Wealth ? Welfare ? Wellbeing ? Naw… short term profit and value extraction dominate.
Where are the pollution taxes, why are English Water company bosses getting bonuses when excreta are dumped daily in rivers ?
Ultimately the rot starts with our absence of foundation beliefs in industrial societies that value the environment.
There is a South American concept of ‘sumak kawsay / buen vivir’ which integrates human wellbeing and individual autonomy with collective values and environmental sustainability. They are all seen as one.
I can see no other route to real change than amending the actions required to remediate the climate crisis, to include biodiversity and wider environmental objectives like turd free rivers. We really ought to adopt the UN’s SDGs as our key political objectives.
The dogma of neoliberalism and value extraction simply has to be undermined, because business as normal is existentially suicidal. And that is where we are at.
As the meme has it ” There is no music on a dead planet ” ….. or money …..