Rather gloomily I anticipate that one of the recurring themes on this site is the lack of interest that people have in politics. This can be taken a step further and argued that the general public regard themselves as separate individualities as distinct from their neighbours as water is from rock. They are forced by necessity to live amongst their countrymen and women, but refuse to actually engage with them. Voting turnout is decreasing and attendance at the surgeries of MP’s are minimal. This latter issue is of course ignoring the xenophobes intent on stamping out the scourge of immigration. These people will be seen picketing their local MP bemoaning the fact that the Somalians and Poles have taken away what is rightfully theirs…Housing Benefit, Job Seekers Allowance, Social Housing etc.
The self-imposed removal of the British electorate from the political process flies in the face of what is, by any standards, a fine heritage of dissent. Campaigning against and engagement with all manner of leaders, absolutist and democratic. People who have questioned the status quo and insisted on having a say in how how the country is run. With varying degrees of success (and admittedly self interest), this tradition includes Wat Tyler, The Levellers, The Diggers, The Abolitionists, the Suffragettes and the Greenham Common women. A thread of interaction between ruler and subject that runs from the Anglo-Saxon period right up until the Poll Tax riots of the early nineties. Maybe the people of this country are in such a state of comfort, affluence and well being that we can sit back, boot up the X-Box, peer intently at the 51-inch plasma screen television, crack open a Stella Artois and relax knowing that “the leaders of the state are doing a great job, as after all, how would I be able to afford the X-Box and television? Therefore things must be fine. No need for me to get involved. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!” Yet people still bend my ear everyday about the wishfully inflated crime statistics and the hordes of immigrants camped on the outskirts of Dover waiting to descend upon us like a latter day visitation from Genghis Khan. As if these things are actually my fault. But then I do bring this on myself, as I spend much of my time encouraging people to openly discuss matters that concern them. This backfires with monotonous regularity as I normally end up being inundated by comments on the latest fashion item to be marketed by some pitifully insignificant footballer/hip hop half-wit/R’n’B clone/model/Big Brother contestant or other example of wankery (in a just world these people would be insignificant).
Perhaps people no longer trust the government. There is a another fine tradition – running parallel with the aforementioned dissent – of griping about the politicians “all being as bad as on another, they are only in it for themselves. They are all the same!” Ignoring the point that whilst extremist groups such as the British National Party and the Socialist Party(s) are…extreme, it seems that stating that they are in effect one and the same is a bit much. Even the mainstream parties have differences, although I would be the first to admit that New Labour and the Conservatives have drawn very much closer to each other over the last ten years. A pulling together that is almost incestuous in nature. What about the people of this country stepping up and, dare I say it…taking responsibility? Why live up to the stereotype so exuberantly donated to us by the Australians of being whinging poms (mind you, they have to vote, it’s not as if they have a choice)?
Lack of trust in the political elite is understandable. As if to reinforce their blatant unsuitability to keep the affairs of Albion in order, the British government has recently admitted that it has absolutely no chance of reaching renewable energy targets as it sulkily agreed it would and should earlier this year. Yet rather than hold up its hand and admit this, it seems that ministers have been briefed by officials to attempt to worm their way out of the targets. Therefore the government is in fact encouraging the populace of this Britain to abandon responsibility for the environment, not that they need much motivation. How should the general public respond to this? We are told that the environment is under siege (although probably not to the same extent as this island is from the invading throngs of immigrants, according to the Mail and Sun at least). We are exhorted to take any and every possible step to protect flora and fauna. Well all right then, just the pretty, fluffy and cute looking ones, insects are bastards and deserve everything coming to them! We are directed by our (barely) elected officials to make every effort to reduce our carbon footprint and yet those very same officials are looking for loopholes and excuses. Hardly practising what you preach is it? The British administration is educating us to be laissez-faire.
The media are also complicit. The papers - that claim the duplicity of the government in matters relating to the environment - will post such articles next door to colourful spreads inviting us to travel abroad and become inspired by the wonders of the world (those that remain anyway). Actually, pausing for breath, thinking of the British travelling abroad to soak up foreign cultures rather than soak up the sun is anomalous. A more honest advertisement would promise us the opportunity to travel overseas with the chance to drink, fuck and abuse the hospitality of our hosts to our hearts content. Whereupon we could return back home – skin; a taut fossilised brown – to ponder the weird foreigners who speak not a word of English, eat funny food, drink in relative moderation and generally carry on in a way that can be considered: not British (how dare they?!). Still the method of getting to those places is the same – aeroplanes, not the most ecologically friendly way of commuting. I should point out that I am not saying that everybody should suddenly start rowing to Spain, but am rather highlighting the confused message that the press provide us. Car supplements sit alongside reports on ozone depletion, fashion articles will be placed next door to stories of sweatshop labour. It does strike me that the editors are intent on distracting from more pertinent issues. The media are not always so unthinking in the assembly of their information. Far from it! The Sun, Britain’s most popular paper (what does that say about us?) reported that the climate isn’t changing but that global warming is “a new way to screw more taxes from us” (actually this last bit is unfair on the good old Currant Bun, which does often squeeze an environmental issue in between its more common output of celebrity gossip - but fuck it! I’m trying to make a point!!). No confusion there, all the ecologists and activists out there are in collusion with the government, its obvious isn’t it?
Confusion about what is right and what is wrong could possibly be a reason for the divorce of the British public from political pursuits. Apart from the competing science and endless refutations of endless studies, the political parties have used environmental issues as another means for pillorying the opposition. Not out of any concern for the depletion of ecosystems but rather out of a skewed sense of party loyalty. In response to New Labour’s grudgingly admitted failure to reach the targets alluded to above, the Tories unhelpfully accused the government of ‘living a lie’. Yet in their fumbled attempts to jump aboard the CO2 admitting bandwagon, they omitted to provide an alternative policy. Their approach is not far removed from that of schoolchildren linking arms, marching around the playground and chanting: “New Labour, New Labour, are wee, snot and poo, the environment is buggered and they don’t know what to do!” Both sets of Tories (that is the light blue of New Labour and royal blue of the Conservatives) have a curious and, I hesitate to say, misguided technique when it comes to the environment. Extreme weather conditions are relayed back to us with a regularity suggesting that the floods, droughts and all, can be considered normal. The adverse weather patterns are occurring worldwide and this would suggest that any political approach should be of a cross-party variety. In fact, thinking about it, surely it would be better to have a cross nation tactic or plan to address this issue. What’s that? Oh we already have one, but rather than genuinely invest time, effort and money into it, we have admitted defeat and are doing our level best to extricate ourselves from the agreement. Why is it so hard to understand that whatever the causes of climate change, the consequences affect us all?
Economics. Now there is a subject to send even the most ardent activist into a slumber. Yet this is another area that is cited as a reason for ecological recalcitrance. As ever, the way to get people to adopt any given course of action is to convince them that it will benefit them financially. Save the environment? Only if I have enough left over to spend in Argos. Cease over-fishing the once plentiful but now nearly extinct supplies of cod? But what about my fish fingers? Walk or cycle (and thus get fitter) rather than drive? But what about impressing my peers with the latest in sleek shiny pollution farting mobility (as espoused by that definition of residual human surplus: Jeremy Clarkson)?
There are no incentives for people to change their habits. People do not consider the environment as having any monetary worth (unless you are a logger or farmer). As for intrinsic values, forget it! This indifference is made worse by the muddled messages emanating from Westminster. However, this is no excuse for public inactivity. The rising sea levels are hardly going to stop their encroachment into our homes by pausing to consider if they are economically viable. People need to take action, irrespective of what the government or media say. The latter, let us not forget, are lapdogs that will speedily adopt ecologically sound principles if they are seen to be the next big thing. What about individuals finding out whether their energy suppliers source their material from a renewable base? If they don’t then change suppliers. As sure as day follows night, a change in consumer demand will lead to companies amending their business practice in order to meet that demand. Consumers leading by example rather than being dictated to, now there’s a thought?
But back to the government. I fail to understand why there are not more restrictions on things such as car travel. It is an acknowledged vote loser, but then Westminster has hardly been shy in pursuing politically precarious policies, or were the people marching to protest about war in Iraq a figment of my naïve imagination? How did the Blair regime convince us that we needed to go to war? Was it through a thought-out but delicate deconstruction of recent Iraqi history? Were we brought to appreciate the impossibly difficult situation that the people of that country found themselves in and that intervention was the only way to ease their suffering? Or were we lied to? Why not coerce us through similar means with regard to the environment? But then Iraq has vast reserves of oil and gas, environmentalism tends towards windmills and solar energy, where’s the money in that? Of course the Iraq War is a land grab for oil. If the reasons were humanitarian rather than self serving avarice, then Mugabe would be dangling right next to Saddam.
Another important point here: the demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq were an example of people being politically active. See, it can be done. Mind you, I do not know anybody who went on the march, and I even know of some who didn’t realise it had happened!
Yet the environmental based agreements that the British government are trying to weasel out of was to get 20% of their energy requirements from renewable sources (wind, solar and hydro energies). This is a laudable but ostensibly difficult promise to keep. However, it has recently come to light that we might, if push comes to shove, reach 9% - a bit of a shortfall and the reason for the flurry of activity in trying to find a way out of the agreement. I should add that the target of 20% is to be reached by 2020 as is the 9% we think we can manage. Germany, yes that’s right, the Germany we on our little isle like to ridicule as being rigid, mechanical and only adept at starting world wars, have revealed that they are well on the way to meeting the 20% target. Furthermore, the chancellor wants to commit the Germans to a target of 27%. This information undermines Tony Blair’s patently over optimistic and self-deluding statement that Britain is a world leader on climate change. I am guessing that he meant this to be interpreted as Britain at the forefront of addressing concerns about rather than (the much more likely) contributing to, climate change. The government have baulked at the costs involved in transferring energy supplies to renewable sources with estimates reaching a total of four billion pounds (this for the 9% target). This represents less than 1% of the gross domestic product of the United Kingdom and I am certain is way below the costs of turning Iraq into an oil producing cadaver. As noted, Iraq is an oil-rich nation. Oh alright, it’s not really a nation anymore, but rather a splintered, raped, humiliated remnant of a state that has as it’s capital Baghdad which was also known under the Abbasid Caliphate as ‘Madinat al-Salam’ (The City Of Peace). It is indeed true that history is littered with irony. Mind you, we mustn’t obscure matters with such irrelevant twaddle and should remember that city of peace or not, it does have a lot of oil. That oil is needed for our cars, how else are we to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’? What about reinvesting in a renationalised rail network which would encourage people away from environmental degradation and the need for unwinnable wars? This also would have the happy side effect of demolishing the smug Cheshire cat grins of the car companies and private rail firms.
Mmmm! This post has been rather confused and meandering, not unlike the government’s approach to the environment, or for that matter most peoples understanding and appreciation of politics. Those of you that have made your way this far have had to overcome the scatter gun prose of this post and resist the urge to remove yourselves to another site, not unlike the British general public’s approach to politics. I despair and weep and wail and moan and tear my hair out at the inactivity of my countrymen. I am frustrated by a society that seeks vast financial profit from every aspect of life. I do not understand the principle that unless there is (lots of ) money to be made then it (whatever ‘it’ maybe) is not worthy of consideration. In this, I recognise myself for the dinosaur that such a consumerist society would regard me as (should they be able to tear themselves away from their televisions or shopping sprees). However, my fossil status emboldens me. I would rather be considered akin to Julian Cope than to Eminem. These posts are my avenue (actually not an avenue but a concreted over, grey and bland suburban road) and pending extinction or not, I enjoy making my views heard. I apologise for any obfuscation though.
