Contribution to Karen Eberhardt-Shelton’s book ‘A Women's Guide to Saving the World’ (2nd Edition)
For years I’ve thought that if people understood the need to make changes in their lives to tackle climate change or any of the other big challenges of our generation, they would do so. Most of my adult life has been spent in strategy development or politics, creating policy and legislation which I hope has contributed towards more responsible outcomes for people and planet, without any thought of supernatural intervention. But there is something very attractive about the idea of waving a magic wand to achieve a better outcome. What would be the best way of my using the wand as a tool for change? The challenge must be to use it in a manner that creates the context for real change without falling into the traps derived from our childhood stories about wishes and their consequences.
I’ve always tried to be a role model for what I believe in. I live in a refurbished barn in west Wales and attempt to support a “one planet life’ in which we grow most of our own food, run our well insulated house on our own wood, recycle, compost, and use renewable energy. Every year I try to reduce my carbon footprint - yet nothing I do at home will change the systemic problems that face our generation. Although I firmly believe that the personal and the political should go hand in hand and that we should lead by example, my individual actions, even if multiplied a thousand or million times over, would not secure an overall better life for future generations.
One of the key challenges for those of us who advocate one planet lifestyles is to sell the concept to our friends and families, neighbours and communities in a way that demonstrates a positive lifestyle change that enhances rather than diminishes our and their quality of life: how embracing this lifestyle will liberate you; how you will reconnect with nature; understand the seasons and where food comes from and the limitations of what can/cannot be grown or reared in your area. How can we offer a different, more sustainable future to our offspring if we don’t help them achieve the basics of life? Even in Wales, a largely rural country famed for more sheep than people, we only grow 3% of the fruits and vegetables needed to sustain the Welsh population on less than 0.1% of the land. I could use my wand to ensure that all Wales’ needs were met from its land base – this would lead to food security in an uncertain world -- something that could actually be put into practice by an enlightened government. Perhaps my wand needs to do something governments cannot do, and people cannot do on their own.
We’ve tried the collective government route. Thousands of politician hours across the world have been spent in making global ‘commitments’ to tackling climate change and repairing our damaged ecosystems, and still no one country has set or met the world’s climate or biodiversity conservation challenges. Even the Paris Agreement, created in December 2015 and launched in March 2016 has not changed individual countries’ commitments to focus largely on GDP. There has been no major public outcry about the failure of government leaders to secure a safer longer term future for humanity. Should I wave my wand to make governments deliver on their commitments? Would that be enough? On reflection, probably not, as I don’t just want governments to take action, even though collective action of the scale and pace needed requires legal underpinning – I want people to demand of their governments that they should act in their, and overall, long term interest.
I was reflecting therefore on what I believe is the primary role of governments to look after their people - a fundamental purpose that I think is in danger of being lost, particularly in the developed world. Mazlo’s hierarchy of needs puts physiological needs – such as breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis and excretion – at the base of everything human beings must satisfy – and which can be satisfied without government intervention. The next layer is safety – security of body, of resources, of employment, of family, of morality of health, of property. We have seen governments in the past in the UK, particularly immediately after the 2nd World War, legislate for the whole populations with ambitions about full employment, education for all, the establishment of the NHS, protection of natural resources, support for the family through the provision of council housing for all who cannot afford to access it themselves. This seems to me to be the proper response from governments in a civilized world; to enable their people to have a safe and secure base from which to build a sense of belonging, and move through actively gaining the respect of others on to creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice and acceptance of facts. Creating a society which is not prejudiced and acts on facts is perhaps a job for the wand.
The challenge of course is immense. Self-actualization as a goal for all to release creativity is a huge contrast to traditional consumerist measures of success: respect on the basis of the size of your house, the amount you earn, the car you drive, the number of holidays you take abroad, etc. Such measures of success are unsustainable, as they encourage greater consumerism and greater inequality – a survival of the fittest where all must aspire to belong to the elite and most will be left far behind.
So how do we make beneficial changes for people and the planet? Ultimately it comes from action, by governments and people. The earth is a single complex system; the global challenge is to maintain the optimal conditions for life. John Rawls, the American philosopher, talks about inter-generational justice, where each generation should do unto future generations what they would have wanted past generations to do unto them. In Wales, the National Assembly has now passed legislation which aims to do exactly that, the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act, but as it has only been in place since April 2016, we have to wait to see its influence – and time is not on our side.
This made me think that if satisfying the conditions of Mazlo’s hierarchy led to more enlightened behavior and attitudes, perhaps my wand could dramatically short-circuit the process and transport us all straight to a state of self-actualisation. This might seem an attractive proposition superficially, but arriving without undertaking the journey loses the learning inherent in all personal development.
So where should we start? I return again to what I feel should be the primary purpose of government and what people should be able to call on their governments to do – which is to make them safe enough in body and soul to be able to progress through love and belonging, to esteem and self-actualization.
My (low carbon) wand is ready for action to transform society into my personal Utopia; a society that is safe, (enabling new freedoms for children and adults to engage with nature); secure, (providing for humans’ basic needs re food, clean water and clean air); provides meaningful employment, (in society’s and future generations’ interests); protects our resources, (for the public good on land and in the sea); is moral, (by which I mean ethical and fair); supports families, (to live low carbon, ethical, one planet lifestyles) in one planet homes (made from the most sustainable materials); and which advocates health and wellbeing for all (physical and mental).
In such a society, I hope people will be able to reach their own full potential of self-actualization, because then they will have a strong base from which to make their individual and collective journeys. Wand, let it be done!