The idea of an environmental contract may open up possibilities. Expressed as an understanding between government and citizens, it explicitly involves the latter. Whether or not it genuinely opens up possibilities depends on what type of role the government can envisage for citizens.
Since the contraction of Local Agenda 21, the field of sustainable development in England seems to have been dominated by professional and expert, remote and establishment elites.
To ordinary citizens and community groups interested in sustainability, recent government and establishment initiatives can seem like forever rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. No matter how cleverly experts talk amongst themselves, there won' t be enough progress till there's genuine involvement and inclusion of ordinary citizens.
This is most apparent at the local level, but the good thing is that it's here that there's probably the greatest potential to turn things around.
There's been a lot of rhetoric recently about devolution and localism, but much practice can seem to remain top-down - however much people may object to that term. (Perhaps people object to it because it hits the nail on the head?)
For ordinary people and community groups to get genuine involvement and so achieve genuine influence, there must be fewer and fewer no-go areas - specifically the joined-up and the strategic. Because genuine sustainability must be about both of these, shallow, superficial, single-issue, piecemeal, tokenistic, short-term or otherwise unsustained community involvement initiatives just won't be enough.
"Our central recommendation is that communications should be redefined across government to mean a continuous dialogue with all interested parties, encompassing a broader range of skills and techniques than those associated with media relations. The focus of attention should be the general public." - recommendation no. 1 of the Phillis report,
January 2004References
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phil said, 05/10/2006
There was an interview on Newsnight the other night which got at the apparent discrepancy between what the government says and what it does on climate change. Like probably some others, I wonder what Churchill would have made of the state we're in. What questions would he have been asking that the rest of us can't or don't want to see? I can't help thinking that the one thing he would have seen was the need to mobilise the British people and their friends and allies in the commonwealth of nations. If a government really saw this as the greatest threat to mankind wouldn't it be falling over itself to help local communities lead the way to the broad sunlit uplands of a low carbon future?
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