Green action spaces setting the right scene for the green renewal
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Benjamin Franklin
Regeneration has now established itself in our sustainability language but this is where a climate/environmental thinking paradigm at governmental levels in Europe is today. Lots of tactics without a strategy.
What’s at stake here is an intricate social balance predicated on our ability to weather our biggest environmental storms. And which we can only solve if we address the roots of problems that force people onto streets in defiance of double standards: low or no tax for the rich and ‘bad’ austerity measures for the rest. If governments pitch climate against the lifestyle improvements, this will only create more social upheaval. As we can see, not only in France, but this tactic is set to fail in other states that follow suit.
Winning hearts and minds of the world’s populations – the French lesson
A trigger for the first mass Yellow Vest protest was a rise in fuel tax costs projected for 2019. Macron’s government claimed it to be necessary to meet climate change targets as per the Paris Agreement. A large segment of the public, however, saw this as a yet another attempt to cut taxes for the wealthy and big business, and revolted.
However, what is less known today is that a single petition that Priscillia Ludosky posted on the change.org website set of a chain of events we know as Yellow Vest protests. The former BNP Paribas banking group employee, turned an environmentalist and creator of an organic cosmetics and aromatherapy company, had verbalised what the majority of the French people felt. She had asked for fundamental social and economic reforms in addition to objecting to the fuel tax rise. Consequently, over 1,19 million people supported these demands by signing her petition.
What’s overlooked in the story is the fact that the Macron’s government missed a great opportunity to demonstrate to the French and their neighbours how such a strategic realignment with the global emissions cuts’ targets could look like. Instead of building a constructive GREEN NEW DEAL dialogue and a narrative with a large, already receptive, segment of the public, the unions, and political parties, they did what most governments do in this situation. They broke a tenuous rapport completely. They slapped the French with a tax rise and blamed it on the climate! This political blunder is certainly a lesson not to repeat!
Leveraging the regeneration of communities
To this end, people need to be able to first grasp, both intellectually and psychologically before they can take on board any climate inspired solution that significantly impacts their lives. Without such proof points, they will not rally behind it. And, as such the design of a strategy that involves raising climate/green funds, asks of governments to put money where the mouth is and to start investing heavily in green product and service markets. This also means that green jobs’ creation needs to feature prominently on agenda, at all governmental levels; local, regional, and national.
Armed with such evidence the public can then truly support the climate related work of their governmental and non-governmental organisations. In doing so, the morale of everyone gets a turbo boost thus inspiring more confidence and leveraging the entire process. This is what we don’t have yet and is what we need to create in order to respond effectively to the crises.
Renewal is a multifaceted process and therefore communication of initiatives and reforms requires some sinking in as far as the public psyche goes. A gestation period like with any new proposal is a must. When a population is ready, the whole process stands a far greater chance of success. And this is where, spaces that act as a focussing platform for this social and environmental renewal, come into significance. Why? Because they allow for the necessary adjusting to and assimilation of new social proposals that can bring about the green transition, democratically and cohesively.
Bridging a vast chasm of different visions to restore balance
So, a question that we may ask is: how do we create the right setting with favourable conditions that get population on board of this new socio-economic and environmental paradigm today, and apace?
And so, how this enlightened multifaceted vision of such universal regeneration can look like in practice? Given that this new vision and today’s paradigm of populations, marred in an infinite growth politics in the finite world, are two vastly different proposals. One organic, nature-bound, people-centric and inclusive and the other diametrically opposing it: technocratic, artifice-bound, matter-centric and exclusive. The first evolving slowly over the millennia with its timeless wisdom that offers us refuge from all kinds of madness and follies we co-create. The latter, still maturing and speeding fast only a few century-old vision defined and limited to the material and binary realities that are short-lived and cannot nourish us to evolve fully as a species.
My experience and findings tell me, we need to find convergence points and new ways of cooperation like we mean it. Or we risk missing the boat on restoring natural versus man-made equilibrium altogether. And, ultimately betraying the youth of today and generations to come by choosing to act in ways that contradict facts, historical hindsight, and the indigenous wisdom.
Regeneration: building effective, people and planet friendly paradigm change narratives
Regeneration, regenerative design, regenerative tourism, regenerative agriculture are terms that we see and hear a lot these days. They all have two main themes in common:
1) they imply a regenerative approach to thinking and acting which means going beyond recycling and reusing of the spent resources and,
2) they integrate many disconnected elements of an approach further expanding the concept through incorporating the giving back or reciprocity implicit in every human-nature-economy transaction.
This way we are more likely to create positive feedback loops that will allow us for the first time in our short development history, since the industrial revolution, to counteract many negative feedback loops that stem from our current conflicting system. Tbc in part 3 of the article.
This article is the work of the Earthvoice editor, Kinga Monica. She is available for consulting on practical instigation of the concept, sustainability, and ecotourism consulting, internationally.
To read more on this topic and the solutions that have helped shift some gears of the climate change action to date, follow me on Medium.
Bibliography
A Big Strategy: In times of Crisis. A Model to Help Regenerate The Environment, Community And Sustainable Economy. Published in 2012.
The Green New Deal facts. The US perspective.
The Green New Deal, the UK.
Featured image: The Amazon Rainforest fire, 2019.