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John Elkington for Resurgence magazine Any book that kicks off
with the late, glorious Teddy Goldsmith riding into a British election on a
camel, particularly under the banner ‘ No desserts in Suffolk’, deserves at
least a skim - and maybe even a place alongside Seven Pillars of Wisdom in the annals of British exoticism. More importantly the very public embedding of
Teddy’s nephew, Zac in David Cameron’s greener-version of blue Conservative
Party necessitates a closer reading of The
Constant Economy of anyone wanting to know where modern Conservatism may be
headed. As it happens I had more
immediate reason for welcoming Resurgance’s invitation to review the book. Zac Goldsmith is campaigning to be my local
MP, so his leaflets periodically flutter through our letter box. Bringing matters even closer to home, he
spotlights a planning dispute involving a proposed new Sainsbury’s in the very
community where I have lived since 1975, just a few years after Teddy’s team
published A Blueprint for Survival. Alongside The
Limits to Growth, Blueprint profoundly impacted by generations
thinking. Still, after Teddy and I spent
a week in a hotel bedroom in True, the political
climate was profoundly different then.
1975 was also the year that Margaret Thatcher took over the Conservative
Party – and began to upend British politics.
Very few green books have quoted Thatcher approvingly, as The Constant Economy does on page 109,
but it’s easy to forget that even right-wing governments have sometimes
introduced transformative environmental requirements as Richard Nixon did some
forty years ago, and as California’s Arnold Schwarznegger did more recently. Thatcher didn’t of course, but she helped put
climate change on the international political agenda. The younger Goldsmith
tilts at a number of traditional green windmills, including gross domestic product
(GDP) and chemical-induced puberty. But
whereas Teddy seemed quixotic when advancing the same arguments as editor of The Ecologist, a green mantle Zac would
assume in 1997, it is clear that Zac is addressing issues that are now in the
political mainstream. The book spotlights the
long-standing tensions between ‘light’ and ‘dark’ green mindsets, though this
Goldsmith’s political programme keeps a foot in both camps. Interestingly, he shies away from managed
population stabilisation, arguing that this will happen because of forces
beyond our control’, but we are left in
no doubt of the need for radial, transformative change, And while it seems unlikely that Cameron will
be another Thatcher, Goldsmith is convinced that semi0revolutionary change is
now inevitable. He quotes Amory Lovins of
the Rocky Mountain Institute to the effect that by the early 1850’s most US
homes were lit by laps burning whale oil.
As whales became ever harder to find, the price of whale oil soared, spurring
alternatives. By 1859, when Edwin Drake
first struck mineral oil in So what are these
terms? One key feature of the book is a
series of ‘Voter Demand Boxes’, spotlighting necessary changes in political,
planning and citizen priorities. These
include proposed commitments to double UK sovereign waters to at least twelve
nautical mils; to ensure the greening of the UK government’s £2.2 billion a
year public car fleet budget; to ensure the installation of smart energy and
water meters in every home; to impose a moratorium on airport expansion; to
include aviation and the manufacturing of aluminium and chemicals in the EU
Emissions Trading Scheme, to end construction in floodplains to phase out
environmentally-friendly subsidies; and – a favourite of mine since I spent the
early 1970s working to improve the pedestrian’s environment – to focus on
‘walkability’ in urban planning. The Constant Economy ought
to be required reading for all politicians and voters ahead of the next General
Election. For myself, although voting Conservative would fly in the face of
much that I hold dear, I’m going to have to take a closer look at those
fluttering flyers. Many of us now live in a
state of fearful frustration. We hear
our politicians and no less the Prime
Minister, telling us that the impacts of climate change will be devastating
unless we act now to eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions, and then, almost in
the same breath, that the way to recover from the severest recession for eighty
years is to get the show back on the road – business as usual. Yes, we are fearful for our jobs, for our
financial survival and indeed for our futures, but is the only way forward to
resuscitate the very system which caused the problems in the first place? Zac Goldsmith’s The Constant Economy is a timely
response to our sense of helplessness in the face of a failing economy and a beleaguered
planet. He gives us ten prescriptive
steps which we, as a society, must take if we are to have a hope of changing
our course away from catastrophe. Yet,
rather than a set of obligations which the government imposes, the beauty of
Zac’s prescriptions is that they are based on a direct democratic system in
which the electorate is given a greatly enhanced opportunity to inform those
government decisions which have implications for the future wellbeing of
Britain in terms of health, prosperity and a sustaining environment, and
thereby contributing to a healthier planet for the rest of humanity. First and foremost, Zac
suggests the setting up of an Independent Progress Commission which would carry
out annual audit on a whole gamut of issues and parameters related to the
health of society and the environment. Through referenda, via the
ballot box, and with the power to recall government representatives when it’s
clear they are not doing the job, we can make ourselves heard, challenge the
status quo and encourage change. The
government would then no longer necessarily have the mandate to foist unpopular
policies and plans upon us, but would have to respond to informed public
opinion. That process already happens in
Zac lambasts those
government decision, such as the construction of a third runway at Heathrow,
which go against the grain of what the electorate wants and what the
environment cans support. What we have
now, through its new ‘fast track’ planning laws, is a government which can
override public opinion, just as it is now doing by pushing through planning
for a new nuclear power station in a region of outstanding beauty in The seas and fishing,
agriculture, food quality and security, energy production and efficiency,
transportation, housing, greenhouse-gas emissions and climate change, health,
waste and consumerism and the bringing about of a steady-state economy are all
issues considered in Zac’s visionary book.
For him, it is essential to bring the public and electorate into the
discussion and even the decision making process such that we tackle the problems
willingly and in a reasonably united manner.
And for those sceptics who believe nothing will change. Zac gives plenty of examples where the type
of action he would advocate has already made a difference for the good
somewhere in the world. The sad truth is that despite fine words on tackling
climate change and other environmental issues, we in |
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