Category Archives: Sustainability As If People Mattered
Climate Change And Planning Applications Reviewed
A White Paper on sustainability and planning rules is about to appear. Ruth Kelly, the Government’s Communities Secretary, wants climate change to be an integral part of the agenda for the overall planning process, regarding both infrastructure and local renewable technologies. So why has the Local Government Association already rejected the White Paper?
The detail is always the issue, of course, but surely the Local Government Association (LGA) is plain wrong to reject – or so it appears – Ruth Kelly’s proposed White Paper on planning rules and sustainability even before it goes to print?
There may well be issues about how planning applications for big projects such as airport terminals are handled, but the present system is hardly perfect. (The time scale – six years – and cost of the process for Heathrow’s fifth terminal is one example.)
Addressing climate change where it makes a difference
The critical point of the intended White Paper is that it attends to the very real challenge of climate change. Yvette Cooper, the Department of Communities and Local Government Housing Minister, is already lined up to head a ‘green buildings
task force’; now Ruth Kelly wants to do her bit by enabling more easily the actual implementation of the essential changes to the way things will be done.
Oliver Letwin, the Conservatives’ policy spokesperson, and (Lord) Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, Tory leader of the LGA, have responded to the idea of the Green Paper by talking about loss of ‘local control’.
A global issue, not a local one
I’m all for local people feeling empowered and engaged – the local dimension does matter – but haven’t Messrs Letwin and Bruce-Lockhart lost the plot?
Climate change is a global issue, not one which can be resolved primarily by local consultation, for goodness’ sake.
Regeneration And Community Engagement In Action: The ‘Rules’
‘Regeneration’ happens when someone with influence perceives a need for improvement. But this is a process in which professionals omit to involve those to whom regeneration is being done at their peril. What follows is therefore a set of observations or ‘rules’, derived from direct experience, about how regeneration and community engagement may play out on the ground.
The ‘Rules’ below are presented from the perspective of a professional approaching a regeneration scenario. The reader might like to turn them around and ‘translate’ them, to reflect the possible understandings of a person ‘in the community’ on whose (claimed) behalf regeneration is taking place.
1) It is very difficult to ensure that everyone ‘knows’ what they need / would like to know.
2) People at all levels get suspicious / unhelpful if they feel ‘left out of the loop’.
3) Identifying legitimate Stakeholders is always a challenge – not all of them are formal.
4) Professional practitioners are not the font of all knowledge.
5) Perspectives and language (discourse / terms) may vary
dramatically between parties.
6) Expectations may similarly vary, and can be challenging to manage.
7) It is essential to start any programme by identifying ‘what works’ and protecting that.
8) Who is ‘qualified’ to undertake such ‘what works’ identification can be problematic.
9) Participants’ understandings develop over time; what they’d initially asked for will change.
10) The same may also apply to the professionals involved – especially if they are sensitive to context.
11) Sustainability – social, economic, physical – is often
overlooked in practice, if not in theory.
12) There is rarely a clear end-point (when does ‘regeneration’ finish?)
13) Engagement is by definition voluntary; it can never be forced, but is very necessary.
14) Equipping people to engage often requires patience, skill and thoughtful leadership.
15) Many stakeholders only really become interested when the chequebook arrives; be ready and beware!
These observations formed part of a lecture delivered (by Hilary Burrage) on 23 April 2007 to Masters’ students of social policy and political science at Charles University, Prague, in the Czech
Republic.
What do you think?
Do these ‘rules’ reflect your experience? And are there other ‘rules’ to add to these?
Cherry Blossom For May Day In Sefton Park, Liverpool
The cherry blossom in Liverpool’s Sefton Park has been very early this year; it has already offered much delight to those who stroll along the middle lakesides, the blossoms pink, cream, white and even cerise. But one tree is still in glorious full bloom as we reach May Day eve.
See also: Sefton Park’s Grebes And Swans
Liverpool’s Sefton Park, Swans, Herons And Grebes
Sefton Park, Liverpool: Winter Solstice 2006
Friends Of Sefton Park
Alternate Weekly (Waste) Collection: Has It Been Explained?
AWC (Alternate Weekly Collection of recyclable and non-recyclable household waste) has a bad reception in the UK, although it increases the extent of recycling. But why is something designed to sustain our environment – an ambition held by most of us – producing such hostility?
Latest in the endless list of Things People Don’t Like is the idea of alternate weekly collection of recyclable and non-recyclable domestic waste. There is evidence that this is effective in getting people to think more carefully about what they can and cannot recycle (rather than just bunging the lot in the dustbin) but everyone seems to be in uproar about it.
Why?
‘Why?’ is always a complex question to answer in environmental matters. What seems self-evidently sensible to the scientists and policy-makers (not to mention the demanding officials of the European Union, who are rightly leading a very serious environmentally conscious charge) is far less evident to Mr & Mrs Suburbia or Mr & Mrs InnerCity. The dialogue has got lost on the way, or perhaps has simply never existed.
People suspect that the bi-weekly collection of their ‘normal’ waste, even though it is to be interspersed by alternate weekly collection of what’s recyclable, is actually the result of a financial ‘cut’, and that it must therefore be bad. No-one seems to have thought to explain that there’s good evidence that AWC increases recycling – albeit at contested levels of efficacy.
Cynicism is the only winner
So there is Big Fuss. Nobody seems to believe something could be being done for ‘good’ reasons; and in that local politicians have often not helped. This situation benefits no-one.
The sooner the powers-that-be learn they must share rationales with ‘ordinary’ people right from the start of their thinking, the better. This is an issue which goes beyond what used to be called the ‘public understanding of science’, to an even more pressing
issue – the sustainability of our planet.
Be straightforward
So let’s ask our media, policy-makers and politicans to be braver and more honest in how they present these things. It would be good for everyone.
Read the debate which follows then…
Don’t Just Re-cycle, Freecycle!
Recycling things we don’t need or want anymore can be time-wasting and even counter-productive, if it’s a big hassle to get done. So one very good idea is using the that global force, the internet, to share news of offers and requirements for items on a strictly non-commercial basis between people who live in a local area. This is what the Freecycle Network sets out to do.
I’ve just ‘discovered’ the Liverpool Freecycle Network – and all because I was bemoaning my recent failure to find a recipient for the vast number of old plant pots we (as in, my garden-hut-clearing other half) found when there was a big garden hut clear-out.
‘What?!’ cried my Monday Women companions when I mentioned trying to find a good allotment home for the pots. ‘You should have used LiverpoolFreecycle!’.
Freecycle across the globe
And so I should. I’ve joined now, and have learnt that the Liverpool group of Freecycle is part of a huge chain of such local organisations around the globe. There are over 4,000 Freecycle ‘Communities’ with more than 3 million individual members across several continents – and it all started in May 2003 to
promote waste reduction in Arizona USA, in Tucson’s downtown, to help save desert landscape from being taken over by landfills.
It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer. And, also just like Monday Women, membership is free.
How does it work?
When you want to find a new home for something – whether it’s a chair, a fax machine, a piano, or an old door – you simply send an e-mail offering it to members of the local Freecycle group. (Keeping it local saves fuel and energy of course.)
Or, maybe you’re looking to acquire something yourself. Simply respond to a member’s offer, and you just might get it. After that,
it’s up to the giver to decide who receives the gift, and then to set up a pickup time for passing on the treasure.
But the first step is to join… so why not get Freecycling now, just in time for your own Operation Garden Shed / Spare Room / whatever over the coming Spring Bank Holiday long weekend?
World Water Day (22 March 2007)
World Water Day, today, is a little-remarked event but concerns an absolutely vital aspect of life. Wherever we live, and whatever we do, we can’t be without water. This is an opportunity to pause and take a check (should we say, a ‘raincheck’?) on how we view this most critical commodity, and on what we can do to help.
Coping With Water Scarcity is the theme of World Water Day 2007. There can be few themes as important as this.
World Water Day as an initiative grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janeiro.
Marking the day
One interesting idea about how to mark WWD 2007 has been to send an e-card, with a choice of pictures and stamps. This helps to spread the word that we all need to think carefully about water and what it means for everyone. Other years have seen initiatives such as the Celebrating Water for Life booklet, published on the internet in 2005.
Central and critical
To those of us in Western Europe and North
America water is a commodity which seems to amount to a right. We know there are issues about water and sustainability, but we never really doubt it will be there for us.
In other parts of the world there is neither enough water for health and hygiene, nor any acceptable way to get access to it; I was shocked recently to read that in some parts of the world the fetching and carrying of water is a task undertaken by young girls, daily walking many miles, who thereby miss out on huge chunks of their schooling.
Take action to help
I have mentioned before that WaterAid is a charity set up simply to get clean water to people who desperately need it. Supporting this focused and straightforward objective [here] is something we can do any day, not just on World Water Day.
See also: Water, Water…
The Independent: Climate Change & Bottled Water
Today’s Independent newspaper offers us a mixed message. Under a front page story entitled ‘The Climate Has Changed’ it features a special issue on ‘the bill which makes action on global warming a reality’. And then, at the point of sale, it proposes a special offer of a free plastic bottle of water…. Celebration of a major breakthrough in environmental legislation is greatly to be welcomed. But toasting this particular achievement with such an environmentally unfriendly product tells us a lot about the contradictions of the market.
The Independent has long featured environmental issues as important news, and for that it should be applauded. A headline like today’s ‘Blair hails ‘historic day’ in battle against climate change‘, with a full seven pages of analysis, is indeed something to be welcomed.
But why on earth (to use an apt metaphor) did The Indy decide to promote sales (in some train stations at least), today of all days, by offering free bottled water – just at a time when large numbers of organisations are acknowledging the importance of good old water-from-the-tap?
Joined up thinking, this is not. Priority of marketing over content, it might well be. There’s a way to go on the eco agenda yet…
Making The Most Of Daylight Saving: Research On British Summer Time
British Summer Time begins at 2 a.m. on Sunday 25th March this year (2007). Surveys suggest that both safety and energy saving would ensue from BST year-round, and a large majority of people will welcome the lighter evenings. But why have we just had to endure five months of days which end before the afternoon teabreak?
The evidence becomes ever more compelling…. As the Transport Research Laboratory has demonstrated over many years, British Summer Time is indeed best for almost all of us.
There are inevitably risks in any change, but sometimes the biggest risk lies in Doing Nothing. That’s what applies to the odd practice of reducing afternoon daylight (in favour of ‘lighter mornings’) at the very point in the year when there is already least of it.
The 1968 – 71 ‘experiment’
The oft-recycled stories about children ‘hating’ having to wear fluorescent jackets because of the super-dangerous mornings during the ‘experiment’ of 1968 – 71 are selective recall, I’d suggest. I don’t think I ever saw one child so clad.
But the debate goes on. And recently, as the TheyWorkForYou.com website admirably demonstrates, Tim Yeo MP has been proposing Single / Double Summer Time, which has incensed some even more.
The Scottish dimension
We know of course that there are people in Scotland who would prefer to keep the status quo, regardless of the proven greater overall risks of accidents, depression and poor health, but with devolved government, as Tim Yeo and before him Lord Tanlaw acknowledged, these can surely be addressed by those most involved.
But even in Scotland opinion is divided and the evidence for the status quo doesn’t fully stack up (unless Scottish cows have learnt to tell the time and will rumble their herdsman adjusting
the alarm clock to keep their bovine stock’s milking hours stable…).
The evidence
As Tim Yeo and Lord Tanlaw have emphasised, even in Scotland there are plenty of people who would prefer the lighter evenings, whilst YouGov have found (December 2006) that 51% of workers feel less safe travelling home in the dark, with 71% of women saying the dark makes them feel uncertain and worried.
Likewise, when Victor Keegan ran a campaign a few months ago, he easily achieved his objective of 50 people asking their MPs to support Tim Yeo’s bill. On energy saving grounds alone there are compelling reasons to suppose we should abandon British Mean Time. A majority of those voting supported it, but Tim Yeo’s non-party Bill fell on 26 January
2007 because it did not gain more than one hundred votes.
Another way forward?
So what’s holding things up? There are rather feeble claims (see TheyWorkForYou.com, as above) that an experiment in Portugal was not successful, but perhaps political nervousness about Scottish issues is, short-term, at the heart of the matter.
There is, however, a very simple and easy way to resolve things once and for all. Why not actually undertake a serious Government-led enquiry into all the evidence available, on energy, accidents, health, business and other impacts, examining England (and Wales and Northern Ireland) separately from Scotland?
And let’s ask for the report to be produced by Sunday 28 October 2007, before the next grim return to Winter darkness, when
British Summer Time is due to end. This, it seems to me, is a genuinely good example of when policy can indeed be informed by best practice in natural and social scientific research.
It really does need to be done, and soon.
The full debate about BST is in the section of this website entitled BST: British Summer Time & ‘Daylight Saving’ (The Clocks Go Back & Forward)…..
See also:
Save Our Daylight: Victor Keegan’s Pledge Petition
The Clocks Go Forward…And Back… And Forward…
British Summer Time Draws To A Close
Time Is Energy (And ‘Clocks Forward’ Daylight Uses Less)
The Clocks Go Forward … But Why, Back Again?
Read the discussion of this article which follows the book E-store…
Policy-Related Scientific Research In Context
Avian influenza (‘bird flu’) has again made us aware of the scientific research which underpins government policy. Some have great faith in this science, others have none. Our growing understandings of how scientific research and public policy inter-relate can however help inform both science itself, and how political / policy decisions might be taken in real life.
Avian influenza has provoked quite a debate in The Guardian about how science and politics inter-relate.
Recent contributors to this debate include Erik Millstone and Simon Jenkins, who are right to raise the issue of scientific advice to the Government in respect of avian influenza – just as Ministers are right to take this advice seriously.
But in reality there is no such thing as ‘pure’ scientific research. All research, whether ‘natural’ or ‘social’, is predicated on often taken-for-granted understandings of context.
However inadvertently, therefore, the gap between scientific advice and policy / politic, whether in the case of avian influenza or any other issue, is wide not as Prof Millstone and Mr Jenkins might in different ways seem to suggest.
The questions underpin the research
Scientific advice arises from scientific research questions, and scientific research tends to be structured largely around ‘received’ understandings of the issues involved – including, inevitably, contexts of those issues.
In other words, natural scientists, as non-experts in matters socio-economic, will tend, if unchallenged, towards uncritical acceptance of the status quo or predominant contextual view of the situation in the same way as any other ‘person in the street’.
It is not surprising therefore that science, in selecting which techno-scientific issues to address, has in the past often focused on the interests of the most collectively powerful and visible operators.
Socio-economic impact and policy
This is now changing as questions about socio-economic impact are, rightly, articulated more loudly.
It is encouraging that Government politicians and policy-makers are beginning to recognise the critical importance of framing scientific research, from its inception, around contextual as well as ‘purely’ scientific questions.
Articulating these wider understandings better from the inception of any piece of research is the way to ensure that scientific advice can best inform political decision-making. And doing this certainly does not diminish the robustness of scientific endeavour; rather the converse.
Scientific and poltical responsibility shared
The selection of ways forward in policy is ultimately a political responsibility; but making sure that ‘scientific’
questions acknowledge the whole spectrum of contextual interests is a responsibility which, thankfully, scientists advising decision-makers are themselves increasingly aware that they must share.
A version of this posting was published on The Guardian letters page of 17 February 2007.
Further commentary follows the e-bookshop.
Would You Choose The Iberian Lynx – Or A Road?
People who care about the environment do not always have the same priorities. For some the emphasis is on maintaining the habitat of ‘natural’ flora and fauna. For others the most important objective is sustaining an environment in which human beings can flourish now.
Who is right, and can these two objectives both be achieved?
There is a story going the rounds of a fairly recent environmental conference in southern Europe. The issue under debate was whether or not a large road should be built across the Iberian peninsula, to reduce the economic disadvantage of those who live at the ‘far end’ of it.
The problem however is that this region is a very significant natural habitat for rare species of animals and other living things – including the endangered Iberian lynx. Many conservationists therefore strongly oppose the idea of economic regeneration in the areas where the lynx is still minimally present. “How do I choose?”, demanded one policy maker.
Conflicting priorities
Here is an example of where ‘normal’ politics – regeneration and increased economic advantage for people with relatively very
little in the way of the claimed benefits of modern living – seems to clash fairly directly with the concerns of the environmental conservationists.
Obviously, there is an argument that, without environmental conservation and attention to natural diversity, there is likely to be no life of any kind on earth. But this may be a less immediate or pressing concern for those who have little material advantage, than for those more economically blessed. So what should the politicians and policy makers do?
What’s the way forward?
Can these two concerns be brought together in the context of real-time politics?
Would you go for the road or the lynx?
Dreaming Realist 