The Big Society

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The coalition government in Britain under the Cameron-Clegg leadership is talking about the “Big Society” all the time ever since they formed the government after the general election in 2010.

I do not say that they were elected to govern as neither of the parties got a real workable majority, but that is a different issue.

Talk about the “Big Society” is increasing more and more in the beginning of 2011 as the government is cutting is cutting back services on a national and local level due to spending cuts and the attempt of tackling the deficit in the national coffers. The Cameron-Clegg coalition hopes that volunteers will step into the breach here where government services will no longer provide. And this in a country where successive governments have always treated the people as imbeciles and children.

Successive British governments have always detested empowering the people of the country, be this in creating their own habitats and homes or in running their own affairs. And on top of that all comes that the inherent secrecy culture in the UK governed by the Official Secrets Act 1911 Section 2 which is used as a blanket to cover everything possible that should never have been included.

So, what am I saying, you ask?

Personally I will have to be really convinced that what I am hearing David Cameron, the Prime Minister, say on this matter is also what he actually thinks and means. Britain just has a bad track record of empowering the grassroots regardless of what party has been in power. This is why I am so very sceptic here as far as this “Big Society” idea of his goes.

I am also concerned that it will be (i) done in a rather top down approach of “we need you to do this” and (ii) that those volunteers will be, intended, primarily, to run charity versions of what were government services.

Not that, probably, there is anything wrong with the latter in some fields, say in citizen advice, after school facilities for kids, and such. In fact, there are, more than likely, masses of services that would be better run by charities and volunteers, in both care, etc., and value for money.

Volunteers are, in general, enthusiastic as regards to what they do and highly motivated and care for the task; not something that could be said of every government worker in general. Many of the latter are just there, it would seem, to draw their salary and that's it. Clock in in the morning and out at night and home.

I am not saying that the “Big Society” idea and concept is bad. On the contrary! I think it is more than time that the people did get away from the notion that the government has to do everything for them.

In the centuries past when government was far away people did just that and they also looked out for one another. That's what community was and is all about. Over the last century or so, however, government has become ever bigger and ever more pervasive and invasive and people abdicated responsibility to the governments, local and central for this and that, in the same way that the abdicated and delegated the upbringing of their children to the state in the form of the school system. People have come to look to the state to do for everything short of wiping their behinds.

When a neighborhood is, say, full of litter residents immediately complain to the council and demand that that is immediately cleaned and cleared. This litter is down to everyone who live in that neighborhood and thus should be the responsibility of the residents but such a thought would, in today's society, never enter their minds. “That's what we pay our taxes for,” is the usual outcry.

The grass verges in our roads needs cutting, they say, never even even considering that all they'd need to to is to take their mower to the verge in the front of their homes when they cut the lawn. Some do, I admit, but the great majority just scream at the council.

It is these little things that anyone could do, and would do, if but someone would start is and set the ball rolling that make a neighborhood a community.

The one thing that bothers me with David Cameron's “Big Society” idea is that it is government putting it forwards and it was not conceived at the grassroots level of society and could, therefore, be seen as a means for government to band aid the cuts.

What worries me, aside from the afore, is that despite all the rhetoric from Cameron and Clegg, the “Big Society” will not really empower communities and individuals to do things in their way and to do the things that are neede where the people live.

Real empowerment of people is something the British government has always been afraid of as it would mean people actually doing and being able to do things for themselves without government having the control.

If this is going to happen and they really want it then I guess the fires have gone out in hell and winter has arrived down there. I find that about as likely as Silvio Berlusconi becoming a communist.

Can you just imagine the people of the UK running their own affairs. This is a total anathema to the modern state and is something that politicians detest because it undermines their power and control over the people.

It would be really nice if we could reduce the state and its interference in our lives to what it really only should be but I am not about to hold my breath. Blue may suit me by way of color for clothing and such but not in face.

In addition to the state relinquishing the power that should not be its I am hard pressed to see the majority of the subjects of Her Majesty to actually do things for themselves, even if they had the “right” to do so, and for their community and for society as a whole.

Most are way too much in this “entitlement society” mode believing that they are entitled to this and that as a right and that they have to do nothing for themselves. After all, they say, we pay our taxes so therefore we are entitled to this all.

The idea of the “Big Society” – I just wish Cameron & Co had chosen a better term – have been implemented for years already in “alternative” communities up and down the country and around the globe and in so-called Transition Towns. It can be done but it cannot be decreed from the top like the “solidarity” idea in former Soviet Russia and the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany), for instance, though, to a great degree it did work, the “solidarity” thing, I mean. Many people of the former German Democratic Republic hunger back to that now.

Despite the Ministry of State Security (Stasi), etc., the GDR had a sense of community, it would seem, in most places, even in blocks of housing, and people looked after each other. I put this also down to the fact that there was no “keeping up with the Joneses” going on as things were, basically, all the same, and theoretically, everyone only could have the basic stuff that could be bought. Not that that always worked and was thus but... I digressed.

While, as I have said, I do like the very concept of the “Big Society” of empowering the people I have serious reservations that (i) this is going to work by having Whitehall tell us and (ii) that people believe that the state is there to do everything for them and that it is what they pay taxes for.

The point is that we should be (allowed to be) doing things for ourselves and not expect the state to do everything for us. But there are two sides here as well in that government has been telling us all the time to look to the “authorities” to do everything for us and the other one that, as I have said already, because they pay taxes, they are entitled to have everything done for them by the state.

The idea of the “Big Society”, sorry about the name, I didn't coin it, and the things it is supposed to achieve, I think, is good and the aims are great but I am not sure as to, and that is what I have been trying to say here, whether the government can get the people enthused about it.

If it would have been something that had originated in a broad demand from grassroots level then my scepticism would be less to nonexistent but as it comes, more or less from the top down and seen to primarily address the existing charities and such, I do not think that the people will follow. I hope I am wrong, but...

© 2011

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The United Kingdom admits that it will miss its 2010 CO2 target

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The British Government has admitted it will miss its own target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2010 by a large margin.

New projections from the Department of the Environment (DEFRA) put CO2 emissions in 2010 at only 15.5 per cent below 1990 levels, and note the target had always been intended to be stretching.

The UK Climate Change Program annual report to parliament said it expected emissions of CO2, thought by many, though not by me, and even experts of the highest caliber, to be the main culprit in global warming, the latter which has stopped and plateaued out about 7 years ago and has not moved since, to be 26 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

"The Government has clearly failed to take the action needed to meet its own targets for cutting the UK's carbon dioxide emissions," Friends of the Earth spokesman Martyn Williams said.

"This unhappy situation is made even worse by the fact that these targets are out of date and massively underestimate the overall level of cuts that is needed."

However, all eyes are screwed to “CO2” emissions and reduction of same in order to stop and reverse the effect that they once referred to as “Global Warming” and now, probably because they all know very well but are still misleading the public, as “Climate Change”.

Yes, the climate is, probably, changing and the Earth is going through cycles of this every so often. There is enough evidence of this in records alone over the last 2000 years let alone further than that. We cannot, of that I am certain, stop it or reverse it. What we must do it to learn to live with it and then live with it.

The Government has prided itself in taking a global leadership role in combating climate change, taking strong measures at home and keeping the issue in the forefront of international negotiations.

But its Climate Change Bill that will set a legal target of cutting national CO2 emissions by at least 60 per cent by 2050 is well behind schedule in the parliamentary process and recent reports have shown the Government slipping from its own agenda.

The Government has even admitted that it has been badly underestimating national emissions, noting that if carbon embedded in imports from China were included then far from falling they would actually have risen sharply.

A report issued by DEFRA ahead of last week's G8 summit in Japan said CO2 emissions fell by 5 per cent between 1992 and 2004.

But it said they actually rose by 115 million tonnes or 18 per cent over the same period when the carbon emissions linked to imported goods were included in the calculation.

Way too much energy – pardon the pun – is being expended on the effort to reduce CO2 emissions; something which is not go to stop nor reverse climate change. The change is happening and it is continuing to happen and it is very doubtful that we can do anything about stopping it.

Having said this, however, I do agree with the fact that we must get away from fossil fuels and the reason is manifold. Not the least being, obviously, the general pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels. In addition to that there is the simple fact that oil, natural gas and coal are running out or have run out, depending where one looks.

So, we are right to look at alternative energy and recycling and all what we are doing and we must intensify that. But, we must stop the stupid notion of CO2 or the reduction of it can stop and/or even reverse climate change. Instead we must look at how we can live with it, for learning to live with it we must. We have no other choice.

We must also reduce our impact on the environment and this not in any way as and effort in regards to reversing climate change for we have just established that it is happening and it is natural and there is probably nothing that we can do against it.

So, we have to learn new ways. New ways of growing things, new ways – and some are not even new at all – of transportation, from personal to the transportation of goods and people, etc. Which also means that we MUST manufacture goods at home again instead of importing them long distances from places such as China; countries with dubious records on standards and labor laws.

Time for a real change...

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008

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Green products 'should be the norm' – UK Government

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The British government has said that green products must become the norm on Britain's supermarket shelves and that the most harmful products need to change. I assume that one can but agree. However, one can also but wonder with what draconian laws they are going to want to enforce this.

The most harmful products, maybe, need not change; they must be superseded with products that do the same job but that are not harmful or, if need be, maybe, that are a lot less harmful.

Ministers made that call as they published updates on progress with the “Waste Strategy and the Sustainable Products and Materials Programme”. Oh dear, now there is a mouthful. I presume that it will have an acronym like WSSPMP or such.

Waste Minister Joan Ruddock said that government and industry were working together to make the whole life cycle of products and services more green.

"We know that people are concerned about their effect on the environment, but they do not get to see the full picture of what goes into producing the goods they buy and they do not see what happens after they have thrown them away," Ms Ruddock said.

"It needs to be easier for people to buy products that will save them money and reduce their impact on the environment, and that's exactly what we're doing.

"There are real savings to be made. Through this action to green the products and materials we use, UK households could save £5 billion a year on their bills." That is billion as in English billion and not American billion.

She added that the so-called “credit crunch” was making it even more important for businesses to use resources more efficiently.

Now it would be very nice if those green products actually would save people money and would be safer. Most of the time the green products cost an arm and a leg to buy and, as we can see with CFLs, have themselves an inherent danger, namely that of mercury.

When it comes to some products of the green range than may, nowadays, be cheaper on the supermarket shelves, such as Ecover dish washing liquid for instance, then there are issues there too. Firstly Ecover has been linked to high level a dangerous substance – namely Dioxane 1,4 – in it and secondly I personally have found that it cannot stand up in cleaning power and in value for money against a leading general brand of washing up liquid. The other one, though a little more expensive, of a non-green kind (though its color is very green) requires less of the liquid to use and works much more efficient with less irritation to my hands than with Ecover and, as one uses less, one saves money. So, where the savings are going to come from that Ms Ruddock mentions beats me.

The Sustainable Products and Materials report, which sets out progress with the piloting of ten Product Roadmaps, including the Milk Roadmap, was launched earlier this year.

It also includes details of government initiatives such as the “agreement” with retailers to take inefficient light bulbs off the shelves by 2011.

I really must say I like the term “agreement” here. Do we call that whitewash or greenwash, for the truth is that there is a law coming into effect that will make it illegal to sell incandescent light bulbs of the aforementioned inefficient kind and only CFLs will be permitted to be sold (and used) after the law comes into effect. So it is not so much as an agreement as a requirement on shops to remove the incandescent light bulbs from their shelves and from sale.

That is the way Britain tried to tackle all the environmental issues, with laws and threats and such. Same as in regards to waste reduction and recycling. It just does not appear to be possible to offer incentives for people to do “the right thing”, as is the case in so many other countries.

The summary of progress with the Waste Strategy revealed that the amount of residual household waste has dropped and household recycling is increasing.

Is this indeed the case or is it just a case that the bins are emptier, simply because fortnightly collections have been started and people fly tip rubbish rather than putting it into the bins.

It also showed the amount of commercial and industrial waste being sent to landfill has continued to fall and less biodegradable waste is finding its way to landfill.

The parks and open spaces, and farms, I should think, have seen a significant increase in fly tipping of ordinary household waste, including biodegradable waste, and especially also the so-called “green” waste, that is to say, garden refuse. The latter because in many ares the councils have been “forced” to take away the free collections of garden waste from householders and people now either have to bring such waste to the municipal refuse tips or have to pay a fee to have it collected.

Not a very green alternative that having to take it by vehicle to the rubbish dump as that often involves waiting in long lines for and hour or more with the engines of the cars left running.

Ministers said further work is needed to identify whether an increase in reports of fly tipping is a result of more fly tipping or improved information from local authorities to its Fly Capture national database.

This, no doubt, means a lot of wasted money for long-winded studies to then claim it is due to better reporting. That is a load of poppycock.

As someone who is involved with parks and open spaces on a daily basis I can vouch for the fact that the incidences of fly tipping, from small to large, are on the up and up, and I am certain that they are going to continue to rise the more we see the fortnightly collections and the removal or reduction of the other collections.

M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008

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