Geo-4 UN Environmental Report

This kind of thing has a direct bearing on my thinking and decision-making as I write. Here's the BBC's graphic article on the report, and here's their link to the pdf of the report.

I think we need to revisit the definition of sustainable development. The current one (used in this report and in many other places), is "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".

As the timescale to impacts of our past and current unsustainable development becomes shorter and shorter, it is not just future generations that will be unable to meet their needs, but us. Those of us who are alive today will be living with the consequences of our own actions and lack of action within our own lifetimes.

So we should recognise that we need do not need to act to 'save the planet'; the planet and life on it will happily continue when we are gone, albeit with potentially a very different range of plants and animals. We do not need to act to ensure that the needs of future generations can be met. We need to act because we will be living with the consequences in the near future.

So should the definition read "meeting our current needs without compromising our ability to meet our future needs"?

With my glass half empty, I consider that most of our decisions about our own lives are short-term, and that we are unable to act to enhance our future condition. So this change of definition, although more immediate than the first one, will not make any difference. We still drink, smoke and eat too much for our own health; drive too fast and drunk for our own and others' safety; spend more than we can afford and get our homes reposessed; make political and business decisions based on their short-term benefits and popularity.

With my glass half full, I consider that this change of language will bring the issues into close focus for a significantly greater number of people. More action will follow.

If we do not act, the planet, and the rest of life in the universe will do very well without us. In space, no-one will hear any cries of regret.

Quote of the day

All action is premature until it’s too late.

From David Bernstein via Jack Martin Leith.

(drawing by li'l lamb)

Thinking (maybe) but not doing

The other day I was thinking through the different choices I have to make soon about what to do from the next month or so onwards; I think I mentioned it here. One of the things that crossed my mind was whether it was possible to estimate the number of people in the UK or France, or maybe across Europe who are in 'nature conservation or environment' type jobs, but are not directly involved in land management in any way. So not nature reserve or park staff, but policy-makers, support staff, academics, advisors and so on.

Then I wondered how many farmers are struggling to make a living, or otherwise facing dramatic changes in their working context. Again, in the UK, France or Europe as a whole.

The I wondered how much progress or impact there would be in attaining some form of economic, cultural and environmental sustainable land management if a significant number of the first group of people, together with their funding, had a go at taking on some of the changing or failing farms and trying things out to make them sustainable. This is not to say that what they're doing now isn't valuable; I'm making no comment about that. I'm just thinking that maybe a massive number of real 'experiments' could generate massive opportunities for sustainable land management. If all the learning was pooled and fed into CAP reform and other major decision-making, those opportunities could lead to a seismic shift over ten years in our practice and understanding. Even, or maybe especially, learning from those that fail.

That was yesterday's garden thinking. Today's thinking is in the form of a question to myself. Aren't I effectively one of these people doing indirect things? What could I do in my current choices to do what I've just been mulling over for others. So as I am answering this, I'm realising that to some extent I have been trying to do both for the past three years or so, trying through growing my own food, working with my neighbours on various farming activities, and enjoying the perspective that gives me as I work on the advisory, research, planning and thinking type work that I've been doing.

So I'm now at the point where I'm asking if that's enough, or if I want to invest a bit more into the land management activities, take some risks, invest some cash and personal commitment into a farm-type land management business? Full-time? Or mixed like I do now? I don't know the answer yet. I'm coming up with a few ideas about what that might mean in practice. It's an exciting time ...

Children's space

Over many years I've come across incidents and experiences that have made me think about children and young people's experience of public space. I'm talking about both rural and urban space. In fact I did my undergraduate dissertation on young people in rural spaces. Later I was occupied with young people's behaviour in urban space and prepared an unimplemented research project to explore that in some academic [sic] way. Anyway, such thoughts also drove me to move here to rural France. After my daughter was born while living in a city, I'd wanted to find an alternative space for her to grow up in, and the rural south of England was proving an expensive place to do that. So here we are, and she's having the time of her life, and very comfortable with her immediate experience of public space in the village.


But that obviously isn't a solution for everyone, and urban areas in particular are still facing many of the issues that bothered me as a new parent, and as a worker concerned with young urban experiences at the rougher end of the spectrum. Demos (intern Adam) has just published this video on YouTube to complement some of their work on play spaces. I like the video (besides what it says).

Quotes

I'm following quotations book on Twitter to get regular quotes like these. They have a site here.

Happiness is activity - Aristotle. This has sparked off a few thoughts in my head about nature conservation, land management, 'saving the planet' (aaaggh!) and so on. If I go against this advice and think through the sparks, I may get a post about it up here sometime.

See everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little - Pope John XXIII. I'm not sure about the 'correct a little' bit, but I do like see everything, overlook a great deal. A kind of don't sweat the small stuff, don't judge others (I once heard this described as 'unconditional positive regard', yuk).

Del.icio.us

Some sites from following up two conferences over the past couple of weeks - Europarc in the Czech Republic and the Pathfinder southeast regional conference in Reading...

1. film music | mobygratis.com

   hats off to moby

   to audio film free Music sound stock video ... saved by 67 other people

2. CCLP Home

   to university environment landscape people Research education

3. Welcome to panparks.org - PAN Parks

   to nature conservation parks environment sustainable tourism ... saved by 3 other people

4. Hampshire Farming Conference

   to farming hampshire uk

5. Cresson Creative catering

   to catering farm food

6. South East - The Year Of Food And Farming - September 2007 to July 2008

   to farming food southeastengland

7. VoiceThread

   A great way to share thoughts around photographs

   to audio collaboration Networking tools writing Photography ... saved by 28 other people

8. Green Futures

   to future green magazine sustainability environment ... saved by 42 other people

9. Welcome to Green Futures

   to green environment future magazine

10. Recycled Assemblage Art - a photoset on Flickr

    to art recycling creativity fun

Del.icio.us

More discovered sites from the past couple of weeks. I've also added a couple of 'artistic' items to francerant too.

1. worldclock

   world stats as they change, births, diseases etc etc etc

   to clock creative data visualization news Research ... saved by 2494 other people

2. I want a Firefox Extension to ... 200+ common problems solved : eConsultant

   to firefox directory software tools ... saved by 762 other people

3. Welcome to ERS, find out how you can get involved!

   to ecology environment education nature ... saved by 4 other people

4. Berkeley University 300 hours on YouTube

   to e-learning education online teaching video university Berkeley ... saved by 430 other people

5. Think Beyond - HELPING ORGANISATIONS THINK FOR TOMORROW

   to consulting organisation change future ... saved by 3 other people

6. Connexions - Sharing Knowledge and Building
   

   to collaboration community development e-learning ... saved by 1463 other people

7. Welcome to dimdim

   Free multimedia web meetings

   to audio business collaboration conference online opensource sharing ... saved by 404 other people

8. Scriblink - Your Online
   

   to Brainstorming collaboration drawing ideas online sharing ... saved by 677 other people

9. Earthwatch Teach Live from Nova
   

   to environment geography online teaching nature ... saved by 3 other people

10. Stephan Krasser - Nature Photographer

    to photos Photography nature conservation austria germany europarc