Well, well, well. This outcome is somewhat surprising, even for 'glass half full' folk like me! 22,182 people across 21 countries were recently surveyed for the BBC, to assess the degree to which people are prepared to change their lifestyle for the benefit of the planet - and specifically to address climate change. 80% of respondents said they were. Many supported higher taxes on energy use, particularly if the resulting revenues were to be invested in energy efficiency or clean fuel initiatives. "This poll clearly shows that people are much more ready to endure their share of the burden than most politicians grant," said Doug Miller, director of Globescan, the polling company working on behalf of the BBC. The question is: will politicians move decisively into this political space? Perhaps the 2008 US Presidential election will tell us the answer...
(The link in the title above takes you to the BBC online report. From there you can link to the survey results in full, using Adobe Reader.)
Monday, November 5, 2007
Day Twenty-Five: the not-so-selfish gene?
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4 comments:
The environmental lobby needs some good news. It has fallen into a bad press (certainly here in the UK) with stories of maggots in the now fortnightly-collected bins (recyclable collections alternating weekly with landfill collections), recycled rubbish shipped to India, news that domestic rubbish forms only 7% of Britain’s waste and, horror of horrors, the antics of the snooping bin police. It hasn’t been helped recently by the announcement of a “pay to throw” scheme, ditched today at the 12th hour when it was thought (perhaps wrongly, in the light of this survey) to be unpopular. It was probably unpopular enough with local elections in the offing.
So, how to reconcile the positive attitudes to green policies (and taxes) of those in the survey and the refusniks on the ground? The old adage (what you call a quote when you can’t remember its source) comes to mind: “Believe not what men say, but what men do.” It has the ring of a Roman Play about it – I wonder what they did with their rubbish?
Thanks for this, Harry!
Great question: 'what did the Romans do with their rubbish?'
Hopefully, we have a historian reading this somewhere in the world, who may be able to answer that one for us. However, I suspect the Romans didn't have to deal with nearly so much waste, not least since plastic (and specifically the plastic carrier bag) had not yet been invented...
My own feeling is that governments should focus on improving service delivery - for example, in refuse collection - accompanied by targeted tax measures, appropriate regulation and big investment in green technologies. With that in place, the market will probably respond in 'helpful' ways.
On service delivery specifically, I suspect people would recycle a lot more in the UK if you were able to leave things out for Serco (or whoever) to collect without having to agree a time to be at home, write them a cheque, etc. In New York, for example, you can leave furniture, clothes, electricals etc out on the sidewalk (pavement) on any day when rubbish is collected - in Manhattan this is three days a week (!) including one day for recycling. Often, private individuals with pick up trucks come round and load up the furniture - for reuse, refurbishment and/or resale - well before the refuse collectors get there. I don't think this is ideal, but it's interesting... There are also 'bring in your old computer' days and other similar such things, when you can drop off your old belongings for recycling - and have the value of them deducted from your tax bill! There's an incentive...!
This article is really encouraging - both because it shows people take environmental concerns seriously, and because it shows people profess, at least, to be ready to make altruistic sacrifices.
The trouble is so many governments, even sympathetic ones, seem unable to deliver on this issue. Environmental causes and effects are too far apart in time and distance for most democratic systems to be able to respond properly (an action now affects someone else many years later, and it's hard to guess who or assess how best to compensate them); economic mechanisms barely work any better. I wonder what needs to happen to enable the main power brokers (which includes individuals) to bring about the changes we need to stem climate change? It's something about the way world systems work (or fail to).
Good to see, though, that people's attitudes reveal green house gases have a silver lining - all we need now is some really good blue sky thinking!
Wonderfully put, Smiley. Thanks.
I think you are absolutely right to highlight the problem of intergenerational transfer. Most governments' frame of reference is incredibly myopic, when you think about it - less than 5 years until the next election, 10 years if you are after two terms; and only 24 hours (or less) until the next newspaper headline!
But I think the electorate must take part of the rap. Turnout in most established democracies is pitifully low. The over-60s often make up the largest cohort of actual voters. Where are those with young kids, or who are hoping to have kids, who really have an incentive to push governments on this issue? (Actually, the parents are probably at home WITH the kids - we need to make it easier for people to cast their votes!)
Finally, there is the age-old challenge of how to account for global public goods and 'the commons'. Many of the impacts of our poor environmental management in the US, France or the UK, for example, are felt beyond our borders. At the end of the day, any government is answerable first and foremost to its own domestic constitutency. Those impacted elsewhere, such as children living in deserts or flood-plains - or Arctic polar bears - don't have much scope to influence... So voters in powerful democracies must speak for them. Going by the results of this survey, they might just do that.
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