CLIMATE CHANGE is happening and the environmental issues, we are told, are serious. We need to be prepared. My jury is out on whether we are facing doomsday and even Greta Thunberg is getting more reluctant to forecast the date the world is ending.
Doomsday or not, we can rely on this idea impacting policy and now we have a Labour government keen to just stop oil. Or Scottish oil more specifically. They will also be likely to try and solve the big environmental doomsday problem by increasing charges on airfares and flights and maybe cull some stag dos in Prague.
To doubt the value of these ‘saving the world’ plans or even be a little pragmatic is not popular. The argument goes that if you don’t follow the environmentalist agenda then you to want to kill all our children A bit like Lockdown sceptics accused of actually wanting old people to die. It’s a great undefeatable argument which fits alongside a two-year-old suggesting you are killing them if you make them eat peas.
I am a long term environmentalist. I just also happen to be one in the short term. Whilst the big cheeses are wrestling with the big important issues, they seem to have almost entirely forgotten there are problems that can be solved easily in the short term. With a hoe.
The logic of tackling the big problems of environmentalism for our green future seems to be more attractive, more ‘saving the world’ than what we could do today about our environment. Everybody does indeed want to save the world. Everyone wants to be a superhero in the world. But fewer want to tidy it up.
Pavements and roads are now abundant, nay lush, with weeds untroubled by any human hands. Wasn’t there once a local government office looking after our streets? Who is doing it now? Where are they? Why aren’t local governments sending out teams to look after the weeds, deal with the potholes and manage the environment? Not for tomorrow, not for future generations but for now.
Talking big issues is maybe easy. Putting your back into it is hard.
Our environment matters and yet it’s a disgrace. Bins, those plastic monstrosities, are on display with houses sometimes having as many as five sitting in their front lawn. No one seems to care. No bin shelters like in days of yore. No, in our day, we keep our rubbish on display.
Remember the ‘broken window’ approach in the United States? The theory went that where windows were not fixed, that drug dealers moved in, knowing the broken window was a symbol that no one cared. Fixing broken windows immediately gave a clear message: our streets matter, our buildings matter, our homes matter.
Our beleaguered streets and our buildings and our roads are sending the same message to our children. Your environment doesn’t matter, but let’s talk future generations and ‘saving’ the environment.
Inverclyde Council jumped into action in the past couple of days when some lawbreaker graffiti-ed an anti-Islam message in Port Glasgow and the council rightly condemned the content. It was a broken window approach. But this hasty action seems to be lost when dealing with potholes and weeds and trees literally growing out of buildings across the very street where the graffiti was hastily removed.
Inverclyde Council and many councils like it should prioritise looking after the environment for today.
So well done for getting bad graffiti removed immediately. Just shows what people can do when it matters. When it’s important. To them.
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Photo of Glasgow weeds by gavin from Adobe Stock