The Shirty Dozen

BBC's Panorama is one of the few true, old school investigative news programmes around these days, so when I came across an invitation to submit my blog (well, it was to anyone, so I hope they have a lot of staff) I thought 'Why not?'

So I composed the following, and it can't hurt to have it logged here:

The environment is BIG these days. There are lives at stake: a current and future planetful, by some accounts. There is also good, and bad, money to be made taking advantage of its problems. I have a few profound views that shape my blog’s content... My ‘Shirty’ Dozen:

1) The facts and/or causes of climate change/global warming are too often distracting, or used as such. What really matters is that there is no sense in wasting anything unnecessarily.

2) People are inevitably polluters. With a growing global population, all we’re really doing is buying time... and still not very well. But it’s still worth trying!

3) Hence any well considered, positive/proactive initiative is better than nothing, well worth supporting and applauding. But there always need to be SWOT analyses and ROI assessments built-in... with consequential contingencies.

4) Little that is green can be viewed productively only in black and white.

5) There is still waaay too much remote, high-level talk, and not enough individual action.

6) Where there is action, the demands of PROCESS too often hijack the aims behind the RESULT, making change much more difficult to apply.

7) Most everyday folk would like to do something, but few have the time or resources to find out or sift through everything out there (and often contradictory), much less engage. They must be reached on terms they can cope with, and in ways they can respond to.

8) The public are often poorly served by those - authority, activist and even the media - with what can look like pretty short-sighted, selfish or self-promoting agendas. Inefficiencies and hypocrisies need to be exposed and called into account

9) The ‘Green Elite’ can too often contribute to the problem rather than helping with the solution.

10) Green need not always be good, or be above question. If it doesn't make sense to me, it may not to others. So it's always worth asking why.

11) Positive results need to be promoted, and rewards and incentives favoured over nagging, scare tactics or threats.

12) It is possible to be an idealist. The tricky part is keeping pragmatic and practical along with it.