Why we should set up a nationally and properly funded, environmentally focused force modelled on the Volunteer Fire Service, but using conscripts not volunteers
Opinion: “For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.” Written nearly 100 years ago by the economist John Keynes.
Continuing to believe that foul is fair is why forestry slash on the east coast continues to destroy livelihoods and animals and humans. It’s why roads and houses in the wrong place keep being rebuilt in the wrong place. It’s why our rivers are dry, and our lakes are polluted. The mantra of foul is fair is why we are in a climate crisis.
John Keynes forecast that the hundred years of pretending foul was fair (via Macbeth) and pursuing economic growth – growth at all costs – would enable nations and their citizens to get wealthier and escape poverty. After that, he advised, humans would need to reflect and move to an economics based on ‘fair is fair’. Boom. A century’s passed.
It is time to move from the endless pursuit of growth to the next phase – degrowth. Time to focus on environmental and human wellbeing. Others have been leading the discussion about Degrowth on Newsroom (Jack Santa Barbara, Rod Oram, Catherine Knight, Jess Berentson-Shaw), all offering informative, solid arguments for business-not-as-usual. My focus here is a solution regarding the environment and the climate crisis.
READ MORE:
* Give progress a chance: embrace degrowth
* The future must use less energy and have more of the things that really matter
* A pathway out of environmental collapse
What if we supported the work the Environmental Defence Society is advocating for and put it into practice via an entity such as a newly created Environmental Defence Force? A nationally and properly funded one. There is an entity we could base this on already operating – the Volunteer Fire Service.
Imagine nationwide local hubs of trained environmental enforcers who, when called upon, hop to it, knowing what to expect in their own areas, as needed.
This is well established with strong networks and passionate, knowledgeable people who run it. With political and community willingness, its local hubs could be modified and enhanced to recruit more widely, train and nurture a nationwide force of climate crisis responders – boots on the ground if you like.
And never mind about asking politely for a few volunteers. This is too important and there is too much work to do to wait for volunteers to sign up. This will need a nationwide conscription. A draft of citizens who receive formalised, regularly updated training to build the EDF’s capacity of crews who are then available as reserves to call up when needed.
There are many older people, retirees, who can still contribute to times of crisis, and many of us would love the opportunity to do so. Again, I cite the work of the Volunteer Fire Service, which has a range of tasks they ask their crews to do on top of fire fighting – admin, phone calls, follow-ups, etc. Its work is not all to do with physical strength and firefighting. It’s about logistics with the emphasis on local knowledge.
Imagine nationwide local hubs of trained environmental enforcers who, when called upon, hop to it, knowing what to expect in their own areas, as needed.
Train us up locally. Put us on a roster. We can’t all firefight or dig ditches or use a chain saw but we can use phones and computers, and make tea, or cook for those who need cooked meals, we can learn how to make our properties more resilient or learn how to harvest rainwater and we can teach skills. Get those retirees on the Universal Basic Income aimlessly motoring around the motu in their motorhomes looking for something to do and something different to talk about, something constructive to do and something else to talk about.
Move young people who are feeling a sense of hopelessness and despair about their future to a place (mentally and physically) where they can contribute to making the environment cleaner, and where they can build their own resilience and increase the chance to feel valued, to feel needed.
