In Wednesday's Guardian, Tom Burke commented on the contrast between the large membership of environment-focused organisations in the UK (4.5 million members, 13% of the population: 10 times as many supporters as all the political parties combined) and the near silence in the election campaign about environmental issues (which I commented on yesterday). He concludes it's "our fault". He also contrasts the strong focus on the NHS (sorry, "our NHS") with the weak one on environment, and makes this point:
"... air pollution costs the NHS £15bn a year. This is more than obesity and alcoholism combined and enough to keep the NHS viable well into the future. Successive British governments have ignored European air quality regulations they have agreed to with impunity, so these costs are growing not falling."
Do we, I wonder expect environmental NGOs to do our protesting for us? If so, we may well be expecting too much as they are, of course, constrained by their not having to be too 'political'. The NHS contrast is informative, I think. That system is geared up to dealing (or not) with problems once they have occurred, and so the vast bulk of funding goes to hospitals. We seem to think of many environmental issues in the same way with prevention seen as more costly than dealing with after effects.
Or is it that our own and family health is just more important to us than the health of the environment? More existential, perhaps? More immediate, certainly. Is this a legacy of the psychological separation of ourselves from nature?
I now have a new MP; my resolution is to write to her at least once a month asking about sustainability (and learning) issues.
Responses
"Or is it that our own and family health is just more important to us than the health of the environment? More existential, perhaps? More immediate, certainly. Is this a legacy of the psychological separation of ourselves from nature?"
More a legacy of anxiety, zero hours contracts, inflation, worthless pensions (for many) and being 3 months from being evicted for non payment of mortgage/rent/council tax. Its hard to admire the bluebells in yonder copse with a bailiff in your way.
Horizons have been reduced and yes, perhaps NHS matters more today.
All very disappointing.