{"id":1915,"date":"2012-06-21T08:39:21","date_gmt":"2012-06-21T07:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=1915"},"modified":"2012-06-21T08:39:21","modified_gmt":"2012-06-21T07:39:21","slug":"not-rocking-down-to-rio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2012\/06\/21\/not-rocking-down-to-rio\/","title":{"rendered":"Not rocking down to Rio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I guess if you're going to be at Rio, you've already arrived and are enjoying the sunshine, beach, traffic \u2013 and that frisson of excitement of being <em>there<\/em> when history is made \u2013 and, of course, the sheer fun of all those people's conference meetings! \u00a0But is it historic? \u00a0The portents are not great, judging from what I read a few thousand miles away. \u00a0Gloom seems to have been packed into suitcases, ready have its creases hung out and worn for all to see. \u00a0It does seem, as Michael McCarthy noted in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/opinion\/commentators\/michael-mccarthy-a-jamboree-that-promises-more-than-it-can-deliver-7870104.html\">Independent<\/a>, a summit looking for a purpose.<\/p>\n<p>BBC Breakfast had what I felt was a surprisingly good discussion about it yesterday morning with two UK sustainability types who, like me, had chosen to remain here. \u00a0Their message was pretty clear: what matters is what we do here (and others do in their countries) \u2013 the <em>we<\/em> being government, business, civil society institutions, and you and me. \u00a0It was significant, however, that what you and I were urged to do, was <em>not<\/em> all those usual (and easy) things (recycling \/ woolly jumpers \/ lower speeds \/ walking \/ composting \/ more salads \/ etc \/ etc) which more of us are doing more of anyway, more of the time. \u00a0Rather it was the more citizenly stuff: getting involved with others, doing something \u2013 <em>and<\/em> pressuring government \/ business (and civil society institutions!) to bring about necessary changes that individuals cannot. \u00a0All that action competence stuff \u2013 any schools listening I wonder?<\/p>\n<p>So, respect to all those academics and fellow travellers (in both senses) who've saved up the carbon in their travel budgets, and stamina in their reserves, to make it to Rio; I hope it's fun. \u00a0Just don't expect that what you will do will make a difference to anything. \u00a0You'll have to wait till you're back home for that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I guess if you're going to be at Rio, you've already arrived and are enjoying the sunshine, beach, traffic \u2013 and that frisson of excitement of being there when history is made \u2013 and, of course, the sheer fun of...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}