{"id":8599,"date":"2024-06-11T07:41:22","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T07:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=8599"},"modified":"2024-06-11T07:41:22","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T07:41:22","slug":"national-environmental-service-anyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2024\/06\/11\/national-environmental-service-anyone\/","title":{"rendered":"National Environmental Service Anyone?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Between 1949, when the National Service Act came into force, and 1963, when the last National Serviceman was demobbed, more than 2 million men (only men) were conscripted into the British Army, Royal Navy or Royal Air Force to do their National Service<\/a>. \u00a0It applied to all 17 to 21 year-olds and lasted for two years. This 'character-forming' experience was not something I remember looking forward to and happily was something which my school cohort just missed. \u00a0It was an echo of the second world war and I understand that the impetus for its ending came from the military which saw it as incompatible with their goal of creating an effective professional service in which here-today-and-gone-tomorrow conscripts would be incompatible with.<\/p>\n

Between 1963 and now various suggestions have been made about brining it back, usually in response to recurrent despair about the decadent state of the nation's youth. \u00a0In more 'progressive circles' such suggestions would put emphasis on community service rather than square bashing. \u00a0In these times, it was usually noted that other western democracies did all this without much difficulty, although the parameters of the \"much\" were rarely set out. \u00a0Sweden is usually cited as a successful example.<\/p>\n

I was a little surprised that the idea cropped up in the current election campaign but I wasn't surprised at the poor reaction it got. \u00a0This might have been because of the very poor presentation and the emphasis on military service (youth against Putin). \u00a0And yet, in this, no one saw fit to mention alternative examples of this idea such as the youth environmental service<\/a> [YES] that the Eden Project<\/a> has developed. \u00a0Maybe our politicians simply didn't know about it. \u00a0Another lost opportunity to forge a consensus about an idea where everyone seems to win. \u00a0The urge to reflexively rubbish the other side's ideas remains potent it seems.<\/p>\n

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YES gives young people aged 18-25 a year doing paid work on a variety of nature-based projects, learning new skills, making new friends, and helping address a variety of critical environmental challenges. \u00a0It seems not only to be a good idea in its own right, but a template that might be replicated across sectors to help both young people and the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between 1949, when the National Service Act came into force, and 1963, when the last National Serviceman was demobbed, more than 2 million men (only men) were conscripted into the British Army, Royal Navy or Royal Air Force to do...<\/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-8599","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\/8599","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=8599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}