Two questions on green politics...

What is Sustainable Development?

This first question was asked by a Glos Uni student in an email last week - here was my hurried answer - what would others have written?

Sustainable Development is a grossly overused and an almost meaningless phrase. Indeed it is great to be asking 'What is sustainable development?' - particularly when the economic policies of the three main parties are all based on concepts of growth and continued depletion of resources - this cannot be sustainable. Sustainability should be about ensuring life on Earth - as someone once said - 'the endless expression of generosity on behalf of all' - ie growth without inequality, wealth without plunder, work without exploitation and a future without fear.

Is consumer power the answer?

I am putting together a newsletter for the ward and one comment was that I could have spelt out the role of consumer more in my article re climate change.....I agree I glossed over this aspect - consumers do have power - not least in giving support to politicians to make the policy changes we need to make and showing that other ways are possible. However I am also very sceptical of consumer power...here is something below I scribbled on the topic a while ago"

...we cannot sustain the current rate of consumption - unrestrained capitalism depends upon infinite growth, and infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet. As George Monbiot put it "Eventually, like yeast in a barrel, it has to consume the resources upon which it depends."

We need an economic system that seeks to achieve a steady state not ever more growth. Better consumption by itself wont achieve the necessary political change. Poorer consumers can improve the quality of their consumption and try to reduce their environmental impact, but all it takes is for one very rich person to carry on the way they are and they wipe out all of the impact that thousands of other people have attempted. Again a quote from George Monbiot fits here: "We have to be better citizens first and better consumers second. In other words we need political change which makes our buying decisions meaningful."

Indeed without government action, better consumption does not lead to any lasting result. See George Monbiot and his concerns re green consumerism:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/07/24/eco-junk/