Element Descriptor

If you are trying to make/sustain change a a “local” level, you could do with knowing what has been done – by states, corporate actors and NGOs, on (environmental) policymaking over the last however long. You can then see how it has or has not affected local strategies. It won’t make us all any less doomed, obvs, but may help grok the lineages.

UK- you can explain the basic outline of UK environment policy since the early 1970s ,and climate behaviours since the late 1980s,. You know the dash for gas versus the offshoring of production versus the EU ETS and the general disaster of fracking, support for nuclear and ever more cars. Labour and Conservative hacks both despise you.UK- you can compare the effectiveness (hah) of different governments over the last 30 years, the causes of their particular brand of uselessness (follow the money) and the unsuccessful efforts made to get even a tiny bit of sanity into the policymaking process. You drink a lot to cope with the scope of the futility of it all.UK- You can do detailed comparisons of various governments on various issues – aviation, wildlife, transport, energy and the continuities and disjunctures, the outside players and influences. You drink a HELL OF A LOT to cope with the scope of the futility of it all..,UK – you can rank environment secretaries by dastardliness, explain the multi-dimensional multi-level clusterfucks that have brought us to our current impasse, with carbon budgets and no way of getting to them but still the nauseating phoney exceptionalism swallowed by most folks, including people who should- and do- know better.

Level descriptors

NovicePractitionerExpertNinja
UK- you can explain the basic outline of UK environment policy since the early 1970s ,and climate behaviours since the late 1980s,. You know the dash for gas versus the offshoring of production versus the EU ETS and the general disaster of fracking, support for nuclear and ever more cars. Labour and Conservative hacks both despise you.UK- you can compare the effectiveness (hah) of different governments over the last 30 years, the causes of their particular brand of uselessness (follow the money) and the unsuccessful efforts made to get even a tiny bit of sanity into the policymaking process. You drink a lot to cope with the scope of the futility of it all.UK- You can do detailed comparisons of various governments on various issues – aviation, wildlife, transport, energy and the continuities and disjunctures, the outside players and influences. You drink a HELL OF A LOT to cope with the scope of the futility of it all..,UK – you can rank environment secretaries by dastardliness, explain the multi-dimensional multi-level clusterfucks that have brought us to our current impasse, with carbon budgets and no way of getting to them but still the nauseating phoney exceptionalism swallowed by most folks, including people who should- and do- know better.

Element Overview Essay

This is a draft. If something doesn’t make sense, or you see typos, or if you have further ideas, please email us on contact@activecitizenshiptoolkit.net

The reasons that people are mostly bad at this is that they don’t have it ever explained to them. And they think that nothing that happened before they started getting involved actually matters. There is a central solipsism, I’ll steer clear of the word narcissism. In most human heads, my mind included, not understanding the history. And the interplay between the campaigning and the policies, and the gaps between the policies and the campaigning means that you can’t spot the patterns.

Consequences? If you can’t spot the patterns, you’ll be prey to them. And you’ll constantly be confused and surprised when actually You needn’t be.

So the solutions are to read a few books, to watch a few videos and to take things That happened before you came along seriously, in their own right. And then you might be useful.

Development Resources

Rawcliffe (1998: 15–6) identifies four phases in the development of the British environmental movement. The first – from the mid 1880s to 1900 – was marked by the formation of groups such as the RSPB, National Trust and the forerunners of the Town and Country Planning Association and the Wildlife Trusts. The second – spanning the interwar years – saw the formation of new groups drawing on the broadening base of environmental concern, among them the Councils for the Protection of Rural England, Wales and Scotland, the Ramblers’ Association and the Pedestrians’ Association. The third phase – from roughly 1960 to the late 1970s – has been seen as marking the emergence of the modern environmental movement. This was not only a period of increased organisational innovation (the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, Transport 2000, the Green Alliance and the forerunner of the Green Party all date from this period) but also one of the emergence of international environmental organisations; WWF, Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Greenpeace all established organisation in Britain during these years. It was also the period in which environmentalism was transformed  from a minority concern into a mass movement and its forms of action extended to embrace the more moderate forms of direct action. The fourth phase – which Rawcliffe dates from the mid 1980s – has been a period of dramatic growth both in the number of environmental groups, and – especially – in the numbers of members and supporters of those groups. In fact, this is a period in which several temporally distinguishable processes followed one another in quick succession. First, from about 1988 to 1990, there was a dramatic increase in the number of members of already established EMOs, and one that was most rapid in the case of the newest and most activist organisations – FoE and Greenpeace. Second, from 1991, there emerged a new generation of EMOs, most notably Earth First!, more radically critical of capitalist consumerism and more committed to mass participation in direct action. 

Rootes and Miller, 2000. The British environmental movement: organisational field and network of organisations 

https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/fd2c2eee-8f3b-4e6c-9571-d2712c858d67.pdf

Citation is Rawcliffe, P. (1998), Environmental pressure groups in transition, Manchester, Manchester University Press.

Assessment Resources