Blog Action Day 2009 – Climate Change

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:04:50 +0000

Today is ‘blog action day‘ when bloggers all over the world use one topic to help raise awareness. This years theme is Climate Change, which is not only a cliché but also not something that needs that much awareness raised about it.
Don’t get of wrong here, I’m no climate change sceptic. My dad is a climatic researcher, so the pros and cons of the global warning debate happened in our house long before they became the mainstream agenda. But what I do think should be thought out is the way many people perceive this topic. It seems many people think that, by planting a tree they can offset their trip to Australia. Others still think we need to make radical changes to our life, like ditching the car. I don’t disagree with this, per-se, but I think the fundamental binges need to be about the way we all live,as a community, not small token gestures as individuals.
This is where the community and technology bit comes in. For communities to be empowered they need to have people working in them who feel passionately about the place. If people from one area in to another to work, they can never empower or participate with that community as much as if they lived there. That’s not to say people with expertise shouldn’t input into areas other than the one they live in. But community should be a place where people live and work together, if they are to have this effect.
Up until now, the cost of having workers in many satellite centres has been prohibitive. However, technology advances mean this is more and more possible. I don’t just mean community workers here, by the way, I mean public and private, self employed and voluntary all working in the same place. Maybe from home, maybe from a community telecentre.
Here’s the beauty of this scheme – it empowers the community, because it has purpose. People in the community will feel more inclined to work if they see work happening all around them. Local, small businesses will spring up to support the local workforce. All this will lead to better quality of life, more consumption of local produce and, if stats are to be believed, better health. In turn, all of this leads to less miles travelled for workers, shoppers, producers. It leads to people feeling better about life and looking after each other, reducing the need for police on the streets, ambulances and public transport. Better for the community, better for society, better for the environment.

OK, I know this is a pipe dream and the utopia will never happen in full. I also understand that all jobs can’t be done from home and that we’ll always need a good mobile population, good transport links and place of work. However, like many of these utopias, couldn’t we be looking at the benefits and the possibilities? The excuse people use for not working towards these models isn’t that they will never happen. People say we can’t use social technology because of the institutional dangers it presents. People say we can’t have mobile phone masts because the dangers to our health. Watching “Electric Dreams” the other day, I noted that, in the 80s, the same was said about microwave ovens. Worrying about the dangers of social networking is important, but being too cautious can stifle innovation and, ultimately, contribute to climate change.

There’s some good staff around this – take a look:

Ken Eastwood‘s blog on Community Stuff and Mobile Working in Local Government.
Telework Association – they’ve been working on this since the internet was young

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Blog Action Day 2009 – Climate Change