Living in sympathy with our natural world means collective decision-making.  

No one group of individuals in society should be able to dominate any other(s), either by force of arms or by force of numbers.  

So, when disputes are serious: no fighting and no majority voting.  Politics should not be win-or-lose.  Instead, when the subject is complex or controversial, decision-making should be preferential.

Collective cost

After all, the democratic process should aim to identify that which gives “the greatest good to the greatest number.” 

Majority voting cannot identify a consensus; rather, it measures the degree of dissensus. So what kind of voting mechanism should we embrace? 

Majority voting worked fairly well (for rich men) in the forums of ancient Greece and (for the male and even richer ministers) in the Imperial Court of the Former Hàn in China. But there were no political parties in those days, in Europe or Asia.  So Mr X might agree with Mr Y today and disagree tomorrow, without falling into groups of permanent antagonism.

To our great collective cost, dictators and democrats alike prefer the Orwellian binary vote – ‘this’ good, ‘that’ bad.  They choose the question and, in most cases, the question is the answer.  

So majority voting rarely identifies “the will of the people” nor even that of the majority, but the will of he – it’s usually a he – who sets the question. 

Binary vote

In 1997, for example, Wales had a referendum.  Some wanted independence.  Tony Blair wanted devolution.  So he wanted the Welsh to want devolution.  So the question was binary: “Devolution or status quo?”  It won, by 0.6 percent.

David Cameron’s 2011 referendum on the electoral system was no better.  He doesn’t like proportional representation (PR).  So the question was binary: “First-past-the-post (FPTP) or the alternative vote (AV)?” neither of which is PR.  For thousands of PR supporters, this was like asking a vegan, “Beef or lamb?”   

In a nutshell, for problems of any contention, majority voting is inadequate and even dangerous.  For if people vote ‘no’ to everything, as in populism, we will finish up with nothing: Brexit, Trump and so on.

Take Brexit.  June 2016 could have been a three-option referendum: “In the EU, the EEA or the WTO?”  Voting separately on each of these options would probably have got a majority against all.

But there was only one ballot: “In the EU, yes or no? (‘remain’ or ‘leave’)?” and the outcome was 52 percent ‘no’ (‘leave’).  If we assume the 52 percent was split evenly between the two, “In the EEA?” and “In the WTO?” separate votes could have been a 74 percent ‘no’ to each.  

Pluralism 

We cannot best identify “the will of the people” or that of parliament in a dichotomy.  This has been painfully demonstrated by the fact that, since the June 2016 referendum, society has had a huge argument about the word ‘leave’: is it to be a ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ Brexit? Are we to be in a Customs Union, the EEA, Norway +, the WTO or whatever?  

The supposedly identified will of the people is still unknown.  

In 1992, New Zealand put their electoral system to a referendum.  They had five options: FPTP, their then status quo; the Irish single transferable vote, PR-STV; and three others in between.  In a two-round ballot, the people chose a compromise, the German half-and-half FPTP/PR system.  

So pluralism is possible. Both in parliament and in any referendum, when there are lots of options ‘on the table’, an independent body should decide how many and which options there should be for a (short) list of at least three options.  

The MPs/voters may then cast their preferences.  But nobody votes ‘no’!  Nobody votes against any body or any thing. Rather, we seek consensus.   

Politics would be inclusive.  At best, the winner would be the option with the highest average preference and, if it got a good score, this outcome would indeed be the collective compromise, the consensus. 

Majority rule

In theory, parliaments represent all the people.  Most work by majority votes.  So most split into two, and each government represents only the bigger ‘half’.  The consequences of this practice are often horrific.

Prior to the 1998 Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland Catholics were a permanent minority.  In 2016, the Tories concocted a majority by bribing the extremist DUP, which thus acquired a power way beyond its proportional due – not unlike Austria’s Freedom Party one year later.  

A single party with 50 per cent plus one of the seats could still get 100 per cent of the power.

In a pluralist democracy, the resolution of every controversy should first allow everything to be ‘on the table’.  And as Professor Iain McLean writes in his Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics: “When there are more than two [options],” preferential voting “is the best interpretation of majority rule.”  

Accordingly, let us recognise the diversity of our own species: in parliaments and in referendums, on matters of contention, ballots – not least any ‘People’s Vote’ – should be preferential. 

If we are to defend the living planet democratically, resolving disputes should facilitate the identification of the general will. Consenual, preferential voting in decision-making may well be a pre-requisite for our survival.

This Author

Peter Emerson is the director of the Belfast-based de Borda Institute. His latest book – Majority voting as the catalyst of populism (Springer, Heidelberg) – will be published later this year.

The clarion call for major economies to announce a state of climate emergency has never been louder, with a heat wave sending temperatures to a sweltering 45-degrees Celsius in France and giant wildfires bursting into life across Spain.

But we’re going to need more than words and a profit-before-people attitude to mitigate this emergency, as Trudeau’s two-faced climate emergency declaration and massive oil sands pipeline approval demonstrated.

If we want to survive on this plane, we have to radically reimagine our society and our economy. Business-as-usual won’t cut it, the posturing of statespeople won’t cut it and the market alone will certainly not cut it.

Societal transformation

We need a government-enforced industrial strategy that places a low-carbon, just transition at the heart of our societal transformation. 

But the monophony of privately educated voices in position of power does not have the variety of experience needed to imagine a vibrant and inclusive new society.

To imagine a new society, we’re going to need to listen to a diversity of real people on the ground. In short, we need to platform the grassroots and people in power need to listen. 

History has shown us time and time again that mass movements for social and economic transformation are led by people on the ground, not by technocrats or privileged politicians. From Stonewall to the Suffragettes, the people on the receiving end of oppressive or impotent policy are often the most informed about what needs to change.

If we want a proper diagnosis of what’s gone wrong, it is absolutely essential that the voices of the grassroots are included in discussions about how we’re going to make our society work for both people and planet. 

Galvanising message

Add to the inclusion of the grassroots the galvanising message of the Green New Deal, which has shown that we need to move beyond framing the climate emergency as a pure environmental issue, and you’ve created a new environmentalism. 

If we’re going to bring everyone on board (and we need to), a multi-layered framing of the climate emergency as an opportunity for job growth, the sharing of social goods and the healing of our living planet is the way forward.

In practice, this means we need to give as much focus to how we transform our food system, as to how we welcome refugees who are made homeless by extreme weather and flooding. 

After the UN revealed that cities, though only taking up two percent of all global land area, are responsible for 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, it became apparent that efforts to decarbonise the planet must begin in megacities like London.

The fact that cities are also particularly exposed to extreme weather and global heating reinforces this focus.

Showcase solutions

A report commissioned by Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, showed that if we hit 1.5-degrees of warming (the absolute best case warming scenario), 2/3rds of London flats could experience dangerous levels of overheating by 2030 and 1/10th of tube stations could be at risk of flooding (mostly on the Northern and Central lines). 

The report found that, out of all European cities, London is most vulnerable to the economic impacts of the climate emergency. Undoubtedly, these impacts will fall hardest on lower-income people in London. 

This week the Greater London Authority has been hosting London Climate Action Week, a week of events that is mostly being led and organised by investors, banks, think tanks, NGOs and government bodies.

The purpose of the week is to showcase solutions and outline the problems of the climate emergency. But a week of events that is not also giving a platform to the grassroots will never come up with the right solutions. 

At Fossil Free London, a London-based grassroots campaigning group, we recognised this shortcoming.

Festival of ideas

In response, from 2pm on the 20 July we’re occupying a space on the grass outside City Hall and throwing a festival of ideas, with a vibrant selection of grassroots and radical groups running workshops on issues as diverse as energy, ownership, housing and migrants rights. 

The festival will provide inspiration for the second part of the day, where we’ll gather in a People’s Assembly (think big melting pot of ideas and solutions for London) and co-create our new plan for London.

If we want London to be a city that works for people, jobs and the climate, we’re going to need to create our own platforms, run our own discussions and draft our own plans for this city. 

If you want to be part of discussions for a new London, come on on the 20  July and leave inspired by what’s being achieved by groups now, clear on how you can help and ready to kickstart our collective vision to reimagine London.

This Author 

Samuel Hayward works on climate change campaigns in London.

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More than 250,000 customers have been moved on to expensive energy deals after their suppliers went bust, new research has revealed.

The consumer charity Which? said that 283,000 of the 925,000 energy customers whose supplier failed in the past 18 months were shifted onto standard variable tariffs (SVT), with some being stung with overnight hikes of hundreds of pounds.

It said that SVTs are often the most expensive deals available on the market and warned that the current system was “failing consumers”.

Hikes

The charity said customers were left “facing a lottery” of not knowing whether regulator Ofgem will move them on to one of the cheapest or most expensive deals on the market if their supplier goes bust.

Its research, published on Monday, also found that some customers had reported being threatened with bailiffs over debts to a failed supplier.

Which? is calling on Ofgem to “get a grip on this chaos” by ensuring new tests for suppliers due to start on Friday are “sufficiently stringent that they prevent so many weak and unfit firms from entering the market if they can not sustain prices and customer service levels”.

Which?’s head of home products and services Natalie Hitchins said switching supplier was still the best way to get a good deal and better service.

She added: “It’s wrong that energy customers face a lottery when their supplier goes bust – and that those who have followed advice to do their research and shop around for a better deal can be hit with such substantial price hikes.

Tariff

“Ofgem must ensure its new checks are sufficiently robust to bring an end to this cycle of supplier failures, and alongside the Government should explore ways to lessen the financial burden and make the process easier for consumers when energy firms collapse.”

Which? said that Ofgem, and the Government in its forthcoming energy White Paper, should explore ways to reduce the financial burden and improve the overall experience for consumers when energy suppliers go bust.

But an Ofgem spokeswoman said around half of the customers from failed suppliers in the last 18 months had been transferred by their new supplier on to tariffs cheaper than their standard variable rate.

She added: “If a supplier fails, under our safety net we find a competitive deal for customers when appointing a new supplier.

“Appointed suppliers have to send welcome packs to customers with details of the new tariff they will be put on.

Price

“Customers can ask to be moved onto a different tariff or shop around and switch to save money. No customers are charged exit fees if they decide to switch to another supplier.”

Which? said that 10 gas and electricity firms had stopped trading since the beginning of 2018.

It said that three of the suppliers of last resort, appointed by Ofgem to take over the customers of a failed supplier, put customers straight onto a SVT – Brilliant Energy and Northumbria Energy, Economy Energy, and Our Power.

The charity said that firms acting as a supplier of last resort play an important role in keeping gas and electricity supplies running, but they may have to find ways to cover the extra costs they face as a result of taking on extra customers.

Which? said Brilliant Energy and Northumbria Energy’s 17,000 customers were moved onto SSE’s standard variable tariff at £1,253 a year, which was £1 less than the maximum permitted by the price cap. SSE told Which? these customers faced price increases of 38% on average.

Last resort

A total of 235,000 Economy Energy customers were moved onto standard variable tariffs with Ovo Energy, Which? said.

The charity said some of these customers would have been put onto the Ovo simpler SVT which was at the level of the price cap at £1,137 a year, moving to £5 below the new price cap level at £1,249 a year in April.

Others with prepayment meters would have moved to Boost’s tariff in January at £1,134 a year, it added.

Which? found that after Our Power collapsed, 31,000 prepayment customers went onto Utilita’s smart energy variable deal, where appropriate, at £1,240 – £2 a year less than the prepayment meter price cap.

But the consumer champion said that not all suppliers of last resort put customers onto standard variable tariffs, with some – including Octopus Energy – moving customers onto their cheapest tariffs.

This Author

Joe Gammie is a reporter with PA.

Farmers and landowners across England benefit from £2.4Bn a year of tax breaks not available to other industries, a new report from People Need Nature has revealed.

This is as much as farmers and landowners received in subsidies from the European Union Common Agricultural Policy in the year 2017-18. 

People Need Nature believes that these tax breaks should be reformed so the tax system operates on the same principle as the reforms to Agricultural Support. This means tax benefits should only be available when they provide public benefits – such as carbon sequestration, reduction in flooding, providing flowers for bees and restoration of wildlife to farmland. 

Business rates

Miles King, CEO of People Need Nature said: “Nature benefits everybody in society. We know that people are happier the more time they spend in nature  – and most of England is covered by farmland. 

“At the moment this money is going to places it’s needed least and be paying for damage to the environment. Instead, we want to see these tax breaks redirected towards helping farmers who are working to restore nature to their farmland.”

An estimated £1.02Bn a year as a result of having to pay no business rates (National Non-Domestic Rates). Farmland and farm buildings were exempted from paying rates in the 1920s when agriculture fell into a deep depression and there was widespread abandonment of land.

Using figures previously calculated by academic, and updating them to reflect current rental values, farmland and farm buildings benefit from a tax break of over £1bn a year, in England. 

Red diesel

Farmers benefit from diesel with a very low duty rate, much lower than other industries – leading to a loss of nearly £1Bn a year across the UK – and over £500M a year in England. Heavy users of Red Diesel, such as those engaged in intensive arable farming, benefit the most. 

In addition, farmland benefits from 100 percent relief from Inheritance Tax – costing the Exchequer over £500M a year in lost revenue.

Recent research by the Tax Justice Network found that 261 families benefited from £209 million in agricultural property relief (APR) in just one year. 

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist’s content editor. People Need Nature is a charity, which works to promote the sensory, emotional and spiritual value of nature to people in England and Wales.

Twelve thousand people travelled from around the country to speak to their local MP last week, in the largest ever environmental lobby of Parliament.

A total of 220 MPs took part, and were taken by rickshaw to meet constituents in the area surrounding the Palace of Westminster

The event was organised by the Climate Coalition and Greener UK, which comprise over 130 different organisations including Oxfam, WWF and the Woodland Trust.

Space for solutions

Research conducted by the Climate Coalition and Greener UK has found that 71 percent of Brits want their local MP to support ambitious plans to protect the natural environment and tackle climate change.

The mass lobby aims to prompt the introduction of an Environment Bill that would tackle air pollution and species extinction, and to ensure that the government’s recent commitment to net zero emissions becomes a reality by 2045. 

Speaking to The Ecologist, Beccy Speight, CEO of the Woodland Trust, said: “Today’s event is about stepping into the solutions space. We’re very keen that we now get government and MPs focused on what we’re going to do about this, which is why we really wanted to make sure we had those face to face conversations with MPs.

“It’s important to keep pushing the nature crisis and the climate crisis up the agenda, it’s got to remain among the top issues in Parliament.

“I really hope we’ve really got MPs thinking about what some of the solutions are and could be.”

Sounding the alarm

At 2pm, the crowd of campaigners set off hundreds of alarm clocks to symbolise the need for politicians to ‘wake up’ to the current environmental crisis. 

Influential figures were involved in the day, including former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams who took part in a ‘Walk of Witness’ from Trafalgar Square down Whitehall.

Presenter and author Steve Backshall tweeted a selfie from the event: “With the vocal far-from-silent majority. The #climatecoalition is bringing us together; wildlife & conservation groups, young & old, all parties, faiths & backgrounds”.

Jose Batista Gonçalves Afonso, a human rights defender from the Brazilian Amazon, travelled to the lobby to speak to MPs and campaigners about the reality of climate change in his local area. He said:  “Today the situation is totally out of control.

“Without a doubt the changes in climate [in the region I am from] are related to the deforestation of this part of Amazon. Sometimes we think we can’t do anything, especially those living far away, outside the Amazon. But each of us can do something. We can find out what is happening in the Amazon and get involved.”

Calls for concern

The lobby follows a number of protests during the first half of 2019 organised by the likes of Extinction Rebellionand Youth Strike 4 Climate, involving hundreds of thousands of children and adults across the world.

In response, the UK government announced a state of climate emergency in May and committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 in June.

The event also comes in the wake of a stream of recent findings about the  likely impact of climate change and the scale of mass extinction.

The United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change 2018 reportpredicts that even limiting warming to 1.5℃ would still cause the death of at least 31 million people. The UN has warned that around one million species are now threatened with extinction; and earlier this month, a polar bear was found wandering the streets of Siberia.

Meanwhile, the US government has rolled back the previous administration’s Clean Power Plan, thousands of new pesticides have been approved by Brazil’s government, and G20 countries have more than tripled coal subsidies in recent years.

Time for change

Attendees of the event describe a positive atmosphere and a collaborative approach from MPs and campaigners alike.

Dr. Paul Kelly travelled to London from Settle in North Yorkshire and spoke to his MP, Julian Smith, during the lobby: “People were saying, ‘we’ve come here to support you to do some difficult things,’ and that was a nice angle which I tried to emphasise.

“Julian was keen to say what had already been done, but I said to him ‘thousands of people have all taken the trouble to come here today because they actually want to enable you to step forward more boldly’.” 

Speight added: “We are absolutely at a tipping point in terms of making the right decisions around this stuff. We do not have much time.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s a problem right now but it absolutely is. MPs really do listen to people power so we’ve got to keep demonstrating that.”

This Author

Becca Warner is a freelance journalist and copywriter, focusing on environmentalism and the future. She writes regularly for Atlas of the Future and has also written about environmental justice for charities If Not Us Then Who and Size of Wales.

Yoga, paddle boarding, parkour and canoeing are just some of the free activities on offer as part of a summer series of wellbeing clean ups organised by eco-activist, Lizzie Carr, in her ongoing efforts to eradicate single use plastic from nature. 

Whether you’re a complete beginner or a seasoned pro – everyone is welcome to join in and no experience is necessary, making the activities at Plastic Patrol clean ups accessible to all.

In return, Plastic Patrol asks participants to pay a ‘nature tax’ by picking up plastic waste and logging it in the Plastic Patrol App. Every piece collected contributes towards Lizzie’s mission to remove and log one million pieces of plastic in 2019, representing the one million marine animals killed each year due to plastic pollution.

Paddle boarding

Lizzie took up paddle boarding following cancer treatment in 2014 as a means of rehabilitation and felt the positive physical and mental benefits immediately.

Her time on the water also exposed her to the devastating impact of plastic pollution in nature. She has since dedicated herself to exploring the globe on paddle boarding adventures, using her journeys to capture important data to highlight and educate on environmental issues affecting our planet.  

In May 2016 Lizzie become the first person in history to paddle board the length of England’s waterways, solo and unsupported. She completed the 400-mile journey in 22 days, plotting more than 3000 photos of plastic waste.

Later, she returned to hotspot areas armed with paddle boards and litter picks inviting communities to join her mission and help clean up.  

Plastic pollutions 

Lizzie commented: “Paddle boarding changed my life. It helped me to see the sheer volume of plastic waste clogging our waterways but also gave me a way to reconnect with nature.

“Before my illness I was in an environmental sleep walk and being out on the water opened my eyes to the problem. My hope is that running these clean ups, others will experience the same positive benefits as I did.

“By inviting people to join me on activity-led litter picks across the UK this summer – we’re providing a great opportunity to immerse yourself in nature, try new activities and understand the extent of the problem we face with plastic pollution.” 

Whilst initial efforts began on and around UK waterways, intercepting plastic waste inland before it reaches the oceans, Lizzie’s ambition is much bigger.

This year, qualified instructors and clubs around the UK across five disciplines will run activity based clean ups, helping mobilise more communities and connect them with environmental issues through physical activities.

Mental wellbeing

Lizzie’s campaigning is perfectly timed, as the government moves towards its 25 Year Environment Plan, and commitment to help ‘regain and retain good health’ and to make it ‘easier for people to get involved in improving the natural world’.

Official data has revealed almost 1.8 million work sickness notes handed out by GPs between September 2016 and September 2018 were for mental health, accounting for a third of all sickness notes with a recorded illness, demonstrating millions of us are impacted by mental illness each year. This initiative is tackling those statistic head on to help people take positive action. 

Lizzie said: “Combining nature with physical wellbeing is incredibly powerful for mental health – it gives you a much deeper appreciation of the natural world.

Encouraging people to reconnect with nature through activity inherently makes you feel more protective over it – and that’s what Plastic Patrol is about. The ultimate aim is to restore the balance between environmental and personal wellbeing.

“By incorporating more activities, I’ve opened Plastic Patrol up to a wider network so more people can get involved. This will help gather even more data from other parts of the country, giving us invaluable insight into plastic waste issues not only in waterways, but also on land – parks, mountains, streets – gathering a huge cross section of data to analyse.”

Citizen science

The free Plastic Patrol app was launched in 2016 and leads the way in citizen science to address plastic pollution – currently holding the largest bank of plastic data for the UK inland waterways on record.

It is focused on building a tangible and valuable evidence base across the world through its growing army of passionate volunteers.

The data collected is analysed by partner scientists at University of Nottingham to provide current and detailed insight into trends and patterns of plastic pollution.

This insight will create vital evidence to inform public policy around smarter and more circular packaging solutions, and responsible manufacturing behaviour.

Get involved

Lizzie concluded: “Being outside, exercise and mental health are all inextricably linked, and studies have shown the benefits of reconnecting with nature and spending time outdoors are endless – improved blood pressure, boosting mental health, helping to fight depression and anxiety, relieving stress, eliminating fatigue, the list goes on.

“This is why it made sense to bring all these elements together. In return, we’re giving something back to nature. It’s a win win situation!” 

Plastic Patrol clean up events are taking place across the UK this summer with events already underway. To find out more information or book a space on a wellbeing clean up visit the Plastic Patrol website.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Plastic Patrol. 

Image: Lizzie Carr. 

The government has been urged to bring forward concrete plans for ending greenhouse gas emissions after the “net zero” target passed into law.

The new goal will require a 100 percent reduction in emissions by 2050, with any remaining pollution “offset” by measures such as planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide.

The move has been welcomed by campaigners, but there are warnings rapid action is now needed to ensure the target is met – with the UK already off-track to meet interim carbon cutting goals in the 2020s and 2030s.

Serious

Daisy-Rose Srblin, Christian Aid’s UK advocacy adviser, said: “The government passing a UK net zero emissions target puts the UK in the front group of countries upping their response to the latest scientific warnings about climate breakdown.

“While we think the UK can achieve this goal before 2050, the most important thing will be the government bringing forward concrete plans for rapid and radical decarbonisation of the economy. Setting the target is easy, the question is what will the government now be doing to meet it?”

A report from Friends of the Earth suggests a “transport revolution” is needed to help the UK meet its target. The green group said measures include reducing car travel by a fifth by 2030, enduring 100% of new cars are electric, and reducing flights by 18 percent.

Mike Childs, head of research at Friends of the Earth, said: “Net zero greenhouse gas targets need to be a front-and-centre policy for all arms of government.

Zero

“But we have to move right now, and a brilliant example of where government can show that they’re serious is transport because the sector is now the biggest source of greenhouse gases.

“The Department for Transport has gone rogue on climate change and presided over increasing emissions, decimated bus services, and failed to invest properly in cycling and walking. Its fixation with aviation expansion and road building needs to end.”

Professor Sam Fankhauser, director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said setting the target is an act of “true international leadership” by the UK.

He added: “This new target will provide a clear signal to investors about the direction of Government policy and should help to unlock billions of pounds of investment in the transition to a zero-carbon economy.

Believe

“However, the UK’s political leaders now need to focus on putting in place the policies to realise the target. Much stronger policies are needed to accelerate the phase-out of gas central heating and fossil fuel powered vehicles, for instance.”

Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said: “The first nation to use fossil fuels on an industrial scale has just become the first major economy to set an unequivocal goal of phasing them out.

“For the UK, one striking fact has been the cross-party and indeed cross-societal consensus, with no serious opposition in Parliament and the backing of business, farming, faith groups and other important constituencies. 

“If the UK can do it, there’s no reason for any other developed nation to believe that it can’t.”

This Author

Emily Beament is the Press Association environment correspondent.

English-born chequered skipper butterflies are flying in the UK for the first time in more than 40 years as part of a conservation project, experts say.

A second batch of the butterflies collected from Belgium have been released at a secret location in Rockingham Forest, Northamptonshire, as part of efforts to reintroduce the species, which had become extinct in England.

And butterflies introduced from Belgium last spring have successfully bred in the woodland – with their English-born young now on the wing, wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation said.

Extinct

Chequered skippers became extinct in England in 1976, as a result of the destruction of their wet woodland habitat in the East Midlands, when woods with the open glades and rides they favour were cleared and replanted with uniform conifers.

Dr Nigel Bourn, of Butterfly Conservation, said: “It was a very rapid extinction that took everybody by surprise.

“They were recorded in quite good numbers in the 1950s but went extinct in the next 20 years, and it comes back to their habitat.”

Butterfly Conservation is running the three-year project to bring them back in partnership with Forestry England, which manages Rockingham Forest.

The releases in 2018 and this year follow work to restore parts of the forest, once a stronghold for the chequered skipper, to create the ideal conditions for it with wide, flower-filled rides.

Skipper

Dr Bourn describes seeing his first English-born chequered skipper, which he spotted while preparing the Belgian insects for release in the woods, as a “surprisingly emotional moment”.

“We had the Belgian chequered skippers in a net to acclimatise before releasing them and were marking them, and as we were doing that, one of the volunteers said, ‘Here’s an English one’.

“I went to look and it was a surprisingly emotional moment. It’s taken a lot of work and effort over several years – it was a good moment.”

The butterfly has only a “toe-hold” here, he added, and a further release of new butterflies is planned for next year to boost numbers and help the insect establish a sustainable population across the landscape.

Forestry England ecology and heritage manager for the Central England district Adrienne Bennett said: “We are thrilled that the hard work by Forestry England staff over many years has created the ideal habitat for the reintroduction of the chequered skipper on our site.

Brink

“We hope the butterfly thrives and the population is able to spread from here.”

The reintroduction forms part of the Roots of Rockingham project across a number of sites to restore the forest to its former glory and help woodland species such as the willow tit, lesser spotted woodpecker and barbastelle bat.

The chequered skipper is one of a number of species being helped by the “back from the brink” project led by Government conservation agency Natural England to save 20 species from extinction and boost more than 200 others.

Back from the brink is being backed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the People’s Postcode Lottery.

This Author

Emily Beament is the Press Association environment correspondent.

Samuel Alexander: Rupert, I would like to invite you into a space of uncompromised honesty. Let us engage each other in conversation, not primarily as scholars wanting to defend a theory, or as politicians seeking to win votes or advance a public policy agenda, or even as activists fighting for a cause, but instead, just as human beings trying to understand, as clearly as possible, our situation and condition at this turbulent moment in history. When I look at the world today, I see the vast majority of academics, scientists, activists, and politicians ‘self-censoring’ their own work and ideas, in order to share views that are socially, politically, or even personally palatable.

This article is a reproduction of the first chapter of This Civilisation is Finished: Conversations on the End of Empire – and What Lies Beyond (2019).

There are times, of course—often there are times—when we must be pragmatic in our modes of communication, and shape the expression of our ideas in ways that are psychologically digestible, compassionate, or even crafted to be at- tractive to an intended audience. But the more we do that, the more constrained we are from saying what we really think; the less able we are to look unflinchingly at the state of things and describe what we see, no matter what we find. If we never find ourselves in spaces of unconstrained openness, we might not even know what we really think, hiding truths even from ourselves. 

Courage and truth

It seems to me that one of the first principles of intellectual integrity is not to hide from truths, however ugly or challenging they may be. Yet there are truths today which I feel many people are choosing to ignore, not because they do not see them or understand them, but because they do not want to see or understand them.

Truth, as any philosopher knows, is a contested term. But perhaps in what is increasingly called a ‘post-truth’ age, time is ripe to reclaim this nebulous notion, to try to pin it down, not in theory but in practice. That is to say, I am inviting you, Rupert, to practise truthfulness with me, to share thoughts on what we really think, and to do so, as far as possible, without filtering our perspectives to make them appear anything other than what they are.

This may require some bravery, of course, because if thou gaze long into an abyss, as Nietzsche once said, the abyss may also gaze into thee. Have we the courage? Will our readers have the courage to stay with us on this perilous and uncertain journey? My invitation to you is not, of course, arbitrary. It seems to me that you are amongst a very small group of thinkers today who have already started the process of speaking ‘without filters’. I’ve seen you deliver lectures to your students saying things that most academics would not dare even to think, let alone say out loud in public.

Privilege and responsibility 

I’ve read articles of yours that manifest the uncompromised honesty that I hope will inform, perhaps even inspire, this dialogue. One of the articles to which I refer, and which now entitles this book, is called ‘This Civilisation is Finished.’ Let that bold and unsettling statement initiate our conversation. No doubt it will require some unpacking. What did you mean when you declared that this civilisation is finished? 

Rupert Read: Thanks Sam. It is a privilege, in at least two ways, to be able to conduct this dialogue with you. First, it’s a privilege to be in dialogue on this vital matter with you, whose work on degrowth and voluntary simplicity is, in my opinion, simply the best there is. But I also mean that it’s a privilege, a wonderful luxury, to be able to have this conversation at all, because it is quite possible that in a generation’s time, or possibly much less than that even, such conversations will be an unaffordable luxury. 

It is quite possible that, although we are living at a time that is already nightmarish for many humans in many ways (let alone for non-human animals), we will come to look back on these times, if we are alive to look back on them at all, as extraordinarily privileged. Right now people such as you and me don’t have to spend much of our time scrabbling for food and water or looking over our shoulders worrying about being killed. So we have a responsibility to make the most of this privilege. 

Raising the alarm

What I’ve just expressed will strike some readers as exaggerated for effect. It is not. It is simply an attempt to level with everyone; to take up your invitation, Sam, and join you in a space of uncompromised honesty. Environmentalists are often accused of being doom-mongers. I think that the accusation is largely false, because I think that almost all environmentalists incline in fact to a Pollyanna-ish stance of undue optimism.

This might prompt an accusation of me being a fear-monger or alarmist. I’m not an alarmist. I’m raising the alarm. When there’s a fire raging—as is the case right now, as I write, across the UK and across the world including in forests that are our planetary lungs—then that’s what one needs to do. Raise the alarm.  This elementary distinction—between being an alarmist and justifiably raising the alarm—is exactly the distinction that Winston Churchill drew, under similarly challenging (though actually less dangerous) conditions, in the 1930s. 

If people are feeling paralysed right now, I think it is probably because they are stuck between false hopes. On the one hand, there is the delusive lure of optimism, the hope that there will be a techno-fix that will defuse the climate emergency while life more or less goes on as usual. This is, I believe, in a desperately-dangerous way keeping us from facing up to climate reality.

On the other hand, there are dark fears that people mostly don’t voice and don’t confront. My message, far from being paralysing, is liberating. One is liberated from the illusory comfort—that deep down most of us already know is illusory—of eco-complacency. One is able at last to look one’s fears full in the face. One is able at last to see the things that the other half didn’t want to see. And then to be freer of constraint in how one acts. 

Industrial growth 

One of the ideas in the work of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that most deeply inspires me is that the really difficult problems in philosophy have nothing to do with cleverness or intellectual dexterity. What’s really difficult, rather, is to be willing to see or understand what one doesn’t want to. After years of denial, and years of desperate hope, I finally reached a point where it was no longer possible for me to not see and understand the fatality that is almost surely upon us. 

I have come to the conclusion in the last few years that this civilisation is going down. It will not last. It cannot, because it shows almost no sign of taking the extreme climate crisis—let alone the broader ecological crisis—for what it is: a long global emergency, an existential threat. This industrial-growthist civilisation will not achieve the Paris climate accord goals; and that means that we will most likely see 3–4 degrees of global over-heat at a minimum, and that is not compatible with civilisation as we know it. 

The stakes of course are very, very high, because the climate crisis puts the whole of what we know as civilisation at risk. By ‘this civilisation’ I mean the hegemonic civilisation of globalised capitalism— sometimes called ‘Empire’—which today governs the vast majority of human life on Earth. Only some indigenous civilisations/societies and some peasant cultures lie outside it (although every day the integration deepens and expands). Even those societies and cultures may well be dragged down by Empire, as it fails, if it fells the very global ecosystem that is mother to us all. What I am saying, then, is that this civilisation will be transformed. 

Possible futures

As I see things, there are three broad possible futures that lie ahead. The first possibility is that this civilisation could collapse utterly and terminally, as a result of climatic instability (leading for instance to catastrophic food shortages as a probable mechanism of collapse), or possibly sooner than that, through nuclear war, pandemic, or financial collapse leading to mass civil breakdown. Any of these are likely to be precipitated in part by ecological/climate instability, as Darfur and Syria were.

Alternatively, this civilisation (we) will manage to seed a future successor-civilsation(s), as this one collapses; or that his civilisation will somehow manage to transform itself deliberately, radically and rapidly, in an unprecedented manner, in time to avert collapse.

The third option is by far the least likely, though the most desirable, simply because either of the other options will involve vast suffering and death on an unprecedented scale. In the case of the first possibility, we are talking the extinction or near-extinction of humanity. In the case of the second, we are talking at minimum multiple megadeaths. 

The second option is very difficult to envisage clearly, but is, I now believe, very likely. One of the reasons I have wanted to have this dia- logue with you, Sam, is so that we can talk about how we can prepare the way for it. I think that there has been criminally little of that, to date. Virtually everyone in the broader environmental movement has been fixated on the third option, unwilling to consider anything less. I feel strongly now that that stance is no longer viable. And, encouragingly, I am not quite alone in that belief.

Paradigm shifts

The first option might soon be as likely as the second. It leaves little to talk about. Any of these three options will involve a transformation of such extreme magnitude that what emerges will no longer in any meaningful sense be this civilisation: the change will be the kind of extreme conceptual and existential magnitude that Thomas Kuhn, the philosopher of ‘paradigm-shifts’, calls ‘revolutionary’.

Thus, one way or another, this civilisation is finished. It may well run in the air, suspended over the edge of a cliff, for a while longer. But it will then either crash to complete chaos and catastrophe (option 1); or seed something radically different from itself from within its dying body (option 2); or somehow get back to safety on the cliff-edge (option 3). Managing to do that miraculous thing would involve such extraordinary and utterly unprecedented change, that what came back to safety would still no longer in any meaningful sense be this civilisation.

That, in short, is what I mean by saying that this civilisation is finished. 

This Author 

Rupert Read is a reader in philosophy at the University of East Anglia. Dr Samuel Alexander is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is also co-director of the Simplicity Institute and a research fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute.

Image: Taker, Flickr. 

Blackthorn Safaris, based in Oswestry, hosts ‘canned’ hunts on an estate 40 miles north of the mining town of Kimberly, in South Africa’s Northern Cape district.

The company is owned by Alex Goss, a Shrewsbury businessman who also organises bird-shooting holidays in Africa and in the UK.

In addition to lion hunts, Blackthorn offers trophy hunting for people wanting to shoot elephants, leopards, hippos, and crocodiles. Other hunts on offer from the company include zebras, buffaloes and antelopes.

International law

Eduardo Goncalves, founder of Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, said: “In the shocking world of trophy hunting, there is nothing more depraved than captive lion hunting.

“For an apparently British company to be actively organising captive lion hunts will make people sick to the stomach.

“The government should ban the import of hunting trophies, help close the loophole in international law which lets hunters shoot endangered animals for ‘sport’, and support moves to abolish all trophy hunting”.

The Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting branded the ‘canned hunting’ industry as ‘cowardly: “You might as well as be shooting a zoo animal.

“Canned hunting is so cowardly that even some trophy hunters – hardly paragons of virtue – find it repugnant.

Wildlife traffickers

Goncalves continued: “Lion cubs are ripped from their mothers a few days or hours after birth by this industry. They are then reared in captivity to be shot for entertainment.

“They cannot possibly escape, and probably assume an approaching trophy hunter is a keeper bringing it dinner.

“Hundreds of lionesses are shot in these facilities every year and their bones sold to south-east Asian traders for phoney medicines.

“Court records show many of those involved are known wildlife traffickers and notorious crime syndicates.

“After the killing of Cecil the lion in 2015, Rory Stewart promised to stop British lion hunters from bringing back their trophies into the country. He then quietly dropped the pledge.

Unanimous consensus

“A few weeks ago, Michael Gove hosted a meeting of conservationists and hunting groups where there was unanimous consensus against canned hunting. Even though the UK and European trophy hunting industry groups condemned it, nothing has happened.

“In a few weeks, governments will be meeting in Geneva to decide the fate of wildlife species hunted for sport. CITES is meant to protect endangered wildlife, yet incredibly it grants hunters an exemption which allows them to shoot threatened species for selfies and trophies.

“The government says Britain is a leader in animal welfare and conservation. In fact, Britain is one of the worst countries in the world for canned lion hunters. The revelation that it allows canned lion trophies to freely enter the country runs a coach and horses through this claim.

“To repair its shattered credibility, the government should be calling for urgent reform of CITES and for this extraordinary loophole to be closed with immediate effect.”

There are an estimated 10,000 lions in over 300 breeding and canned hunting centres across South Africa.

Bone trade

More than 400 lion skeletons were shipped from South Africa to Vietnam last year.  Another 300 skeletons and bones were shipped to Laos. Dozens of skeletons were also shipped to Thailand.

Large numbers of lions were also sent to ‘zoos’ in China and Vietnam – these may also end up in the lion bone trade.

Lionesses are forced to become ‘cub mills’ through intensive breeding. They do this by taking her cubs away, sometimes when they are just a few hours old.

When the lionesses are too old to breed, they are shot and their skeletons sold for around $1500-2000.

Because of the problems of in-breeding and disease, lions are sometimes illegally taken from the wild to refresh bloodlines. Lions are killed in neighbouring countries to take their cubs which are then sold onto lion farmers.

Tiger bones

To make ‘lion wine’, the carcass of the lioness is hoisted up by the hind legs and hung down from a beam. Knives are used to cut her open and peel the skin. The meat is cleaved away and the layers of fat are stripped. The skeleton is left intact, often still connected by tendons.

The skeletons are then placed in large aquarium fish tanks about 2 metres long which have been filled with alcohol. Another method is to reduce the bones to powder and add it to wine.

To make the ‘cake’, the skeletons are boiled in water, often alongside muntjac bones and turtle shell. The gravy-like residue that floats on top is scooped off to make the ‘cake’ bars.

The demand for lion bones follows the collapse of the tiger bone trade, as the wild tiger population has been virtually wiped out. Lion and tiger bones are virtually indistinguishable. The lion bones are often passed off as tiger bones.

Some South African lion bone exporters are known to be linked to the Laos-based Xaysavang Network which was described by ex-US Secretary of State John Kerry as “one of the most prolific international wildlife trafficking syndicates in operation.” The network has been heavily involved in the illegal rhino horn trade.

Deadly dozen

Its leader, Thai kingpin Chumlong Lemtongthai, was jailed after he was found in possession of not only rhino hor but also of 60 illegally obtained lion bones. During the trial it emerged that in Laos the “main business of the company” was to trade in lion bones.

Eduardo Goncalves added: “Lions are in serious danger of going extinct. In the 1950s, there were up to 450,000 lions in the wild. Today there are just 20,000. Lions have disappeared from 90% of their range and gone extinct in 26 countries.

“Last year, over 2700 live lions, lion bodies, body parts and hunting trophies were traded between African countries and foreign hunters, collectors and businesses.

“Hunters took over 1000 lion trophies home with them last year. Over the past decade, foreign hunters have taken around 10,000 lion trophies home from Africa.

“Britain is one of a ‘Deadly Dozen’ group of nations responsible for the largest number of captive Lion trophies taken from Africa each year.”

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting.