Nothing new under the sun

I wrote on 23rd September about the concept that climate change could be a form of wake-up call for us all, and that in seeking to address an issue that affects rich & poor alike, we could build a more equitable world for us all. That in effect, climate change could be "good" for the developing world.

So, I was rather pleased to see an article on the BBC news website asking the same question in the context of animal species facing extinction. They come to similar conclusions - that the wake-up call occasioned by climate change could actually result in the kinds of action necessary to save many of the world's most endangered species.

One of the consequences of the current global economic crisis (credit crunch, financial melt-down etc) is the aparent loss of interest in "environmental issues". According to various surveys, these issues have been relegated behind the availability of mortgages, house prices and fuel price rises. The profligacy of unregulated borrowing and bankers' bonuses has lead many to call for, or claim to be seeing, the end of the Age of Irresponsibility, or the Age of Greed.

Yet, scarily enough, I'm now old enough to have seen this before! In 1990, at the end of the 80's boom years and facing the prospect of slowdown, the (now defunct) Today newspaper ran a seemingly endless series of articles & Op Ed pieces on this very subject. The "greed is good" era was over - kindness, responsibility, the emergence of the "new man", and an increased interest in the environment would be the hallmarks of the new age. Yet, nearly 20 years later, the same opinions are being espoused all over again. It seems that we have very short memories, and we are happy to allow our collective lives to run rampant when things are "good", yet have a colleactive mea culpa cleansing when things are starting to look bad.

If we are really going to enter a new "Age of Responsibility" or "Age of Generosity", whatever those words mean to the various pundits, we are going to need to commit ourselves to actively remember what happened before, and turn our self-conscious and confessional desire to make ourselves anew into real action. That is going to take the kind of discipline we have allowed ourselves to become unused to.