Doughnut Economics discussion - video from the Green Lib Dems Conference 21st June 2020
https://events.libdems.org.uk/
youtube https://youtu.be/7fIBtlZsu0U
Doughnut Economics discussion after a viewing of the film "2040 Regeneration"
https://togetherfilms.org/2040-home
Sunday 21 June 2020
Speakers: Green Liberal Democrat policy gurus: Former Lib Dem MEP, Jane Brophy, Rushcliffe Lib Dem Candidate in 2019 GE, Jason Billin, Business Consultant Jed Marson, Bristol Mayoral Candidate Mary Page and former GLD chair and Treasurer Simon Oliver.
Compere: Lloydie Chair: Keith Melton
Transcript:
Keith Melton: In the first part of this, we'll have just a few minutes as a panel I'm going to get our panellists to introduce themselves.
Jane I just noticed your picture at the bottom of my screen.
I don't know where it is on your screen but Jane, introduce yourself - not too long just quick introduce and say Hi.
Jane Brophy: Hi, I'm Jane Brophy I'm Vice Chair Comms of the Green Liberal Democrats, former MEP for North West and I'm currently a local Councillor in Trafford and have been a local Councillor for about 20 years.
I also am just returning to
the NHS, my professional field, is I'm a diabetes dietitian; so very interested in all the food side of this.
Keith: Thank you kindly.
Ah Simon.
Caron: Oh, I've lost Simon: Where is he? Hello Simon.
Keith: Introduce yourself if you would?
Simon: I'm Simon Oliver, I'm Treasurer, I've been a Chair of a local society, a local party - that is.
I have been Chair of the Green LibDems as well.
My professional life is all about software and software testing and yes, been fascinated with solving the climate conundrum for many, many, years.
Keith OK and Mary next
Mary Page: Hello.
Essentially I'm an "Intrepreneur" somebody who likes to get inside institutions, organisations and change them from within.
So I like problem solving you know and the last job I had was working in manufacturing technology, with a lot of the major manufacturers: Jaguar Land Rover, Airbus, Rolls Royce, GKN, Dyson and a whole load of innovative entrepreneurs who were looking to recreate their products.
So that backgrou nd of technology, but it comes from being qualified as a broadcast journalist.
So, I'm a storyteller as well - so I get inside those organisations and help them effect change with their products.
I've also been telling their stories outside to other people and translating their economics and that's some of the passion that drives me.
And recently I've stepped out of that world and I'm standing to be Mayor of Bristol as the LibDem candidate for the directly elected mayor of the city.
Keith: OK. Thank you very much and I'd like to go to Jason next
Jason: Hi, I'm Jason Billin.
I'm Vice Chair Organisation, for Green Liberal Democrats and for my sins I've been party to organising this conference I live in the constituency in part of Rushcliffe in South East Nottinghamshire.
I was a parliamentary candidate in 2019 and I stood in County and Borough Elections.
I'm currently the parliamentary spokesperson for Rushcliffe.
My background is a lifetime spent in publishing and I'm originally a children's book Designer.
I'm now a publisher and designer and I have
had always had a passion for the Environment.
I am a certified tree hugger.
I have been on bat counts.
I have been on all kinds of different things and during discussion with Jane at lunchtime saying yeah, for me, it's about where we are at the moment.
You know I have learned from people, who have learnt from people, who have learnt, if I do nothing with what I know, ??? children in the next generation OK thank you very much Jason, Somebody's mic's on and they're moving papers around? Which was a bit disturbing.
Jed, if
you'd like to introduce yourself
Jed: HI I'm Jed Marson.
I'm Johnny come lately to the LibDems.
I spent a lifetime starting businesses in next generation technology and where lot of them have made huge differences for people.
In 1998 I started a business that, because I'd been working at home since 1989, a business to do voice over the internet, the sort of stuff that we're doing today, not very possible without broadband.
I got involved in broadband and lobbying to get broadband to be as ubiquitous as water and was successful with the new local Conservative MP of all things, unbelievably chasing Sajid Javid and getting him to chase BT into giving Worcestershire
broadband as a ubiquitous product.
for everybody to be able to access.
Now, I walked away from the Conservatives after the 2016
debacle and I am a very active LibDem.
I'm on the exec locally, of our LibDem party and I joined the Green LibDems the second I walked up to the stand at the first conference I attended.
I'm somewhat useful with technology and I like to look at things from the Big Picture - what can be made out of something that comes up as a new idea.
OK I'm an old git as well, but you'll have to get used to old gits being around, because we've got lots of experience.
Keith: Well, speaking as an old git myself, I can't argue with that at all.
OK what I'm going to do next
and I would ask the people who haven't yet seen the film, so bear with us, because I think this next little session might attract you into the thought of watching the film next week.
I'd like to go through our panel again in the same order, so Jane Simon, Mary, Jason and Jed, (that's for Karen's benefit) to see,
to ask you a question.
Don't take too long answering it, but what's the one thing that struck you most about the film? And why so? Just a little minute on that Jane:
Jane: Well what struck me about the film is in
fact it had a hopeful message for the future and an empowering message because in my professional life, in my political life, I've been about changing people and moving people towards a better place and enabling people to have a more positive life and actually moving towards the model of the green doughnut, does enable more people on the planet to have a better, more rewarding, more fulfilling life.
So, whilst we're changing our behaviour towards low carbon, better food, better communities, everything kind of points into one direction and I think
that's the key thing for me now, is, how we move people from where we are now, say A, and how we move them towards B.
which is the better future.
Keith: OK thank you. Simon, what was it that struck you most about the film?
Simon: I'm probably going to be in a minority here, but the thing the thing that struck me most was how familiar it is; because the structure and the concepts that he was talking about throughout the film, just made me think of the transition movement and how you start with the vision.
If you don't start with a vision, you don't know where you want to go and you don't you certainly don't know how to get there, so Rob Hopkins, when he founded the transition movement, issued and printed a handbook or published a handbook which encouraged
people to get together and create a vision of where they wanted to be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years' time and that's what this film is.
It's a vision of where we want to be and I would like to see
the whole party embrace this way of creating campaigning, so that we are campaigning for a vision, not against things that sounds like a cracking idea.
Keith: Mary what struck you about the film and why?
Mary: Well, Simon set me up nicely on this and the fact that, because I come from that packaging and branding background, it strikes me that However creative human beings are, most of the time we evolve ideas and concepts, we don't revolutionise them.
So this film, like Simon's perspective is not new to me, but the packaging is.
The packaging of that message - and we're on the cusp of something quite momentous that, almost, is revolutionary - at the moment - in the times that we live, with the opportunities that the Post-Covid world presents and then the uprising with Black Lives Matter, because the death of a black man in America, by the hands of the police, sparked something in so many people's feelings about.
Actually it was relatable.
It could be us, it could be me or it could be my friend.
And here in Bristol we had the pulling down of a statue, Which, actually, was more revolution than evolution, because people had started to say enough is enough and your processes, your structures,
your whole system is so stacked against change, then we have to take action, because you politicians have failed us and failed the system.
And that it also comes on top of the fact that we had Greta Thurnberg here in Bristol only a couple of months beforehand and yet that wasn't that seismic change after her rally because people didn't quite get that relatable thing about: "Why now?" "Why act?", because it wasn't that imperative of actually, "This is going to kill me now." And, bringing those two things together, if we get the new system right, to say that black lives matter, then actually, we will end up getting that right for everyone else, for all of us, for women, for those with disabilities, those that we will create, that new world that Post-Covid world, where accessibility is there, and every individual has the means of production for their energy and accessible local food.
Keith: Thank you. Jason what struck you about the film and why did it strike you that way?
Jason: I found it a unique inspirational model.
I'm exactly where Mary says, like Simon has said, none of this is pie in the sky, dreaming it's just a..
"What if?" It's an alternative vision, of the future we don't have to go down, the model we were already on the path of; all we have to do is, do this and every single element of that film, that he was, he was showing as he said, apart from the drone camera phone; they exist.
It's a question of upscaling, but it's a, it's the little message of hope, because we are in a very dark time at the moment: nationally internationally and even, even without climate crisis, we're in a dark hole.
So just to be able to say: "Look, it can be better", rather than looking at the negative all the time, looking at a positive and Saying, as Simon said, it's having that vision.
It's, it's what I loved about it, it's because I'm a
very visual person, I'm a graphic designer I'm a publishing designer and I see things in three dimensions, in full technicolour in my head.
It's getting he's managed to get that Vision, that I've had in my head, onto film, animated and thinking, "Yes, that is what it can be like." This is where we should be going you know and just simple things like looking down on a road interchange; and it wasn't about taking the roads away, it was about repurposing them; so you had footpaths going amongst green space.
That green space could be be planted.
Talking about the fact that two-thirds of Los Angeles was car park and warehousing, what are we going to do with that car parking space? Well, simple thing is grow stuff on it.
You know turn it into a natural space and grow things.
I just found it a very uplifting, inspiring film.
My worry is that, well it's not my way.
It's my question that I'm going to put to everyone is: How do we sell? How do we get everybody else engaged with where we are now.
Keith: OK and Jed, your vision from the film and what you feel? Why did it catch your attention?
Jed: I like the perspective, the third person approach that was taken.
I have three daughters, so I have three times as many future generation daughters to worry about having a future at all and I think a lot of the way that my being now operates, in the way that I look forward, is to hanging about to make sure that this blue sky that we have today, which for many years I've said was the blue sky of my childhood, is something
that we have to return to future generations.
So I looked at it in the positive way The, the Kate Raworth approach, it's Wellbeing and I think that when we start to talk about collaborative commons we have to look at ways in which the 99% can monetise their collaborative commons, whatever that happens to be.
We need to find a way to decapitalise capital for example:
Big agriculture is only 20% of the food that we eat it's only 20%.
80% of the food that we eat isn't made by big agriculture, so we're already in the majority of not necessarily choosing big agricultural sugar.
So we need to start to look at the facts and the facts are that 99% of us think the same way and think positively and think that we can do something forward for the future.
So what would it be? Well of course in my mind, I watch something like that and Think, "Hang on a minute -
how could I monetise it?" So, seaweed licenses, so which bit of the coast could we license and start to produce a variant of seaweed that will grow nearly an inch an hour? That's one hell of a crop New growth in terms of ...
One of the questions said: "How do we clean the cars?" I'm not going to say who that is, because I noticed who said it but how are we going to clean the autonomous cars? At the moment when I deliver a vehicle, because that's what I do to support my politics, I spend a day or two or three a week delivering vehicles and there are two things that come to mind the first is that when I choose my route, (I don't know how well you can see this? But, there's the a choice of route Planning.
I can go for the fastest route, the shortest route, or the most economical route.
Change your sat nav to most economical is "What can I do?"
So that makes my day long but that's the little bit that I do When I clean cars I worry and try to avoid the places where I see a car cleaned by somebody in the gig economy and I can foresee from this movie that there's going to be something built into the cars so that they self-clean.
So that's going to be yet another place for some good chemical to go into the atmosphere - in that vehicle to clean it and some opportunity for somebody to make some robots to clean those cars.
So my perspective is to try to look at who those organisations are going to be that clean them? So, today, the people who rent cars from a Hertz, Enterprise, in my experience in the computer Industry - there used to be wonderful names like DEC Burroughs Hewlett Packard.
They all went bust.
They all disappeared.
They didn't get it.
They didn't catch on quickly.
So I think a lot of the time, what we have to do as individuals is to say: "I will do this because I can do it better." like Elon Musk does, but a European vision that says: "No I'm not interested in you, as an investor." Saying "No." or "No,
I want you to look at the American Way." Which is to say let's try and let's succeed with one of the hundred or so things that we try to make big and
Keith: OK can stop you there Jed, because I want to try and get lots of discussion in and you were you were answering all of it,
Jed: yes, I was running on...
So, just to apply the same discipline to everybody else in the room.
I think before we go to everybody else in the Room, I think we probably need to try and explain Doughnut Economics.
I noticed that Simon actually had a diagram.
Would you like to have a crack at explaining Doughnut Economics?
Jane: Keith: can I jump in? Should I share Screens.
I've got one on screen would that help.
Keith: I'm not sure that it would.
Just at the minute, let's let Simon have a crack at describing it, rather than showing it in a complicated graphic.
I took that to… I'm not sure that's the best one of the Graphics.
Jane: OK well it's the one I've got, anyway is it worth it?
Simon: no,no, the one Jed was showing OK, there's a better one earlier on.
but I was just showing the book because I have not read the book I'll say I understand it because I've had a quick flick through and I already know some of the concepts, the concept of planetary boundaries for example.
Where there are limits to how much resource we can take out of the natural world and use for our own Benefit.
There's various limits and the the outer ring of the doughnut is the planetary boundary.
The inner ring of the bound of the doughnut is the people who do not have enough resources, of those different kinds to live and the doughnut itself is is the way we use our resources.
All the different things we need as humans to live.
Mary: Can I come in on that, I think, because it's it struck me, sort of having picked this up,
that actually, this is quite a Liberal Democrat way of looking at things.
I hadn't come across the doughnut economic model.
I'd heard the phrase but I hadn't really come across it until we've had a little bit more discussion today and I've had a chance to look some stuff up, but in the leadership debates that we've been having, I've asked all three leadership candidates a question about: "How much is too much?" you know, if we are going to tackle poverty and you know, in these new times of the Post-Covid world, the global citizens should we be aiming for? An international goal of a minimum income guarantee, that human life matters.
That every life matters and that no one should be without clean water, clean air and a safe place to live and because we, you know, we're so slow at taking on these big challenges and saying, "actually it's OK for some people to have billionaire Lifestyles." And they, you know, have their super yachts and have all of this at the expense of inherited wealth and advantage that they have gained, because of inequalities built into the system, that have enabled, predominantly older white men to own and be within those structures and the means of production, own the resources, have access to voting, you know if we look at, you know, women have only had access to vote for for less than 100 years.
Some people who've only had equal pay for 50 years.
Same, you know in the States
the blacks have only had, you know, we only had the racial equality act, in the bill in since 1964.
So that amassing of economic finance that skews the system, which means you then have access to resources, the world's resources and the planet's Resources.
Means that you know ...
we are scrapping people and we are saying that their lives do not matter and they are being thrown out onto the streets and the scrap heap of life and so that's the question I've sort of challenged all the leadership candidates with and, I think, it's now that I've seen the doughnut Economics,
I'm beginning to understand that, that was what I was driving at, that we have all of this incredible technology.
We have all of these resources and yet this is so anti-Liberal Democrat because all of those people who don't have this have got barrier, so they are not free to participate as a full member of society and if you are not free, you know that freedom concept of Liberal democrats, where we are, we are free to take part.
To vote, to live the lives we choose and we are free from barriers to Participate.
Whether it be poverty ignorance or conformity, means that we can never all be free.
Keith: OK. Thank you.
One of the things about my understanding of doughnut Economics Really, is that the the means of production, the means of satisfying the needs of the whole population, of the whole world, must be done without causing the pollution that we see so much of and the waste of resources that we, I've been talking about since 1971.
The frustrating… thing, that perhaps Jed, as a another old Git, can share with us, is that feeling of wanting to have changed the world for me, 40 odd years ago and really it hasn't changed that much.
Having said that, I do have an example of an interesting, different way of repurposing.
I have got here a glass of water I thought just in case I run dry, now what it is slightly differently, what it is, is a bottle and somebody had the bright idea of cutting the bottom off the bottle, cutting the bottom off, sticking it on top and making a rather nice ...
this is a Grolsch beer bottle.
It isn't new.
I've had this for at least 25 years, maybe a bit longer, so these ideas have been around.
One of the problems is that we don't get to share these ideas as widely as we should.
We get new populations coming through reinventing wheels and so on and so forth.
Jane: Can I jump in there because I think what you and Mary have highlighted are really key points that came across to me in the film, because part of my professional life is moving people from position A to position B.
What came across really clearly in the film, that no one's mentioned so far, is the fact that we're working with opposing forces, so it described how there are people out there, there's Trump and there's all those kinds of negative messages, that the carbon companies Exxon etc, that are building this moment, that is anti.
where we want to go, so it's kind of like, how do we change people, as politicians, as activists, to go from where we are, to where we want to be, because like the glass you've held up,
is an idea that's nothing new.
The things that Jed was talking about.
It's nothing new.
Simon talked about the same things.
Mary's talked about the same things.
As Green Liberal Democrat activists nothing's really changed.
The information is still the same.
We know where we want to get to.
We have that vision.
It's how we start to move people to that vision and we kind of need some leadership.
Which is where perhaps Mary's point about the Liberal Democrats comes in, but it might not be political leaders.
It might be people like Greta Thunberg.
The new kind of leaders are going to move the people who write the books and for this to work, we've got to find a way of explaining it to people and moving people from where they are, to where they we can.
I illustrate the point I was talking to Jason about at lunchtime, because this comes into my behaviour
change training that I do for the NHS, if it's about the same with people moving towards healthy eating, which was a massive part of the film, towards low carbon lifestyles.
If you look at the analogy of
a scarf and if you want, if you hold a scarf between two people and you try and say, "right, come towards me, to this small-scale way of living the doughnut Economics, people will resist moving
towards you, won't they? So we've got to find a way of loosening that scarf, so that people come alongside us and walk with us, rather than walk against us, because otherwise, we're creating this dichotomy of people not all walking in the same direction, so, I think, as politicians and as activists, we've got to find a way of moving towards people and getting people to walk alongside us, because unless we do that… it's going to become a two-way thing and Mary talks a lot about women being empowered, the film talked about
girls and women's education I think.
There's a more kind of feminine way of looking at this.
Maybe, maybe we can all change our way of thinking to start with ourselves and then we can start to
change others.
Keith: OK.
Thank you very much.
I'm going to move.
Where are we for time? We've got plenty of time, but I would like to have I would like to have our first trench of...
Mary: Just before you do, can I just put one challenge point in on the film - and you know this, this may irritate people, but that hopefully, that will drive some good discussion.
Feeling quite feminist over the, over the point about girls' Education.
Yes of course we do and yes it's been long accepted that the best contraceptive
for women is education, but if we only educate girls and we don't re-educate and change the language which we talk to boys and men in, then we will never solve the challenges.
It's the same with the Black Lives Matter.
It's the same with all of those ones, where, if you only look at the people who are being directly affected and the other people don't come along and stand beside you and say, "Me too" I am actually going to take it's very, it's, it's very Martin Luther King.
There's been a lot of stuff on, at the moment, of that and it's very sort of, you know, if you do not call out and challenge those positions of racism, sexism, inequality, then actually you are tacitly becoming indifferent and, therefore, you, unfortunately, yes, you, are part of the problem and you are responsible.
And it's quite a tough line,
Jed: yes of course, but you can only do...
Keith: No, no, sorry,
Caron: before everybody continues, I'd like to ask Keith and each of the panel to maybe just share a little bit about Kate's diagram of Doughnut Economics? If people aren't quite sure I've just found this… I thought.
Keith: That's useful Caron, thank you.
Caron: Would you like to just say a little bit about this.
Keith: Yes the outer ring, the pink outside the doughnut.
The doughnut is the green thing that you can see.
The pink outer ring are all the issues, environmental issues, that can be made worse or made better, by getting the doughnut in the right
book.
So we've got air pollution, we've got ozone layer depletion, we've got climate change, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, nitrous nitrogen and phosphorus loading, fresh water withdrawals
land conversion, biodiversity loss.
The idea is that if we overshoot the doughnut, we then get into a problem.
So the problem that has been most closely monitored for the last little while, in terms of politics, is climate change, but there are all sorts of other things.
Air pollution is one of the things that has become very noticeable by its change through the Coronavirus period: the fact that we're doing less travelling about and therefore not polluting the air as much, has been very apparent and Jed's comment about blue skies of his youth, was very pertinent for me, so the outside of the doughnut is all the damage that we can do to the world and to ourselves, by over using the ecological uh availability.
So that's the overshoot, that's the outside of the doughnut.
The inside of the doughnut is to do with social foundation and one of the things I noticed, from an internet comment, probably a few weeks ago, was that even the poorest people in this country, even the poorest people in this country, represent, if you take the whole of the population of this country, we are all within the top 10 of world richest people, that's including all the people who live in this country, or perhaps very few who are actually on the streets but all the people who live in this country are amongst the richest 10 of the population, so there's a lot of the population who don't have access to water, who don't have access to enough food.
This is the inside of this doughnut..
Health, education, income and work.
Anybody who is less than the inner circle, if you've got less energy, or less networks, or less housing, or less gender equality,
they are being deprived of the doughnut, they're in a shortfall and the film was very good in its graphic representation, because it, it sort of did it in three dimensions as well, which,
which is very much what the doughnut is about.
It's a three-dimensional thing rather than the circular economy which is which is not the same as a doughnut so I hope that's helped a little bit in terms of understanding why the doughnut is called doughnut Economics.
Steve Mason: Can I add something.
Keith: Hello Steve yeah coming this afternoon. Welcome back
Steve: I'm in the car now, look and I've pulled over and the thing before you get to doughnut Economy though, is actually looking at where the initial problem lies and the problem we have, at the moment, is growth and growth is there, is the real issue here, because we've hit that ceiling already with GDP growth and what Kate talks about in her video and in her book, is about how we thrive, not grow and that I think is the fundamental point, first and foremost, before we get to the doughnut and, you're right circular economy
and I had to explain this to one of the candidates this morning, is the circular economy.
It's a great principle, but it will continue to grow and eventually a circular economy will grow bigger than its actual capability of the planet.
That's, that's the difference and that's the main difference we have to embrace, is that currently, at the moment the society, the economic setup, is where the planet can cope with waste and the planet can cope with providing resources and that is completely unsustainable, until we change that fundamental measure of how we do our economies in the first world.
That's the key point.
So we have to get rid of GDP, I think, as the growth measure and work on something else and Jo Swinson mentioned it in conference last year.
She said we must measure our economy by Wellbeing and that's exactly what we need to be pushing.
Keith: OK.
Thank you, right, I'm going to exercise
Chair's privilege now and move on, if I may, to a situation where we're calling in the people in the room to speak.
So the next 10 minutes, I hope will be taken up by five contributions or thereabouts, from the floor.
You are perfectly entitled to say whatever you wish to say I would prefer - it's all about doughnut Economics and if you were watching the film as well, this morning, or earlier on, perhaps make some comment about the film as well, so you've got two minutes and I'm going to take, if we've got five people with their
hands up.
I can't see any hands up at all, just at the moment.
I did see one hand up earlier.
No, nobody's got any hands up. Perhaps nobody wants to speak.
Here we go.
Jason Johnson had his hand up first, followed by Stewart Reddaway.
So Jason, you've got two minutes you will get cut off by Karen if you're longer than two minutes.
Jason go ahead.
Jason Johnson: OK, so for me my first point is reduce, reuse recycle.
What, what can we do in terms of in terms of using, that using our bins that the council provide, because I've noticed that where I live, because I live in a situation where people aren't recycling and they're just throwing all the rubbish into the bin, into the black bin and it's not good, you know and we should be using blue, brown and green.
I don't know what sort of areas, what sort of air, what sort of colours they are in your area? Perhaps it'd be good to know, but for me reduce reuse recycle.
Recycling is my pet hate, but my pet thing that I want to get across.
I want to be able to see at least one person in my household be persuaded to use.
That they've been using the bins that are designated for cardboard, plastic, general house and bottles, you know and stuff like that.
My second point is electric cars.
How can they be, how can we use, how can we use electric cars? Electric cars can be used in a way that that is driverless and that's all I'm going to say because I don't want to get
cut off.
Keith: That's excellent well done Jason.
Stewart, anybody who's got any comments can they comment on what I've just said? OK feel free to comment in the comment box.
Thanks Jason.
Stewart Reddaway next. Your two minutes.
Stewart Reddaway: I came across doughnut Economics and it was announced that Amsterdam had adopted it, but when I looked into it, with respect to climate change, It's ignored transport outside the city.
Long distance travel is a big source of greenhouse gas emissions and Amsterdam, in particular, is right next to a very big airport, so that gave me some doubts I don't know if anyone can square that circle? or whether doughnut Economics can reasonably be applied to
cities? Thanks.
Keith: OK Stewart, thank you very much
that was less than two minutes so we might get six people in or seven people in
Tom Harney next
Tom Harney: Thank you.
I'm sorry I'm struggling with my iPad, which I don't really understand, but pretend to do all the time.
I did watch the film early on and the only comment, at the moment I'd like
to make, is that I felt that, right at the end, was what was to me the key issue, which wasn't dealt with and that is how we have a political system that actually delivers what people want, in the sense that, from my point of view, having been, I'm not now, but I was a Councillor in this area, Wirral, for 20 years and people had very definite ideas about recycling, about sustainability and so on, but they felt as I feel now, that I'm not a Councillor, probably, where it was, that in fact, the ability to influence what's going on, was very, very limited and I think that, in fact, the reality is that ourselves and the United States, have been looked At, looked up to, by all sorts of people around the world, as illustrated at Tiananmen Square for example where People, we having illustrations, and also Statue of Liberty and also in Vietnam, in the early days, where they hoped that the Americans would help them to be free, because that's what they stood for.
We've influenced the rest of the world, and yet I feel that we're not actually democratic ourselves and it is time that we began to put a lot of effort into that, because I feel glum about what's going to happen otherwise and we will continue to support strange wars and the crisis that's to come, which definitely it is, according to the Sunday papers I've been reading,
won't, in fact, be dealt with by any other means and in the end austerity, for the worst off.
Thank you
Keith: OK Tom. Thank you very much indeed.
Good to see you in.
Fran Oborski: finally managed to get in.
One of the things that really worries me, is everybody going on about electric vehicles, which are absolutely not the answer, because rechargeable electric vehicles
demand the use of lithium and other rare metals in their batteries and those rare metals, come from third world countries, where there's a lot of exploitation and the real future for transport is hydrogen power, here in Worcestershire.
We've got Worcester Bosch working on it and we've also got a company that is German owned, but also in Redditch and in Germany they are trialling hydrogen-powered refuse trucks now, but I think we've got to wait, got to get away from the idea that electrical vehicles are the answer, because of their reliance on stuff like lithium and the problems that causes in the third world countries, where it's mined and get over to hydrogen power Technology, which is, actually, clean technology, which you honestly cannot claim that electric vehicles are.
Keith: Thank you, Fran.
That's very kind and I'll come to Helen next.
Helen: Hi everyone.
Just a couple of points on the economic side of things.
A long, long, time ago, I studied economics at university
A nice point people could mention with GDP. it was already picked up in the film that somehow this wealth seems to be going to only one percent of the world population.
So, therefore, saying that the current economic system isn't working very well should convince 99% of us on the question of GDP being a very poor way of calculating things and thinking, well, growth means we must be getting better off: it's not a well-known factor that crime is incorporated in GDP, so for instance during the lockdown, if everything was stable but we had a crime spree amongst the drugs community, our GDP would have gone up and I don't think a lot of people know that it's all kinds of activity, including criminal activity, that gets taken into a GDP, so that's not a good indicator either.
Keith: Thank you very much. That's an interesting point to GDP not being very good.
We've got time for one more two minute contribution, before we go back to the panel.
Ryan Matthew next
Ryan Mathew: Keith.
Well, if we want to live in the safe part of the doughnut, we need a taxation system that works for That - and the best one that I've seen, is what is being pushed by the Citizens Climate Lobby.
I did raise this at the last LibDem Conference in the autumn and the simple idea is that you have a dividend, a carbon dividend, which everybody gets and you have a carbon tax and that helps the people, if you like, at the bottom, because they have an added, almost like a citizen's income, which allows them to to pay for the essentials and everyone else, well, including including them everyone that's using Carbon, then has to pay the carbon tax.
That's the way to change behaviour as Bill Clinton said, "It's the economy Stupid." We've got to be serious and I think this would be a really good policy for us to adopt, going forward.
Thank you
Keith: OK Thank you.We will come back to democratic sets of discussions, but I do just want to come back to the panel, Specifically, on some of the points that have been raised.
What I'd like to pick up on first, is this issue of inter-generational and intra-generational transition and fairness and equity and the fact that one percent of the population, seems to own most of the rest, most of the rest of the finances.
I would like also to talk about Universal Basic Income.
I don't know whether, Simon, you're ready just to plunge in on your Universal Basic Income to start us off on this round of talks from the panel.
Simon: Happy To.
I don't know whether I'll get interrupted again, but we'll give it a go.
I'm just looking at the discussions around land value tax and resource sharing and carbon taxes and saying, what we need is the not just a carbon dividend, but a resource dividend, so all the resources that get used need to be taxed at the point of use; that's the initial point of use and that, fed into a Universal Basic Income, so that there is that the social foundation ring of the donor is put into place, because the UBI (Universal Basic Income), would eliminate a lot of those shortfalls in the social foundation.
It would provide people with the means to acquire all the things that they need and if you give people a political voice, they can fight for the other things they need such as peace and justice and gender equality and social equality.
Giving people the freedom to spend on those causes, rather than struggling to find water, food and energy and housing; is the way to get the other causes up front and centre and solved at the moment.
If you're struggling to put food on the table, you don't give a damn about climate change.
Absolutely not! You just cannot find the time to care and we need to see Universal Basic Income as a means to an End, in providing that bottom level of the doughnut and allowing us to focus on the ecological ceiling and resolving that.
Keith: Yeah.
Thank you very much indeed.
One of the the things that I think we do Need, just to think about - I don't know whether we can think about it today and discuss it in depth today, but Universal Basic Income ought to be thought of in terms of Universal population, so it's an international, it's a multinational thing.
Yes, we can introduce it in in Hull, or Sheffield and see whether it works or not, or we can introduce it in Norway and see if it works or not, but really, if you look at the doughnut kind of presentation, the people who are in the middle of the Doughnut, who are not being provided with their basic income and their basic needs, are generally not in this country.
Of course there are some whose basic needs are not being met.
The scale of the problem is multinational and the government's recent decision to move DFID (Department for International Development) from being a separate entity and putting it into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office so that Boris can have his airplane painted and somebody can build a new royal yacht, is just beyond my comprehension! I have to say, if I can just go back to Jane and then Mary for their thoughts on intra- and inter- generational equity Mary Yes. Jane, I said first,
Jane: I've been fascinated by hearing some of the comments from the audience and one of the themes that many of you mentioned, was the fact about how local government works and I think that's really critical in terms of this doughnut.
What's interesting and in terms of the film we've just watched, Is, it relies on people working much more locally.
There was one point raised about international travel by Stewart Reddaway.
It's almost like, if we have that working properly, that we have these local communities and we have local sustainability.
It's almost like, maybe you don't need that international travel quite as much and, one of the things that is really connecting for me in this discussion, is just how all the policies we've campaigned for as Liberal Democrats, all of us that go back, sort of 20, 30 years as Green Liberal Democrats, they all come together into one model, so you haven't just got climate change in there,
you haven't just got social justice, you haven't just got basic income,
you've got everything there in one model .
You've got food, you've got biodiversity you've got oceans, you've got pollution, you've got equity, in terms of gender equity, wealth equity, health; really important: income and work, housing and networks, people's political voices.
All of those things come together in one Model.
I think this is the key thing for this discussion; is how we get everybody thinking; on this same page; and it's almost like we just need to start and get on with this in our own local communities and
motivate others to do the same and do likewise and it's kind of like looking at Again, like I said in the introduction, how we move from where we are now, like the "A" and how we move to "B", where we need to be in 2040.
Keith: Thank you and Mary was next and making comment Please,
Mary: I couldn't agree more With everything that you, Simon and Jane have just rounded up really excellent Mary from Simon, the sort of, you know and I'd like to, sort of start, by expanding on that point he, sort of, talks about and I can see Jock's comments in the chat, which is really Illuminating.
So, resources taxed at the point of use and funded into UBI but, and it is more than that, it is tax on the damage depletion and destruction of those shared resources, so the polluter pays model which again is something that we've always talked about.
Because if you are taking something that is a shared resource, because essentially none of us own the planet.
None of us own the planet.
Where it's the stewardship Principle.
So and yet we have allowed a structure and a system, a capitalist sort of economic system, that has said it is OK for other people or other individuals to own the very things that we depend on to stay alive - and I think that, you know, that is at the heart of it and it comes back to my point about who is responsible and you know it's harsh, but it's saying: "I'm sorry".
Anyone who believes in that free market principle what you are believing in is a systemic, Institutionalised, Racist, sexist, disablist, disabling, classist structure, because of all the embedded inequalities and, therefore, that is anti-Liberal Democrat, because we believe in being fair and there is no place for that in my politics - and this -I realise, is quite, it's quite radical.
I'm pushing it and this is the first time I've tried it.
So, you know, I think we all have to take Responsibility; that we are not just busy on the journey to somewhere else, because the comment I've seen in the chat before, earlier, was that it was about roots and shoots.
If you are invested in your surroundings; if you have set down your roots; then you can begin those new shoots of new growth and new thinking.
Keith: OK thank you very much indeed.
So, sticking With the panel. Jed next if I may? If you want to come back on what was being said in the general discussion there…
Jed: I think, where we are, is that people want to feel useful, so as a party, starting from a perspective of Wellbeing - giving people money to do nothing at one end of the spectrum is simply going to entrench the sort of thing that we see, where 25 of children leave school without proper literacy in the UK.
I'm wading into something called total rethink by David McCourt, who's a guy who's gone around the world trying to make change and he said the average American child reads for about 10,000 minutes a year and the average child in the middle East and Africa doesn't.
So we have, at the bottom end, got to make sure that what we're doing is giving people hope and aspiration, but you know what we're doing at the top end to make that happen Is, how we do it! Mary's approach I think is, and her anger, and her annoyance at the patriarchy and the point one percent ability to be able to control the media and control what's going on.
I think is already beginning to be dissolved and I think the Katie's (Katie Critchlow) the person who's done it with divestment.
I was really pleased to see 24 percent of Barclays Shareholders voting to divest Barclays loans and investment away from carbon-based investments and the immediate aftermath of that must have been something in the Boardroom, because the first thing that's happened
has been BP has decided that to get rid of all of their new major research drilling projects.
So I think what we've got is a situation where they're quite powerful voices in the boardrooms and we've got to encourage them.
If we look at Paul Polman, for example Unilever.
He set up RE100, the renewable Approach for major corporates - and given major corporates control, you know, there may be 20 of the companies in total, but they're 80 percent of the things that happen around the world and when we see individuals
working with our mindset in those Companies, working in human resources, training people to think like us
and we promote things like the Kate Rayworth doughnut Economics approach, what we can do Is, we can change things.
So, for example Fran Oborski on the lorry???? side, perhaps you're not aware, but not a million miles from us is RV simple.
RV simple should by now have this hydrogen cars.
They should by now have the same money that Elon Musk has invested in the Tesla and they should be out on the road and yet he's glory.
He was on on LinkedIn last week gloating that he's just got another half million pounds.
He needs five billion! So that's Where we need to put our efforts We need to put our efforts into the positive Side, because we want power and we won't get power unless we get 80 percent of the votes and we need to have the sort of thing that says: "Why are we expanding airports? Why do we not stop expanding airports and make fast railways, connected to the remaining airports, so that people can travel long distances by rail, instead of by air and that's how you get people Included.
That's how everybody joins in.
Keith: I've muted myself, I do beg your pardon.
Thank you Jed.
Jason, you're next in line to make your comments please.
Jason Billin.
Hey have we got you muted? Right.
Jason: I'd like to come back to what Tom Harney said about the ability to Influence.
Say I'm now sufficiently old to call myself middle class middle-aged,
despite what my brain says first thing in the morning - and to me it's about critical mass, where I first started giving a damn about the environment in my early twenties.
Everyone was called hippie or fringe or an Eco Warrior, as if it was a derogatory.
Where I first went vegetarian in my twenties I was called the complete… you know, sort of sandal-wearing lunatic
in the family.
All of those ideas since then have become mainstream.
We're not pushing the closed door anymore.
We're kind of pushing a bit of an open door - and to me it comes down to, sort of, people power - the whole thing about Greta Thunberg.
The reason why she cut through where we haven't, is she was from exactly the right Demographic.
She was one of that group of people that needed to hear something they wanted to hear.
Something they've grown up as our children if we give a damn - we've been telling our children and I think we can rest assured there are a lot more people out there who also care about this, but they're just not very vocal, and all of their children, all of our Children, have been brought up in a different world, to where were.
And I think the time is actually right. Which is why I said that the film we just watched was a beacon of hope, because it said what can be - and I say it comes down to critical mass, and the really, really, good thing, is you what Jed and others just said, now, about boards voting against Carbon.
OK - and I think one of the ways we can actually achieve what we want, is we use the capitalist system to our ends we subvert it from within.
I've got a graphic on screen.
It's one I've had on
the back of my screen for a long Time.
It's about who owns which major brands.
There are only 10 companies that own pretty much every brand that you and I buy.
10.
So, if we get everybody we know, everybody we know that invests in shares, to move to brands that are more eco-friendly they will, they will take notice.
You know.
Hit them in the wallet.
Hit them in the boardroom.
The only way to actually get the money, the one percent to sit up and notice, is to hit them where i hurts.
We can shout on the street.
We can go and protest outside their offices as much as we like and they will just shut the windows and ignore us.
If we get into the boardroom.
If we get into the shareholders' meetings and if we start to influence people to divest off from them, they'll text, they'll sit up and notice.
Keith: OK.Thank you very much indeed.
I'd like to come back to our audience now for some further Input.
I have seen some hands up and some of them are people who have spoken already, so forgive me for skipping over you just Initially, so more hands going up.
Please.
The first person I can see who hasn't
yet spoken - Dennis Monasty
Dennis: Thanks very much Keith.
I'm a Vice Convener of Scottish Green Liberal Democrats and Chair of Liberal Democrats elect for Reformer.
We've got a session tomorrow evening in the conference.
My mental summary of it is that there really is an opportunity.
This This pandemic crisis has given an opportunity now.
We've got a Conservative government which has pretty almost introduced Universal Basic Income for, you know, admittedly temporarily, but and has forgotten about the Alleged, you know, the claim that we have to keep the national debt down, so on.
They've realised there are more important things so the possibilities of change in the air, the cost of sorting climate change is actually about the same as the cost hit we're going to take from the Pandemic, you know.
Why do we act on the one and not on the other? It's Obvious, because one sort of drops itself on our doorstep immediately, one's long term and I do think this doughnut Economics Approach, which is essentially saying that what we should concentrate on is sustainable well-being - well-being means concentrating not on GDP, but food, housing, work, health, education and
social justice, those kind of things.
Sustainable means we can't do that and exceed what the planet can provide and, Particularly, we've got to deal with climate change and the terrible death of biodiversity we're seeing.
As to the how: I think we need to, we need a double act.
We need to be inclusive.
We need to be cross-party.
There's a real lesson to be learned from the United States in the 1980s.
Nixon very nearly started taking effective action on climate change, but somehow the oil companies persuaded people that it was a cross - it was a - it was a an antagonistic party thing - and it got locked down, as the Republicans didn't want it and the Democrats did
and in the same kind of way, if we're not careful dealing with climate change going to a better way of doing things, we could end up like the Brexit argument.
We mustn't do that.
We must try and get all sides of society on board, but, because at the same time we need to persuade people that as Liberal Democrats we have a lot of the the right values and answers; the community-based and not being dogmatic about public and private sectors; using the best of each one, where it's appropriate
and to finish with a suggestion which is looking at what the Policy Committee is suggesting for motions for Autumn Conference - I was really depressed because they think that the two big issues are things which by September will be looking backwards.
If we haven't already got a policy on dealing with the current pandemic and dealing with Brexit, where have we been for the last whatever? You know we don't need new policy on That! Sure we need our leaders to be active on those two issues, but we don't need new policy.
What we need new policy on is looking forward and I would like to suggest that the Green Liberal Democrats could take a lead in presenting a sort of framework, a big a big scale "Looking Forward Framework Motion", essentially suggesting doughnut Economics and yeah, looking, looking and then, looking at the implications on the the big and the big headings, like food and housing and work and so on and the deadline for motion Conference is the first of July.
It's not very far away I was very conscious of that when you were speaking that we have got to get our ducks in a row, our house in all our words onto paper.
Are you willing to help if anyone's Interested? OK.
Keith: Thanks, thanks Dennis I will keep you to that.
The next name that I can see who hasn't spoken so far is John.
John Medway.
If we can go to John next? You may be muted John.
John Medway can you unmute yourself.
That's it.
John Medway: I'm unmuted now.
Can you hear me now? Yes we can.
Oh, good yeah, Yeah it seems to me that in some ways a lot of the things that Kate Raworth says in doughnut Economics, go a little bit against, should we say, traditional
Liberal philosophy - are in the pre-ramble to our constitution, that talks about free markets, where possible state intervention, where Necessary.
Now I don't think that is really consistent with doughnut Economics.
I think the relationship between markets and I mean the rest of Society, is much more complex than that.
We can't be saying that, you know, the NHS has to be privatised because it's possible to privatise it, free markets where possible ???
So I think we may find going into the broader party and we find some pushback from that faction, who talk about four-cornered Liberalism, Economic Liberalism, on top of social and forms of other Liberalism.
Now, just one observation.
We've got a little bit bogged down at times today, with different Technologies.
Hydrogen things like that I think we have an important role, within the party, to perhaps reorientate us towards a sustainable view of economics.
That's it.
Keith: OK, thank you very much John.
Matthew Hulbert is the next name that I can see, who hasn't yet spoken.
Matthew: HI, thank you first of all.
I really enjoyed the film earlier today.
I thought it was really inspiring, I mean, I guess my overall impression would be - and I think I put this in the Chat, was that, that was kind of portraying a potentially perfect world in 2040 and I
just wonder how practical and pragmatic some of those potential solutions are and I think, you know, we all have our ideal view of of a green planet, that we'd like to see, but unless you can take the people with you, you might as well be talking to ourselves, as we in fact are this afternoon and my view is, what works is what works - and that actually in politics - you have to take people with you to
achieve things and I was in the greens briefly, that's the actual the green party, and the reason that I left was because, yep lovely people, very idealistic, but they just wouldn't accept when you said to them "Yeah, but people may not want to live a hair shirt life. People actually quite like the modern world. People are quite happy with their things."
Not everyone of course and that's why we need to make the world fair and green and that's why I'm a Liberal Democrat, but I just hope that we can be the pragmatic greens and I think talk of you know, ending free markets et cetera I'm not sure about that.
Keith: OK Stewart Reddaway is the next hand that I can see.
Stewart has spoken, so briefly Stewart if you would.
Stewart: Yeah that was brief last time but I'll be Brief.
I was delighted to see that Brian Matthew was supporting a carbon tax and dividend.
I'd just like to say that there is a session on this on the 30th of June in this conference and that a policy motion will be discussed there, which will be submitted the next day.
So, you've got a chance to sign up for that as a LibDem Policy and we can discuss it on Tuesday week.
Incidentally, the dividend can be viewed as a UBI, which other people have been talking about, but the main thing is Tuesday evening discussion on carbon tax, including the policy motion, which I hope a lot of people will sign up to.
Thank you.
Keith: OK Eloquently brief again.
Good, good for you, Stewart. Stephen Hesketh.
I haven't heard from before, so I'm going to go to Stephen and then I will take a couple of brief additions from Brian and Jason and then move back to the panel.
Stephen Hesketh: I think there is an interesting conversation that is partly related to those identity wars, the, sorry I forgot the word, the, what's it between the left and the right what's the word I'm looking for.
Centre Sorry Centre, no, yeah Anyway, the the trunks versus the rest of us - the oh Anyway - Liberal versus Authoritarian spectrum.
But anyway, I'll get to my main point.
I think there is an interesting question between the economic Liberals and the social Liberals, because I think that, so that the Economic Liberals do have a view of the way I understand it,
that they own the rights to things.
So that once you've earned those things, that they are yours and your family's forever and I think a Social Liberal would take a different view.
But I don't think it's necessarily as Matthew fears.
It's free markets against the state, as a Liberal, I actually see this other way, that we're going to empower communities and individuals and so we're actually, you know, it was going to be workers controlling these things, rather than the state and rather than big corporate multinationals and if we've got SMEs empowered and ordinary people, it's a win-win for the huge majority of the population, so that's mine.
Keith: Thank you very much Stephen appreciate that .
and then briefly Jason Johnson and then Brian Matthew and then we'll come back to the panel.Jason if you would be fairly brief please,
Jason: Two questions, I'd like to put to the panel if I can Keith...
How can we make the doughnut access understand easily, understanding for people with disabilities? And also Universal Basic Income - it needs to be available to everybody.
How would the panel make this make this so if they can?
Keith: OK thank you questions there.
I think we will try and answer those for you.
Brian Matthew finally and then we'll come back to the panel.
Brian Matthew: Well just briefly to say, wonderful news from Stewart that there is going to be a debate on the 30th
on the whole idea of the carbon tax and dividend
And, yes the simplicity of the carbon dividend is that everybody gets it.
We've just been living through the most incredible time really,
despite the horrors of the Pandemic, but the fact that so many people are using their bikes at the moment and I think so many people want us to see us come out of this in a better way, especially with the environment coming forward, so this really is a great chance for us to capture the popular imagination and that means a cross-party approach.
Really this is something that we can drive, but it needs to be cross-party in terms of its implementation.
Thank you.
Keith: OK Brian thank you.
Right we've had a really wide-ranging discussion
We're in the last, well I was going to take quarter of an hour.
In the last 12 minutes of the session, doesn't time fly when you're having fun! What I'd like to do is to go back to the panel and in in reverse order from the starting order so that's going to be Jed, Jason, Mary, Simon, and Jane in that order.
So, coming to Jed first. Your Comments.
One of the things I'd like to do perhaps in this last 10 or 12 minutes is for us to consider how we as the Green Liberal Democrats, first, can influence the party, to be better educated about economics and doughnut Economics. And secondly how we should intact with the wider World? Should we only interact with the wider world through the party, or is there a case for us becoming revolutionaries and non-violent direct action? I'll put that, pose that question for us to think about.
So Jed
Jed: Let's start on the revolutionary bit and I think that we've seen from extinction rebellion that it's very, very possible to very, very peacefully get people to think in a slightly different way and the challenge they gave us was something impossible? 2025 idea 2025 is impossible because in and amongst the 24 hours of talks at last year's Green LibDem Fringe events at the conference, the people responsible for trees said we couldn't actually plant enough native species in the United Kingdom by 2025, in order to be able to create the canopy, that would absorb carbon enough, so what we have to do, I Think, as an organisation, is to carry on doing what we're doing - listening very carefully to the science and translating it into policies that our MPs understand so that they don't go off on tangents by Themselves, before our conference and when things are announced that are major and ecological, they're actually announced on the floor and the platform of the Green LibDem Conference.
The way to do that Is, I think, is to carry on as we're doing: leading by example; many of us who are Green LibDems are also Councillors and I think that by working in councils, towards ensuring that every single council has as a working policy, besides health and safety, besides personal safety, first a climate - climate positive.
I think we've got to find a way of making it Positive; some positive outcomes, the usual Treasury outcomes £8 for every £1 we invest as a council, coming back into our local economy, so if that's that fantastic Indian experience of locally generating and using energy and besides the economic argument the social argument as well, that says we are going to do something positive and leading by example.
Then goes into the schools and teaching I think we're in a very good position as a party to move this into the Education.
with or without this useless government.
Keith: OK.Thank you very much.
Jason next we've got nine minutes left, so two minutes.
No we haven't got eight minutes left so you've got time.
Jason: I'll be very brief.
I think you're Right.
It's about - are we in a bunker or are we talking with the outside world?
I would like us to use every thread and sphere of influence we can possibly have.
If we know councillors talk to them.
Whether on our party or other parties on council there will be a lot of like-minded, on environmental and ecological issues, Conservative, Labour and other party councillors and non-party councillors, every MP we know, every ex MEP we know.
Talk to them.
Just have a conversation about why we are doing what we're doing, because I think it goes back to the vision thing.
They've got to understand why we're doing this, because we have a vision and if they can share our vision I think we will start to influence from the court.
Keith: Smashing, thank you very much Indeed.
Mary next.
Mary: I think it's been a thoroughly Interesting, engaging and fantastic discussion.
Thanks for all the speakers who've sort of made comments and the chat has been very illuminating.
You know, I found myself very much in agreement with Jock and Stephen and Matthew even and it's just that little sort of nuance of perspective, always that
is disagreement, but in my campaign in Bristol, I work on the one percent theory not the one percent richest, but I work on the one percent of agreement Theory.
If I can find one percent of agreement with another human being, that means I can start a conversation and what we are developing now is a way to have very difficult conversations
about the inherent inequalities that are embedded within the structures in our society and within other cultures and others, other societies, because it's on all the edges of that Intersectionality.
Where we find that one person's sort of, you know, ownership of resources can really, really impact and disempower somebody else.
So, to look at Jason's question about how do we enable people with Disabilities, in particular, to understand some of these issues and concepts, we have to divide devise and design all of our systems, our living systems, everything, to enable the most disempowered and the most disadvantaged and if we do that, we then achieve equality and parity and equity for everybody else and finally, that that point might as my start point was.
I come from a branding background, so branding is important and if we are in the bunker or whether we're talking to ourselves,
we have to find a way to cut across the public inertia that actually, even myself Included, on Sundays would rather be watching TicToc videos of the nurses doing the dancing, or cats do the funniest things.
We have to find a way to get new messages across to different audiences and speak to them, in their language and that is the points that we talked about wit Greta.
Talking to a young generation and this film itself, will cut across and talk to so many different people in different ways.
But this isn't the end.
It's only the Beginning, because there will be the next translation needed, because change, ultimately, without revolution, will have to be evolution and therefore that is a slow process of change.
Keith: Thank you very much. That sounds like an encouraging suggestion that we should show the film during the Autumn conference or before the Autumn conference Preferably, so that people get an idea of what we are about.
Who's next? Simon's next and in case you didn't see the comment that he made in the chat room recently talking about bunkers Jason, Simon was suggesting that we get a job building the bunkers.
Defend that if you can Simon?
Simon: Well apart from everything else, if we're the ones building the bunkers, we can build tunnels between them and communication between them.
I'll give you that one.
What I wanted to talk about was the democratic aspect .
One of the things that the LibDems are known for is going on about PR (Proportional Representation) about people's voices and people who are
unheard and a key element, I think, of this doughnut Economics model, is the voice, because in order to be a functioning member of society, you have to have access to a voice and I think that's what we can offer People.
We can go to the people who currently have very little voice and off them a voice
and I think if we focus on that, then we'll grow a movement.
Keith: That sounds a good idea, growing a movement. Jane, you want to grow a movement as well.
We've lost Jane.
Jane: I'm now unmuted.
Ah, so this session for me… I've really enjoyed the whole discussion.
I want to pick up on Keith's challenge about where we are - we're revolutionary or Evolutionary?
To me, I think the Green Liberal Democrats are the ultimate recyclers of policy, because a lot of this does go back 20, 30, Years, from where we began.
Keith: 40 years -
Jane: Yeah but actually it's got a new freshness to it with the doughnut Economics and the new voices.
Greta Thunberg, the young people who are now speaking out the Black Lives Matter and it reminds me a little of the dual approach to politics which some of you may have heard of before.
So the dual process approach is similar to the point Jason made, so it means you work within the system, within the political structures that we've got, the local government.
Be like national political systems.
Or, you work outside and that's more like the Black Lives Matter protests, the climate change protests, so you have to work with both.
I think what I like most about the model, is the fact that it's all-encompassing, so it brings in people with disability, it brings in gender balance, it brings in minorities, it brings in equity of wealth and equity of resources.
It brings all that in, into one overarching policy that's something new, as far as I can see, it's a holistic way.
I think politics has suffered by being very reductionist in the terms it separates out food and health policy from climate change and economic and carbon policy, actually, public health dimension, and our health and well-being is very much driven by the same forces as climate change, and the fact that we have lack of biodiversity and we're under the weight of Covid, all these things linked together.
So for me, part of this going from A to B that we've talked about, where 2020 being A, we're going towards 2040.
It's about moving to be part of the solution and not part of the problem and I think that goes back to the point about how we all change and how we look to ourselves and how we each influence, within our sphere of influence and I think sometimes, as Green Liberal Democrats we can kind of feel like we're, we're empowered at this, but actually, the's so much more. and I think we all have to go out the into our communities as local councillors, and we need to be part of the solution and no longer be part of the problem.
Keith: Thank you very much indeed.
My clock on my computer is showing 1559 so by the time I finish speaking it will have ticked over to the end of the… it's just got 1600.
We've got to the end of the meeting.
I think that was a fabulous session and I don't think we missed anybody who wanted to speak.
I don't think we avoided people speaking who, people not speaking, who wanted to say something.
The frustrating thing of course is that this is only a discussion between 50 people and we really need to be speaking to 50 million people, if we're going to make our voice heard and make it effective and one of the problems I see, is that we've got a Conservative Government, who may well be… it depends on electoral Mathematics, but I suspect they may well be in power for the next four or five years and somebody made the comment yesterday that, if we have to waste the next four or five years before we actually come to some of the solutions, the solutions are going to be four years more difficult.
OK.
Before I formally close the meeting, I've got a couple of things to say.
One is that I meant to mention at the beginning of the meeting, about the photo competition.
Kevin Dawes said there's a new challenge.
So any people who are at all photographically minded, who want to air their cultural Capabilities, if they would like to go to the website and see what the competition is all About, you can submit
pictures during the course of this Week, that will be voted on, by, or judged by the..
uh by Kevin and Martin Horwood at the end of this week and so, do look that up, if you're interested in photography and the other thing of course, is to say that we've got a really, really, really really, really, really, really big session in a couple of hours time, with Jane Goodall.
Somebody made the comment, right at the Beginning, we were lucky to get Jane Goodall up.
I tell you it wasn't a matter of luck at all.
We had to try very hard and I'm I'm absolutely delighted she's coming.
So, if you don't know who Jane Goodall is, can you spend at least a few minutes in the next couple of hours looking on google and finding out how important she is! and I think that's the end of the meeting folks
George: and can people share the details of Jane Goodall so we sell some more tickets before then, get new members.
Keith: Very practical OK.
Thanks Karen and Alison for facilitating all of that.
Have a break.
I think we can probably sit in the room and have a chat if you like now and we can also go make a cup of tea if we don't want to sit and have a chat.
So I'm actually going to close my screen
Caron: and i'll turn my mic on.
Yes, I just want to remind people that this evening's session is going to be in the Conference Hall, not in the Meeting Hall, so make sure you look in your conference manuals to just get the right link, so that you're going to be in a session where you can all put questions in the Q&A feature which we've got there and so I very much look forward to seeing you turning up as little participant numbers in the Conference Hall, but until then until five o'clock, this space will be open for chats, Likewise the other breakout rooms are also working so You…
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