Green Words Workshop

1) ‘Sustainability’ > One-planet-living.

[The terms ‘sustainability’ is vague; ’One-planet living’ is not]

2) ‘Sustainable development’ > Limits to growth; steady-state / dynamic-equilibrium economy.

[’Sustainable development’ is basically a nice way of saying ‘economic growth’; and is unbelievably hubristic (are we really a model? Have we really developed?]

3) ‘The environment’ > Ecosystems, ecology; the Earth / our living planet (thoughNOT ecosystem-services).

[’The environment’ is not us. WE need to be a part of what we are saving.]

4) ‘Human being’ > Human animal / humanimal.

[We need to remind ourselves constantly that we are animals too. (How do you like my neologism, ‘humanimal’?)]

5) ‘Future generations’ > Future people.

[See my recent article in THINK for why…]

I just want to quickly draw people's attention to this excellent anti-rape campaign in California, entitled "My strength is not for hurting". To my mind it takes the key Authoritarian value of Strength and couples it with normally opposing Nurturing priorities. An excellent way, to my mind, to appeal to men's strength and egos whilst chanelling them into doing the right thing.

The campaign's use of the idea of Strength also enables them to maintain a theme that runs through their website, with pages entitled "Share your Strength" and "Resources of Strength" etc. The website is www.mystrength.org I've archived some more of their posters on flickr, here. Good, values-based framing, for a good cause. 

In his "radical rethink" of Britain's benefits system in "A William Beveridge for this century's welfare state",  the Labour Party's Liam Byrne has produced a spectacular and instructive example of the failing of contemporary politicians to understand how the human mind works, and consequently to understand how to do politics.

The lessons we can draw from it show how values, not policies or issues or attitudes, are the real framework behind how voters think, and the real key to understanding them, communicating with them and changing society for the better.

It also shows us how the Labour party is not only mimicking the Conservatives in a way that will only harm them and society, but how it is dangerously close to engaging in hate speech.

As part of Britain's contribution to the ongoing investigations around the speed-of-light controversy generated by the discovery of apparently faster-than-light neutrinos at the Cern/Gran Sasso super-collider laboratories, Prime Minister David Cameron today unveiled a new package of reforms aimed at helping light make its contribution to science and grow to meet the challenge of its newest competitor, the neutrino.

After news of our latest Green Words Workshop report on the New Zealand referendum made it to the South Pacific I've been asked by Kiwi campaigner Benjamin Knight to add some specific recommendations for ways in which the pro-MMP campaign could reframe their arguments to counter each of the six myths listed by the Campaign for MMP.

In the British referendum on the Alternative Vote, I ended up recommending five key pro-AV messages that should be gotten across by whatever wording:

 • AV is a British answer

• AV is simple

• AV is honest and allows you to vote with your heart

• AV lets you take your power back from the politicians

• AV keeps fascists out

 I don't know the New Zealand context as well for obvious reasons, but I would recommend, having seen some of the "Vote for Change" messages and the short-comings of the current "Campaign for MMP" messages, something like this:

New Zealand’s referendum on voting “reform” this month poses a major threat to anybody who cares about New Zealand’s democracy. Here at the Green Words Workshop we’re concerned that the progressive side is losing ground to a more emotionally and psychologically intelligent right wing. And we’ve seen this happen before. Like in Britain’s disastrously-run and heavily-defeated referendum in May , the question is essentially between a more democratic inclusive voting system (in this case “Mixed Member Proportional”) and the backward 19th century First Past the Post.  There are a number of extremely worrying signs - many of which we watched with horror in the UK referendum - that MMP’s historical lead in the polls could be reversed, with disastrous consequences that would include the decimation of the Green Party in New Zealand, the marginalisation of Maori voices, and a return to minority conservative rule.

Our newest, 30-page report, which you can download below, analyses the messages from both sides, and recommends how the progressive side must change tack - quickly - or be swept away by an expert conservative understanding of values and the human mind.  

One of the most controversial words in green & progressive politics is "growth". Conversely "growth" is totally uncontroversial in mainstream economics. The need for growth is probably the single foundational principle upon which the global economy is built. Nothing is more important. The US Federal Reserve's repeated attempts to "re-start" economic growth are at the centre of the narrative about the current economic "crisis". In fact the crisis itself can be centrally defined as a crisis of lack of growth.

My colleague here on the Green Words Workshop, Rupert Read, has lately blogged articulately over on Rupert's Read about Compass's latest initiative "Plan B", which advocates "green growth". Rupert sets out very clearly why green economic growth is an oxymoron and why any economic plan that is based on economic growth - as defined by the growth of Gross National Product - will be making our planetary problems worse not better.

My contribution is aimed at a different level: to examine the cognitive associations that we, other politicians and the public have with the word "growth". My concern is that simply saying "we can't have growth because economic growth is bad" will not work: it will not be an attractive message to the public and it will not do greens/progressives any favours. This is a difficult line to tread because rejection of the anti-growth position sounds like tacit acceptance of the pro-growth position. But below I explain why it is not, how we are currently falling into a trap of being too literal and too intellectual (traits which the public does not share) and how we can instead have our linguistic cake and eat it.

In his book Moral Politics, Berkeley cognitive linguist George Lakoff sets out the two opposing value systems that he believes are predominant in Western society: Strict Father and Nurturant Parent. As part of my mission to make Lakoff more accessible I have drafted an "easy language" version of what he calls the Moral Metaphors and the Categories of Moral Action. I am also substituting "Nurturing" for Nurturant Parent and "Authoritarian" for Strict Father, as we've been doing elsewhere on this blog. I believe the new versions below are powerful everyday expressions of the moralities the world lives by.

First, here are Lakoff's original "Moral Metaphors":

Strict Father Moral Metaphors
1.    Moral Strength
2.    Moral Order
3.    Moral Essence
4.    Moral Self-interest
5.    Moral Nurturance

Nurturant Parent Moral Metaphors
1.    Morality as Nurturance

This is a longer-than-usual guest post from Ruth Makoff, which concerns the framing of the question of the responsibility for preventing more dangerous anthropogenic climate change. 

It seems intuitive that those who are responsible, historically, for climate-dangerous emissions should pay for mitigation against dangerous climate change. This echoes the widely-accepted ‘Polluter Pays’ frame, a central and very-influential principle of green thinking for the past generation. But does this frame actually work, when applied to climate-dangerous emissions? Emissions many of which took place a long time ago; emissions, more crucially, which are not always correlated with ability to pay; and emissions which come from individuals and from the whole economy, rather than just from particular firms (as is the case in paradigmatic ‘Polluter Pays’ cases). Emissions, finally, which are due to the actions of firms, individuals, countries which have undergone huge amounts of change (including quite literally deaths and births) since they took place.

This thinkpiece makes the argument that, counter-intuitively perhaps, historical responsibility is not of primary significance, in assessing who should pay for mitigation of manmade climate change. The frame that should dominate in communications and in policy is, rather, capacity to pay.

It's time to drop talk of 'consumerism'... Check out my new piece on this:

http://www.betternation.org/2011/09/producerism/