Comfort in my old age

 Two years ago this weekend I travelled to London with my wife and two children to take part in ‘The Wave‘, what was supposed to be a massive public demonstration ahead of the Copenhagen negotiations on climate change. I don’t enjoy being in large crowds, especially with small children to look after, but at that time we felt a responsibility to go and take part. Many people were arguing that Copenhagen represented a last opportunity to achieve a framework for meaningful and timely action to prevent the worst scenarios for global temperature increases. The Wave was supposed to send a clear message to our political leaders that there was a growing national movement eager for a meaningful political response to climate change.

The demonstration was, in reality, quite modest. About 50,000 people came to London, and there were smaller demonstrations in other cities. The talks at Copenhagen were viewed by many as a disappointment, essentially pushing back the process for securing binding agreements to reduce carbon emissions. This delaying tactic appears to characterise the current climate negotiations in Durban, while we also learn this week of an unprecedented increase in carbon emissions. Delay perhaps also describes what most of us are doing in response to this issue – getting on with life as usual, focusing on present concerns, and waiting for the effects of climate change to be really apparent before really doing anything. There are, of course, people working hard to promote Transition Towns, or joining the latest round of protests (Occupy), but for the majority, the present seems to have the strongest grip on our imaginations.

This is most evident in the current scramble to save the financial system and restore the world to a path of Growth, whatever the costs. It is also evident, somewhat paradoxically, in the industrial action over public sector pensions in the UK last week. While at first glance this looks like people worrying about the future (as people were two years ago during The Wave), the influence of the present is in fact quite clear. Present expectations of financial security, material comfort and retirement lifestyle – and the fear that these may not be met – play an important role in motivating people to take action.

Lest I sound too critical (or hypocritical), let me come clean: I took part in the industrial action last week too, partly out of solidarity and because there are issues of principle at stake in this dispute. But I did so with a feeling of ambivalence. I find it hard to think of the future in terms of an unbroken continuity from the present, a continuity implied in the demands of public sector workers and the unions. I don’t believe the means by which a comfortable pension might be achieved – continued economic growth, involving investment in industries that are often environmentally and ethically questionable – are either viable or simply desirable (thus I am also not sympathetic to the government’s line). Indeed, my strongest sense is that if we (and here I mean We) want to have future hopes of comfort and security, then the best thing we could do is begin constructing a different kind of economy and society, by addressing the systemic and cultural causes of ecological damage and climate change, and by addressing the causes of global inequality and instability. For otherwise, if the emerging evidence about various future trends (water and food security, peak resources, conflict, and other risks) is broadly reliable, the world in 2035 (the year I might retire, if I am lucky enough to reach retirement) will be far more unstable, dangerous, and insecure than it is now, whether or not we have money to retire on.

I imagine a good number of the 50,000 people who took part in The Wave were public sector workers – teachers, nurses, and the like. I imagine that many of these people also took part in industrial action last week. I wonder how many felt ambivalent or conflicted, as I did, about their participation. Did they feel or see any contradictions? Perhaps we can take these contradictions (and they are common enough) as a fruitful starting point for conversations about what we expect from the future, and about whether our expectations are realistic or indeed justifiable. They might enable us to explore the unavoidable tension between present demands and future priorities. But let us be clear – we urgently need this conversation because whatever we do, we are making futures for ourselves right now, and not necessarily ones we would choose if we thought enough about it.