Rio+20, Getting the future we want
We are not mere supplicants to the politicians and bureaucrats at Rio. We are also potential co-designers and co-producers of solutions.
At the Earth Summit in Rio, June 20 -22, some 70,000 : "The burning question for #rioplus20: "what are we going to agree that we want to do together!?"
Instead of seeing ourselves as victims of a perhaps imperfect outcome to Rio+20 we can see ourselves more as participants. More and more as co-designers and co-producers of our own futures. Together we can. Believe it! Then and only then do we have a chance of getting the future we want.
Phil Green, founder Sustainable Community Action
This article was first published on GreenMagz, June 2012
Links and references
Rio 2012 group on Wiser
Rio+20, Act local and include us all
For me, one of the primary tests of Rio+20 is whether it, or what follows, will enable all of us, active citizens and community groups to genuinely influence the futures of our own local communities.
In the UK after the first Rio conference some 90+% of communities generated a Local Agenda 21, only for the government to then hand over the process to the burueaucrats who, with a few honorable exceptions, effectively killed it off as an opportunity for participation by active citizens and community groups.
In all the discussions about Rio+20 so far I've seen very little mention of the local aspect. The local is where it becomes real for people. And to put it frankly you (government, whether national or local) haven't a hope of achieving either…
Options for Our sustainable society
draft comment in response to "Are we any further forward?" on Our Society
Hi John, "Does any of this make sense?" quite a bit to me. "Do you want to be part of it?" So a sort of yes, but the platform has to be better than what's currently on offer (wordpress and groups - if my answer is yes, your options aren't seriously actionable to me). As you say "Don't wait for permission" have set up "Our sustainable society" on WiserEarth. 4 more reasons 1. If we're serious about this it has to be for the long term. Setting up stuff is pips, sustaining a network with enough momentum is the real challenge. 2. If anyone cared to, we could begin straightaway codesigning stuff to move forward (Eg as Transtion towns did in designing their network, and i…
Our sustainable society, a response to Big Society and Our Society
Julian Dobson has proposed the idea of Our Society ) the network realise its just one of many players in a diverse landscape, so it doesn't seek to dominate. But this doesn't preclude them designing increasingly sophisticated ways of connecting, aggregating and sharing content from the wider transition towns ecosystem... which can help with the "exposing and collaborative structures ... platforms and bridges and mosaics.... " that Tessy Britton refers to.
The implication of this for something like Our Society is that it could be fairly relaxed about being one player amongst many. So if for example I thought it useful to set up a "Our sustainable society" group on say WiserEarth, this is not something I should need anyone's permissison for. …
Communities and local government, comment on programme
draft of comment to CLG site posted to site at about 5pm BST, June 9. Philralph @sca21
My local council, Tonbridge and Malling, as far as I know, choose not to do anything via the Sustainable Communities Act, so unless there's something like Local Agenda 21, and it isn't just optional, it's difficult to see how anyone interested in the sustainability of their local community will actually get any genuine opportunity for involvement?
- Coalition programme for government includes:
- "We will implement the Sustainable Communities Act, so that citizens know how taxpayers’ money is spent in their area and have a greater say over how it is spent."