Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Reith Lectures 2007

Keith Parkins | 12.04.2007 13:20 | Climate Chaos | Globalisation | Social Struggles | World

This year's Reith Lectures are being given by the leading economist Jeffrey Sachs.

In his first lecture at the Royal Society before an invited audience of the great and the good Jeffrey Sachs gave a very dark and sombre analysis of the world we face today, with a little ray of hope at the end. [Broadcast on BBC Radio 4 0900 Wednesday 11 April 2007, repeated 2215 Saturday14 April 2007]

If the crisis we face today is man made, then it is not beyond the wit of man to solve it.

Jeffrey Sachs got a very negative reaction from his audience. First of the block with a very pompous attack was Christopher Meyer, former British Ambassador to Washington.

The only positive contribution came from a former Spice Girl, now a roving ambassador for the UN.

What the negative reaction showed was that we cannot rely on the great and good to solve the world's problems, in part because they are not going to voluntarily give up their entrenched positions of power, if we want change, it has to come from the grass roots.

We can all do our bit. We can all save seeds, we can all cut our energy consumption.

I have in my garden many types of beans and peas growing, soon they will be joined by courgettes and pumpkins and tomatoes. Small scale, but what I do not eat, I will save the seeds, helping to preserve genetic diversity, any surplus will be distributed at Seedy Sunday next year.

Chew Magna and Ashton Hayes, are small communities in the UK that intend to go Carbon Neutral. Chew Magna is also intending to go Zero Waste. They are not waiting for leadership, the communities are doing this themselves. They are spreading the word far beyond their small communities. Chew Magna now has links with poor communities in Tamil Nadu in India under an initiative called Social Change and Development (SCAD), they have also established an initiative called The Converging World.

We cannot wait for leadership from the great and good as it will never come, we have to take action ourselves.

We have the local elections in May. We need to see community activists elected to local councils. Who will ensure greater public participation, ensure council resources used to the benefit of local people.

Representative democracy has failed, it may have suited the 19th century, barely the 20th, it is not fit for the 21st, we have to move forward to participatory democracy. Follow the example of the Internet and Open Source Publishing, Open Source and Free Software, where all can participate for the benefit of all.

It is no coincidence, that in Brazil, where Open Source and Free Software is heavily promoted, that we also have some of the best examples of participatory democracy, in cities such as Porto Alegre and Curitiba. In the Favelas of San Paulo, AfroReggae are empowering the slum dwellers through music.

Participatory democracy empowers people, representative democracy dis-empowers, reduces the electorate to ballot fodder, whose only use is to cast a vote for one corrupt elite or another, to remain silent in between times.

The Reith Lectures are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesdays at 8pm, repeated on the following Saturday at 10-15pm. They will also be available as mp3 downloads for one week following date of broadcast.

Websites

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/
 http://www.gozero.org.uk/
 http://www.goingcarbonneutral.co.uk/
 http://www.communitywindpower.co.uk/
 http://www.localworks.org/
 http://www.neweconomics.org/

References and further reading

Lester R Brown, Plan B 2.0, Norton, 2006
 http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm

Kate Evans, Funny Weather, Myriad Editions, 2006
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/books/funny-weather.htm

Paul Kingsnorth, The world's 'coolest' towns?, The Ecologist, April 2007

Open Source, BBC Radio 4, 11 April 2007
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4

Keith Parkins, A sense of the masses - a manifesto for the new revolution, www.heureka.clara.net, October 2003
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/democracy.htm

Keith Parkins, Curitiba – Designing a sustainable city, www.heureka.clara.net, April 2006
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/curitiba.htm

Keith Parkins, Seedy Sunday Brighton 2007, Indymedia UK, 6 February 2007
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/361644.html?c=on

Keith Parkins, Seed saving, Indymedia UK, 26 March 2007
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/366222.html

Keith Parkins, AfroReggae, www.heureka.clara.net, March 2007
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/music/afroreggae.htm

Keith Parkins, Fortnightly refuse collection, Indymedia UK, 10 April 2007
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/367639.html

Hilary Wainwright, Reclaim the State: Experiments in Popular Democracy, Verso, 2003

Keith Parkins
- Homepage: http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. MP3 Link — surfing bird
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech