26 Nov 2008
Ed Milliband Bigs Up Transition, But Growth Is Still King
Ed Milliband, the newly appointed Minister for Energy and Climate Change, gave a talk on Monday to the Environment Agency conference in London. As part of it, he said;
How do we build a popular movement on these issues? Movements come from individual experiences which raise consciousness of the issues and are translated into bigger demands. So local campaigns and action whether it’s the Transition Town movement or pioneering local authorities – are absolutely essential. Not just because they are important in themselves but because they can help create a movement for change.
We blushed, just as much as Sharon Astyk did recently, to be cited in such august company. Great to hear that the work of Transition groups up and down the country is on the radar. It doesn’t however mean that we can let his statement that “we need to show it’s possible to be for growth, for fairness and for tackling climate change” to go unchallenged. Our continued obsession with economic growth is potentially utterly ruinous, but I think that’s for another post on economic growth that I have gestating and should be with you soon….
Josef Davies-Coates
26 Nov 6:13pm
When writing that article you make like to refer to this:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3941
And this is really good too:
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=3050
Josef Davies-Coates
26 Nov 6:14pm
This is just a heads up that I’ve posted a comment with links that is in moderation. You can delete this one 🙂
Katy Duke
27 Nov 10:12am
Ed said;
” Let me end therefore by saying something unusual for a politician: part of my job is to be criticised for not doing enough.
…
Let’s all of us make sure that when we look back, in decades to come, we can say:
We saw the threat.
We responded to the challenge.
We did our bit.”
So if we think that so far it’s too little too late we must let him know! – his email is milibande@parliament.uk
pete rout
27 Nov 11:00am
does he ever see any of his emails or are they filtered by a secretary. The minute they agree that economic growth has not to be the driving force they then would lose their power over us. that beside greed is the reason they won’t accept a no growth economy.
Pete
Robert
27 Nov 3:55pm
Too right Pete. To be honest, the way politicians are so happy to praise the Transition movement is a pretty good sign that it’s not realy challenging the status quo.
When Mr Milliband says “How do ‘we’ build a popular movement on these issues?”
I think the answer should be “You don’t. We do.”
Stephen Watson
29 Nov 6:23pm
Spot on Robert 🙂