BARACK Obama was the keynote speaker for a conference I attended recently - Greenbuild 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia.
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It was refreshing to hear a world leader speak with intelligence, consideration and compassion and while he praised the 8000-plus attendees for doing positive work, he delivered a message familiar to many of us at Greening Bathurst: the green movement has at times appeared elitist, judgemental and out-of-touch.
The unfortunate consequence of this has been the disengagement of a broad section of society who actually have much in common with "green" ideals.
RECENT ECO NEWS COLUMNS:
I often say that rarely is punching someone in the face a good way to start a conversation. And yet this is what we do when we threaten people with the loss of things they hold dear or pull on the tired harp of guilt inducing self-righteousness.
The thing I like about Tesla's approach to transforming transportation was that, rather than telling people they should be driving electric cars, they just made one so sexy and high performing that people wanted to drive them.
In this sense, the argument for lower carbon transport is not framed by what is lost, but what is gained.
To many people, the "green" car future is just better - cleaner, cheaper, easier, better. To how many environmental issues could we apply this same approach?
In what ways can we imagine a better future, with more of the things that matter and less of things that don't?
Having said all this, I know that humans are sometimes stubborn and need big sticks as well as carrots (compulsory wearing of seatbelts is a good example).
So the answer is that we need both. As governments respond to exponential growth in the people's demands for better environmental protections and policies, we in the green movement would do well to demonstrate that sound environmental objectives lead to better economic, social and environmental outcomes.
The events we have run on regenerative agriculture are one example of how Greening Bathurst attempts to do just this.
