This petition is about what you would like the approach to be to a post-covid recovery. Do you want the three legs of the sustainability stool to be given strong emphasis or is cash king? I would be very keen to see this petition debated in parliament because it would form a brilliant platform for the likes of Caroline Lucas to paint a picture of a fairer and more environmentally friendly approach.
To be fair, the response to this petition from the Treasury is a good response – but then I am somewhat accustomed to the intellectually vapid and evasive responses from DEFRA to such petitions. The Treasury has long been seen as the place where bright civil servants need to spend some time in their careers and it very much looks as though some bright folk have written the government response whereas DEFRA has too often been the last resting place for dull ministers and dull civil servants. I shudder to think how DEFRA would have responded to such a petition – probably with some words about how farming and shooting are very important and bring in the dosh?
This is a very thoughtful petition which engages with the big issue of all of our lives, of every human life – what sort of future do we want? What should be our values? How should we get to that future? Fot that reason, it would be great if it got to 100,000 signatures in the next two months and were debated in Westminster Hall. So, please have a look at it and see if you can support it please – click here.
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As you say Mark as very worthwhile and thought provoking Petition which I have duly signed.
I read recently that it was Robert Kennedy who back in the 1960s raised this type of question. He thought that his country should not be measuring its wealth by how many plastic toys are produced, by how much armaments are produced or (I would add) by how much income shooting our wildlife for fun brings in. He said much more emphasis should be placed on how much better off people can be from a health and environmental point of view..
So I think this petition is excellent. It will of course run very much contrary to the views and philosophy of many Tories and as you say DEFRA, whose philosophy is basically money, money, money. E.G. HS2.and peatland mismanagement and to hell with the environment and wildlife.
Let’s hope the petition reaches100,000 so it is debated.
Alan – it was Robert Kennedy on 19 March 1968 at the University of Kansas – check it out in A Message from Martha p239.
‘Everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.’ https://www.cusp.ac.uk/themes/aetw/rfk-gdp50/
Brilliant comment Mark, thank you. I could not remember when and where RFK said it. . You are better informed than me.
The response from the Treasury includes a link dated 2018 (pre-COVID).