FDSD welcomes UK Climate Assembly
FDSD has long supported the wider use of participatory and deliberative processes such as citizens’ assemblies in bringing the voice of citizens into political decision making. We are therefore delighted that the first weekend of the UK Climate Assembly has been a...
Activism in a new climate | Conference and theatre, Manchester 29 Apr 2020
Appeals for people to act now in response to the climate emergency surround us. Many of them focus on the responsibility of the individual to act: to eat less meat, to drive less, to fly less. Does this focus on the role of individuals underestimate the challenge of...
Citizens’ assemblies: how to bring the wisdom of the public to bear on the climate emergency | Blog by Graham Smith
Citizens’ assemblies could be vital in kick-starting the tough steps needed to respond to the climate emergency, Chair of the FDSD board of trustees, Graham Smith, argues. But the detail of how they will work is critical. (This blog first appeared on The Conversation...
With democracy becoming an endangered species, is sustainability in peril? | A reflection by Sara Parkin, November 2018
In 2008, Sara Parkin wrote a provocation for the FDSD: “Are Political Parties getting in the way of the sort of collaborative democracy we need to tackle sustainability? If so, what can we do about it?” Ten years later, she revisits her thinking, “in the...
Governing Geo-Engineering? | New Report by ETC Group, BiofuelWatch and Heinrich-Böll Foundation
“It is much easier for us to imagine the end of the world than a small change in the political system”, Slavoj Zizek famously said. The same is true for altering the earth climate system according to a recent report by the Canadian ETC-Group, BiofuelWatch and...
Citizens, participation and the economy | Interim report from the RSA Citizen’s Economic Council
There are many reasons why more democratic and deliberative approaches to economics are necessary and valuable: shaping better and more informed economic decisions, promoting transparency over economic priorities, and strengthening the quality of democracy and public...
Harnessing democracy and engagement for sustainable prosperity
As environmental crises become ever more severe, voices are reappearing that call for authoritarian solutions: Democracy, so the argument goes, has proven to be too slow to respond to urgent threats, and so a stronger, authoritarian hand is needed to push through the...
Audit Committee report on Government’s lack of ambition on SDGs
The House of Commons Audit Committee recently published its report Sustainable Development Goals in the UK. The Committee is critical of the Government’s lack of ambition in embedding the SDGs. As the report argues: The Sustainable Development Goals represent a...
A Future Generations Commissioner for the UK | London, 11 April 2017
+++ The video of the event is available here. +++ FDSD, in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Democracy and the Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity is organising an event on Tuesday 11th April to explore the potential to establish a...
Trump, sustainable development, and the J-curve | Blog by John Lotherington
John Lotherington is an FDSD Trustee. He’s the Program Director with Salzburg Global Seminar (SGS). The election of Donald Trump as President of the Unites States, and his early actions as President – so reminiscent of his reality TV performances,...
For the Next Generations | Paula Tiihonen
Part of the Artwork Tulevaisuus (Future), Väinö Aaltonen (1932) To mark her retirement as the Counsel for the Committee for the Future in the Finish Parliament, Paula Tiihonen brought together a group of significant thinkers and doers for an international seminar on...
The courts, the government and air pollution
This week we have seen the UK government lose twice in the courts – once on air pollution and then on Article 50 to formally start the Brexit process. While there are voices questioning why in a democracy the courts should be able to overturn government...
Autumn Newsletter: Breaking the power of short-term economics
Children, Young People and Flooding: Recovery and Resilience | Report
The acute storms in the UK during the winter of 2013/14 and 2015/16 have revealed a problem that is now understood to be chronic: with climate change materialising more forcefully, severe flooding will become part of life for many communities across the UK....
Economics for Everyone | The Citizens Economic Council
‘It’s the economy, stupid’! Governments rise and fall on the back of economic success or failure. For the public, the economy is consistently ranked among the top three issues of concern. Yet, few people feel literate enough to understand economic policy, to...
A Divided Britain | Blog by Andrea Westall
Amongst many other things, the UK’s vote to leave the EU was a cry for recognition from people with very different lives and opportunities across the UK. It was also a stark reminder of ‒ or, for some, a sudden insight into ‒ different priorities and viewpoints...
The unedifying Brexit debate: learning lessons from across the pond | Blog by Graham Smith
Whether you were for or against Brexit, most would agree that the referendum campaign was far from instructive. It brought out the worst in British politics: primarily two sets of over-privileged, middle-aged white males throwing opinions, thinly disguised as...
Managing the Psychological Distance of Climate Change
Climate change is a notoriously ‘distant’ risk for most people. We hear about it in the news, but it rarely seems relevant to our everyday life – “it feels ‘not here’ and it feels ‘not now’”. This sense of non-urgency couldn’t be further away from the actual impact...
People’s Climate March 2015—largest mobilisation in history
On 29 November 2015, hundreds of thousands of people from around the world joined the biggest day of climate change activism in history. 785.000 citizens participated in 2,300 events in 175 countries and thousands of cities to march for a clean energy future, aiming...Sign up for newsletter
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