My blog

Tag: Natalie Bennett

  • Finito bursary candidate Joseph Macdonald on an unexpected interview with Lady Bennett

    Joseph Macdonald

    It wasn’t something I ever expected to do. Though it was an experience a little outside my comfort zone, when I was given the opportunity to talk to the former leader of the Green Party Natalie Bennett, I decided to go ahead. It had been a year of ups and downs; I had decided to intercalcate from my computer science course at Lancaster University but was by means sure whether I should return or not, or whether I should pivot.

    Fortunately, I have benefitted from the attentions of the Finito bursary scheme. This scheme aims to help young people like me in the journey toward a meaningful career, and I have worked with the company’s business mentors now for several years. When I suggested to my mentor Talan that I was considering moving courses into Ecology and Conservation, the opportunity to talk with Natalie came my way.

    Before the call, I wasn’t certain about the opportunities available to me if I did decide to make a change.

    At the start, Natalie provided me with technical examples which began to address my concerns about the breadth of careers I could go into. She also reassured me that the time I had used studying Computer Science had not been wasted, as there are numerous ways in which the subject areas are being combined. After the call, I was more sure than ever that my decision to study Ecology would be the right one.

    I also learned a lot from talking to Natalie herself. She  came across as a very well-informed and intelligent person, with a wide range of experiences from all over the world. She taught me to always be open to new experiences and that there are plenty of different roles even within certain disciplines.
    Crucially, Natalie also gave me technical examples that are currently relevant or which she expects to be emerging areas of study. For example, we discussed how the excess use of fertiliser on farms means that chemicals are being washed into nearby water courses. This causes the growth of vegetation on the water and stops light from reaching into the water, leaving fewer nutrients for fish and other aquatic animals.

    Another point we discussed was the issue concerning the discharge of raw sewage into rivers and the sea by water companies in the UK. In exceptional circumstances, such as after very heavy rain, this is permitted. However, there is an average of hundreds of discharge incidents per day. This heavily pollutes the waters within and surrounding the UK. There are ongoing campaigns for heavier punishments for the water companies involving larger fines. Under proposed legislation, the executives of the water companies would be personally liable for paying fines.

    Natalie also explained how government policies affect environmental issues and to what extend they are applied by the UK government. She believes their current efforts do not go far enough to make a positive difference. Bennett believes that the age of neo-liberalism that started with Thatcher and Reagan in the 1980s must come to an end soon and more progressive policies should be applied if change is to take place for the better.

    She also described how she got into politics through journalism with The Bangkok Post and subsequently finished her first degree in Agricultural Science. She then completed outreach volunteering work via Australian Volunteers International. Her second degree was in Asian relations which she completed at the University of New England. Her third degree is a MA in Mass Communication which was awarded by the University of Leicester in 2001.

    Bennett later went on to join the Green party on 1st January 2006. She represented various constituencies in London and later Sheffield Central in 2017. She described how there are only two Green peers in the House of Lords but they make a significant impact because they are the only party with new ideas. Natalie also remarked on how strange the House of Lords can be with the clothing and décor!

    When I explained to Natalie how I was taking a year out of university and planning on changing my course to Ecology and Conversation from Computer Science, she moved swiftly to put my mind at rest. She explained that there are more and more emerging ecology roles that involve algorithms and quantising data using computers. This was an important connection which I hadn’t made before, and gave me much food for thought.

    A call like this is always nerve-wracking, but Natalie’s manner was at all times open and kind. This was a lesson in itself, and one I intend to remember as I forge my career.

     

  • Cop 26: Former Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett on a new kind of thinking

    Natalie Bennett

    What’s happened with Covid is that people now realise that the world can change very, very fast. The Green Party has been saying that we need to get to net zero by 2030 and people would always reply that the world doesn’t change that fast and you just have to be patient, and it takes time for business models to turn around and so forth.

    But coronavirus changed the world overnight – and changed the world of work too. We now know that speed of change can be a matter of weeks, and also that as a society we have this secret resilience we didn’t know we had.

    Of course, on top of that we’re seeing with horrifying weather events all over the world that the climate emergency is here, and that we can’t put our heads in the sand. That’s because we can’t ignore that the way in which we treat the planet is tied to any notions we might have of prosperity: there are no jobs on a dead planet. We’re turning our oceans into a plastic soup, destroying our biodiversity and disrupting the systems which give us life.

    There’s talk in the climate community about how the virus has helped focus our minds. That’s true to an extent. Not travelling frees up time and we save money by not going into the office. All this has benefits for our well-being and we know that cutting down on travel time makes the air smell less of diesel fumes. We’re coming to realise that going green is a win-win policy.

    But we’ve also got to realise that people tend to find change threatening, and we still have got to address the emotions that the climate question raises. People have been through a difficult time, but those who do react to the climate problem, and seize the initiative are the ones who will be successful, and will lead and be adapted to the new circumstances. In any situation like this, you have the early adopters: society never changes with 100 per cent of society suddenly seeing what we need to do.

    Some people still take the approach of what I call ‘business as usual but with added efficiencies’. It’s the idea that we’ll carry on doing things as we did them before, but with a bit more renewable in the mix, and some energy efficiency measures, and some conferences like COP 26.

    But the Green Party is talking about wholesale transformation of our society. Take landfill as an example. If you’re producing huge amounts of disposable material then that’s not a sustainable business model; what we want to see instead is a circular economy without that waste pyramid. It stands to reason that you need to reduce the amount of physical material. It’s another reminder that we can’t change just 10 or 20 per cent; we have to change completely.

    I think that has to begin with education. I’ve been asking this government questions about taking education outside into the natural world, and even about a GCSE in nature. We’ve been championing that kind of approach; we need education to be for life and not just preparation for exams. We need to look at gardening, and we need to look at cooking as being topics which might join the curriculum.

    In respect of the economy, I would regard the Green Party as the natural champion of small independent business. What we want is strong local economies built upon small cooperatives – and I can point to examples up and down the country where Green councillors have helped bring that back.

    What we don’t want is an economy dominated by a handful of giant multinationals or hedge funds who own a bit of all them. That means no competition. I’m a fan for instance of the People’s Supermarket in Camden where I used to be a volunteer. That’s a different model of local food supplies which we can all learn from.

    The other thing we could learn from is the Finnish education system. I remember once I was on a long distance train in Finland, which purely by chance had a children’s playground on it for up to six or seven year olds. It was this amazing thing, with little slides and so on and families were having a lovely time on their train journey. I tweeted the photo and I don’t think I’ve ever had such a big response. That’s the kind of community-led thinking we need. Let’s hope Covid has brought us round to that mindset.