Three massive challenges facing the UK

February 16, 2009 by
Filed under: Credit crunch, The RSA 

A very short blog this morning as I am on holiday in Scotland.

If anyone has any money to invest, I strongly recommend the British tourist industry. It’s absolutely packed out in Aviemore, they’ve even run out of skis!

The last time I was here there was hardly any snow and much talk of climate change destroying the winter economy. So here, at least, some good news. Otherwise, there isn’t much to smile about.

Over the last two years, as we here sought to encourage and support RSA Fellows to work together, one of the questions we have heard asked is, “But, what should we be trying to do?” It seems to me the whole country faces 3 massive challenges.

First, how do we survive the recession and, in particular, how do we protect the most vulnerable and develop new models of wealth creation?

Second, given that we are about to enter a long period of public spending squeeze (tighter, according to the IFS than under the early years of Margaret Thatcher), how can we protect public services and meet growing needs? This has to involve major advances in productivity, involving better mobilising the capacity of individuals and communities; but how do we do it?

And finally, of course, how do we not just continue to focus on climate change but start to work out how on earth we are going to meet the target of an 80% cut in emissions by 2050?

There is so much that the talented and committed Fellowship of the RSA could do. We here at John Adam Street are ready to support Fellows’ efforts; let’s see the whole of this great society step up to the plate.

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4 Comments on Three massive challenges facing the UK

  1. David Wilcox on Tue, 17th Feb 2009 9:45 am

    2. I think many Fellows would like to work together and rise to the challenges you highlight: the question is how best to collaborate among ourselves, and with staff.

    A group of Fellows and RSA staff are meeting on Thursday to discuss just that, with a strong focus on the scope for working online. In researching background for the workshop I’ve been struck by how far RSA has come over the past year in developing great public-facing content. I’ve pulled it together on a dashboard here, and also blogged about the potential here.

    What would help in the collaborative effort, in my view, is some initial help from RSA staff in convening around the challenges or other projects. Should we look to project or Fellowship departments? It’s quite difficult for Fellows to self-organise … though it may get easier once the new RSA network site is fully launched. At present we can’t find who might be interested, and space is tight in JAS.Clay Shirky has highlighted this new convening role for nonprofits – where self-organising meets organisation. Could you help us in the next round of innovation?

  2. David Wilcox on Wed, 18th Feb 2009 9:32 am

    3. Just caught up on your video interview and “RSA as the RAC for civic activism” idea from last year, which maybe answers my convening query. Does that still hold?

  3. Hugh Knowles on Thu, 19th Feb 2009 11:59 am

    4. With regards to the third challenge, I think the first thing we should do is stop talking about 80% reductions by 2050. 2050 is just too far away and does not give people a realistic idea of what has to be achieved now. Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre has a great presentation that talks about reframing from long term targets to emission pathways and he demonstrates that we need 6-9% reductions in emissions per annum starting asap. 2050 just perpetuates the ‘no need to act today mindset’.

    transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/kevin-anderson-2.ppt

  4. Philip Allsopp on Wed, 10th Jun 2009 9:51 pm

    5. I live in the Phoenix metro area (Scottsdale), in Arizona. I’ve lived in the US for the past 30 years having grown up in Brighton. The huge environmental, social and economic issues our increasingly global society is facing are now so complex that it is highly likely that short-sighted public spending cuts on both sides of the Atlantic will result in consequences whose systemic and aggregate impacts could be far worse than was ever anticipated. Thinking through these budgetary issues and public spending topics to map out the networks of social, economic and environmental consequences – both good and not so good – would be a very productive activity to bring to policy makers locally, regionally and nationally.

    As Hugh suggests quite rightly, the time to act is now because it is likely that the magnitude of the problems we will have to deal with in the future will have grown beyond our capacity to deal with them effectively.

    I’ve been doing some work along these lines (in the field of System Dynamics) for a while and in particular applying it to the urban and environmental mess we have on our hands here in Phoenix – now the 4th largest metro area in the US and a poster child in many ways of how not to grow a city.

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