In his first lecture at the Royal Society before an invited audience of the great and the good Jeffrey Sachs gave a very dark and sombre analysis of the world we face today, with a little ray of hope at the end. [Broadcast on BBC Radio 4 0900 Wednesday 11 April 2007, repeated 2215 Saturday14 April 2007]

If the crisis we face today is man made, then it is not beyond the wit of man to solve it.

Jeffrey Sachs got a very negative reaction from his audience. First of the block with a very pompous attack was Christopher Meyer, former British Ambassador to Washington.

The only positive contribution came from a former Spice Girl, now a roving ambassador for the UN.

What the negative reaction showed was that we cannot rely on the great and good to solve the world's problems, in part because they are not going to voluntarily give up their entrenched positions of power, if we want change, it has to come from the grass roots.

We can all do our bit. We can all save seeds, we can all cut our energy consumption.

I have in my garden many types of beans and peas growing, soon they will be joined by courgettes and pumpkins and tomatoes. Small scale, but what I do not eat, I will save the seeds, helping to preserve genetic diversity, any surplus will be distributed at Seedy Sunday next year.

Chew Magna and Ashton Hayes, are small communities in the UK that intend to go Carbon Neutral. Chew Magna is also intending to go Zero Waste. They are not waiting for leadership, the communities are doing this themselves. They are spreading the word far beyond their small communities. Chew Magna now has links with poor communities in Tamil Nadu in India under an initiative called Social Change and Development (SCAD), they have also established an initiative called The Converging World.

We cannot wait for leadership from the great and good as it will never come, we have to take action ourselves.

We have the local elections in May. We need to see community activists elected to local councils. Who will ensure greater public participation, ensure council resources used to the benefit of local people.

Representative democracy has failed, it may have suited the 19th century, barely the 20th, it is not fit for the 21st, we have to move forward to participatory democracy. Follow the example of the Internet and Open Source Publishing, Open Source and Free Software, where all can participate for the benefit of all.

It is no coincidence, that in Brazil, where Open Source and Free Software is heavily promoted, that we also have some of the best examples of participatory democracy, in cities such as Porto Alegre and Curitiba. In the Favelas of San Paulo, AfroReggae are empowering the slum dwellers through music.

Participatory democracy empowers people, representative democracy dis-empowers, reduces the electorate to ballot fodder, whose only use is to cast a vote for one corrupt elite or another, to remain silent in between times.

The Reith Lectures are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesdays at 8pm, repeated on the following Saturday at 10-15pm. They will also be available as mp3 downloads for one week following date of broadcast.

Websites

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/
 http://www.gozero.org.uk/
 http://www.goingcarbonneutral.co.uk/
 http://www.communitywindpower.co.uk/
 http://www.localworks.org/
 http://www.neweconomics.org/

References and further reading

Lester R Brown, Plan B 2.0, Norton, 2006
 http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm

Kate Evans, Funny Weather, Myriad Editions, 2006
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/books/funny-weather.htm

Paul Kingsnorth, The world's 'coolest' towns?, The Ecologist, April 2007

Open Source, BBC Radio 4, 11 April 2007
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4

Keith Parkins, A sense of the masses - a manifesto for the new revolution, www.heureka.clara.net, October 2003
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/democracy.htm

Keith Parkins, Curitiba – Designing a sustainable city, www.heureka.clara.net, April 2006
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/curitiba.htm

Keith Parkins, Seedy Sunday Brighton 2007, Indymedia UK, 6 February 2007
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/361644.html?c=on

Keith Parkins, Seed saving, Indymedia UK, 26 March 2007
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/366222.html

Keith Parkins, AfroReggae, www.heureka.clara.net, March 2007
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/music/afroreggae.htm

Keith Parkins, Fortnightly refuse collection, Indymedia UK, 10 April 2007
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/367639.html

Hilary Wainwright, Reclaim the State: Experiments in Popular Democracy, Verso, 2003