Let’s shout about our environment and make people accountable for it!

The last year has seen tectonic shifts in the way we will live our lives. The new government has heralded a new dawn of politics and with it slipped in a few words that we have all been challenged to define in the next five years. It is like being given a short exam paper with no correct answers but if you get it wrong we all fail and can't go to big school. Know what I mean?

Two of the questions are around defining "localism" and "Big Society". I am still unsure what these are but I am sure that my idea will help unlock them both and improve the way we think about our environment and all it provides. The idea is called (until someone has a better name!) Envoice. It is all about giving a voice to the environment. Simple! To me the main failing in our environment is that knowledge of it and how well it is faring, is so limited.

The idea behind Envoice is to make the information on the key parts of our environment available to the public in a way that is understandable and at a level that is meaningful. It is nice to know how the world is doing in terms of species loss but would be more meaningful if I knew how species were thriving in my local parish. It would be even better if I could hold my local politicians to account on how my species are doing. Our council tells us how well our local economy is doing and how our education and health services are doing. Why can't they treat the environment with the same respect? Surely, if we knew how these things were doing then as a ‘local' group of people we could make more informed choices? Surely, if we knew how these things were doing then we could act in a way that helps our whole society? Doesn't the environment influence our health and our economy?

With Envoice I propose we make available, at all different levels (Parish, district Council, County, Regional and national), the vital statistics on our environment. This would mean you would know how much food is being produced, how much water is available and how clean this is, you would know the health of the flora and fauna and if the habitats were increasing or decreasing, you would know whether your area was storing enough carbon to balance your economy and society.

This is a simple idea that will change the environment and our politics. It isn't hard to do. We already have the information available we just haven't put it in one place and in a way that is meaningful. We haven't given the environment a chance because we haven't been told how it is doing and we haven't made our politicians accountable for it.

A yearly report presented in your local village and county hall by your councillors and Members of Parliament will give you a chance to bring them to account. You can tell them to grow more food and butterflies and help protect the things that mean most to you. We live in a world of information so why can't we have some information about our environment? You can with Envoice.

Do you like the sound of this? Do you have ideas as to how it could work?

Do you want to be part of making this happen?

Leave us a comment below or contact Paul on paulc@biggreeenworld.co.uk