Are you an environmental citizen?
Source: theconversation.com, Alexandra Delgado.
Every day we hear news of the pandemic that continues unabated. But they are not the only ones. On our screens, there is information about the climate crisis and the pressure on ecosystems. These are just some of the factors of global environmental change.
And every day we receive news of new environmental regulations that show us a world that is still to be born. One example is the restriction of flights in France when the distance is less than two and a half hours and can be replaced by train travel. The environmental objective is to reduce pollution.
Many of these measures come from governments, but they are not the only ones who can do something. For decades, environmental awareness has been on the rise. This is about the role of citizens in environmental, and therefore social and economic, transformations.
What is environmental citizenship?
It is essential to know what environmental citizenship is in order to know what makes us environmental citizens. The European Network for Environmental Citizenship defines it as "the responsible environmental behaviour of citizens acting and participating in society as agents of change in the private and public sphere, at local, national and global levels, through individual and collective actions, in the direction of environmental problem solving".
This implies a crucial change in our role as citizens. We are no longer just passive recipients of environmental regulations, but have a fundamental role as agents of change.
This does not mean that we bear all the responsibility. Our actions as individuals will always be framed by the actions of government. But we are also validators of the government's transformations. Therefore, we have a dual role as agents of environmental change: our own environmental behaviour and our role in changing the agenda of governments.
Environmental citizenship is therefore crucial to the success of any environmental policy. There are many very ambitious environmental policies that need the indispensable participation of citizens, such as those on sustainability and on the circular and low-carbon economy. These are not policies that can be made only from the top down. But neither can they be bottom-up.
If the current health crisis has taught us anything, it is that, in the face of common and global problems, cooperation is indispensable for success.
What makes us environmental citizens?
Moving from the concept of environmental citizenship to the fact (being an environmental citizen) requires a major effort, in line with the phrase attributed to Field Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernard von Moltke: "No plan, however good it may be, withstands its first contact with the enemy, with reality".
What are our weapons metaphorically? Mainly, adopting environmental attitudes and behaviours in our daily lives and making ecological choices, at the individual and collective level. And on a general level, transforming society by increasing our participation in decision-making processes that allow us to put key issues on the agenda.
Furthermore, we need to be aware of and implement our environmental rights and duties. But not only those of our environment that we can know. Also those in faraway places that suffer from the actions of our consumption and life model.
Are we environmental citizens?
I believe that important steps have been taken in Spain to become environmental citizens. And, in fact, the environmental issue has been placed on the agenda of the administrations, although still in an unequal way.
This is an issue that is still a work in progress and for which, as always, we need education, both conventional and through the media.
Education is the key tool from the present to build a new future in which we can live in harmony with nature. As stated in the work of the European Network for Environmental Citizenship, "education plays a key role in shaping future environmental citizens; no one is born an environmental citizen, but anyone can become one through education".
This balance with nature is the goal for an environmental citizen, a citizen with environmental awareness and action. But not only from the bucolic concept of nature, which is also necessary. Also from our right to breathe clean air and to have clean oceans. To manage waste properly and close cycles. To consume clean, renewable and sustainable energy. To have land-use planning that protects key resources and provides guidelines for social, economic and environmental balance. To have a city in harmony with the environment and connected to ecological corridors. To the enjoyment of the environment without diminishing our future development possibilities. To have an environmental future.