From ‘me’ to ‘we’ a new paradigm for security

As global Leaders attend COP27 talks few have any idea how to tackle the twin crises of cascading ‘wild weather’ events and the larger existential threats of climate breakdown that could easily follow. This series of TED talks outlines the new thinking needed to avert the worst outcomes and the refounding of meaningful democracies that must come with it.

Alan Simpson describes himself as ‘a recovering politician’. An MP for 18 years, he then worked as a consultant to Friends of the Earth and was Advisor on Sustainable Economics to the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell MP. He would still like to save humanity from itself.

For decades the public domain has been axed in the interest of extended personal freedoms. But climate crises take little notice of such freedoms or our status as consumers. Fire, flood and tornados sweep everything in their path, indifferent to individual circumstances. To find answers, we must reclaim the notions of interdependency and common security. Individually, we can (and must) be part of the solutions, but society must rediscover that climate security will only be found through interdependencies (with each other and with nature). It requires a new sociology of the ‘we’ and a public reclaiming of how we have done so in the past.



Location: B63, Law and Social Sciences Building, University Park
13th December. 7pm.