The development of this film project in 2019 was rather remarkable.
Our stories and protagonists took to the global stage!
Originally, we thought the final chapter in our story about the Wellbeing Economy Governments was going to be the big OECD conference in South Korea where the initiative was officially launched and publicly announced for the first time. But that event felt somewhat anti-climactic: It was a so-called “breakfast session” — very early in the morning, in a small room, with hardly anyone attending. And at the time, we asked ourselves: This is supposed to be the big breakthrough?
It seemed a little like the project had failed as it was succeeding.
But it turns out: A small launch can still lead to a big change. In the following months, all kinds of little things were happening in the three WEGo countries, and also between them. And then, another few weeks later, the big news broke that Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, was announcing and explaining the WEGo initiative from the TED stage. To this day, her talk has been watched over 1.7 million times — and that does look a lot more like the big event that we would have hoped for. And then towards the end of the year, Icelandic prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir gave a speech about the initiative in London, which got the BBC interested, and which finally even led to a brief radio interview I gave to the BBC about the WEGo initiative.
Lorenzo’s story also took an unexpected turn around the middle of the year — he was promoted from Vice Minister to Minister of Education in the surprisingly formed new PD/5-Star government. In this role, he made waves in Italy, he got plenty of pressure from many sides, his policies made him unpopular with many people — as he is proposing uncomfortable solutions to really transform the Italian society for the future, while he also got international headlines for his push to have Italian schoolchildren taught about sustainable living and the climate in all classes starting with the coming academic year.
All this culminated in him being invited to the Climate Conference in Madrid and to an audience with the Pope. (We were there with the camera for the former, but not for the latter.) And now, just before the end of the year he resigned from his job as minister. Which came as no surprise to us — on the contrary. But the background to his resignation doesn’t belong here, it’ll be in our film.
The key thing for us is that we were very lucky — which is a requirement for any documentary film project: When we met Lorenzo, he was not yet a member of the Italian parliament, and then he transformed into an internationally respected politician in under two years. When he resigned, the news was reported around the world. How often does the world take an interest in an Italian Minister of Education who has been in office for only a few weeks?
We found powerful partners!
Around the middle of the year we met a director and producer who is very well established in the German film industry and who quickly warmed to our project. In November we signed an agreement according to which we will finish and market the film together with his company. For the development of our film, the second half of the year was characterized by getting to know and discussing the film project with our new partners. In our exchanges we thought and learned a lot about how our film can work, how we should structure it and what the focus should be. This was enormously helpful for our understanding of what kind of film we are making. But it also took time, of course.
So … we are looking very much forward to an eventful year 2020 in which we will launch into the next phase of the production. Carving out a compelling story from all the material that we have collected. Happy New Year everyone, and wish us luck!
October was a “picture collection month” for us. We went back to both Scotland and Italy, to collect shots that would help us show the countries that we are speaking about in our film. And they are splendid countries indeed.
Men on a mission in the Highlands: Martin, Mark (Katherine’s husband) and NickWhen in Scotland, drink what the Scots drink (and this time it’s not about alcohol!)Composition with Tesla, horses and a power station (outside Dunbar)A composed shot of Katherine at the University of GlasgowNick, getting the shotThe view from TodiTodiLago di Garda (Limone)Lago di garda (Limone)Verona
In some parts of Africa, poor families are cutting down wild trees so they can live their lives — for cooking and heating; they have nothing else to burn. As a result, the vegetation goes away, the desert expands, and slowly but surely it is making more and more land uninhabitable. Additionally, those trees that are cut can no longer take CO2 out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis, so the process also contributes to climate change.
The German non-profit Atmosfair have found a way to help: They provide families in these parts of the world with very energy-efficient ovens that only need a fraction of the wood to provide the same amount of heat and cooking power.
On this blog, we’ve mentioned a number of times that we are trying to limit the climate impact of making this film (and of our lives in general). In terms of our travels, we do our long journeys with all our equipment in an electric car which we charge with renewable energy. And only in rare instances, when there is no other way for us to do it — let’s say because we need to go to South Korea for our story, or because we have to go to Scotland and have only two days for it because of other commitments — we do take a plane.
And when we do, we compensate for (or: offset) the CO2 emissions from these flights — by paying for these ovens that Atmosfair is bringing to these families.
Many people who are concerned about the climate believe that offsetting CO2 emissions is actually a bad thing — they believe it makes people feel good about something bad that they just shouldn’t be doing. And that it does not solve any climate problem. It just makes everything worse because people who compensate keep up their bad lifestyle, rather than becoming part of the solution for a better world.
There is a lot of truth to that. Flying, in particular, is especially bad for our climate. And it’s important to seriously consider any flight anybody wants to go on, and whether there is not another way to achieve the same objective. A return flight from Rome to Reykjavík, for instance, emits roughly the entire yearly CO2 budget that a human being on earth can afford to produce in a year if we want to live sustainable lives. In other words, if you’ve done that flight, theoretically you cannot really consume … well, actually, live after that.
But we would like to explain why we still go on flights, and why we believe that compensating — at least the way we are doing it — is a good compromise.
When it comes to compensating CO2 emissions, there are a lot of climate-destroying habits that should absolutely not be compensated. A good example is a steak house telling its customers that their food is “climate neutral” because they pay for compensation for their meat production. That is truly a bad idea. Our current meat consumption habits cannot go on, and there is no way of solving that problem by compensating. Instead, it falsely suggests to customers that somehow this meat isn’t so bad. Instead, we simply must get used to eating other things than meat, in order to keep earth inhabitable for humans. And we can — we do not need meat to live. The same goes for CO2-emitting cars, or for any other activity that can be carried out with alternative means.
That is a little different with flying. We cannot really live without it anymore, if we assume that encounters with people in other parts of the world and experiences abroad are good for us: Arguably, our world becomes a better place when we meet each other, when we see other places and people in far away countries. The more we establish human connections across borders, continents, disparate parts of the world, the more we will (hopefully) be able to understand that we are all part of one big family, and that our lives are connected and intertwined. If we decided to ban all flying (if that was even possible), the effects would be very negative — and I don’t mean just in terms of economic impact. I mean in terms of the effect on us as open, connected, curious human beings.
So the first point is: A lot of flying is truly and substantially wrong — a business man who thinks he needs to be flying from Frankfurt to Hamburg and back for a business conversation which could also happen by video conference is simply an idiot, climatically speaking. And so is the hipster couple that decide they “need” a weekend in Mallorca just to relax. And don’t get me started on people who fly to Paris for a day just to go shopping. But Brasilians who live in England should be able to visit their families in Brasil. A person living abroad to make money for the family back home must have a chance to go and see them. And (arguably), if we are making a documentary about how we need to change our economic system, we should be able to fly to South Korea if the story demands it.
Yes, these are moral choices. I fully acknowledge that I am making a call on what is good and what is bad travel. We must get to a point where we can have this conversation, otherwise we’re not going to make progress. “I need my freedom and anything goes as long as I can pay for it” is not a position we can maintain in a world with limited resources. We need to start arguing about what’s needed and what isn’t.
Secondly, flying will become climate-neutral. What’s necessary to make that happen are synthetic fuels — they exist already today, and they are made by taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, and combining it with other molecules, to create fuels that, when they are burned, simply return that CO2 to the atmosphere, rather than adding more CO2 to it. The problem with these fuels is that they are still very expensive to make, and for that reason, they are not widely available yet. Mass production needs to be developed. But we really have no choice — we need to make that happen.
So a CO2-neutral solution is actually already available for flying — and in that respect, flying is different from a steak. Unless we truly find a way of making synthetic steaks (which people keep talking about, but they still seems a bit far from reality), our meat consumption needs to change. Our flying habits, on the other hand, can become sustainable.
This is why we think flying is an acceptable thing to do if three conditions are in place:
Any flight is carefully considered, and only done if there is no other means of achieving the same outcome.
A flight is understood as what it is: something profound and rare, and not a thing we do as easily as taking a subway or a bus.
The CO2 emissions of the flight are compensated with a provider that understands that CO2 compensation is only the last resort.
The people at Atmosfair don’t think that compensating is a good solution — they consider it only the third-best option. They consult with companies and individuals, and they primarily focus on avoiding CO2. If that cannot be done, then they will try to reduce CO2 emissions. And only as a third response to CO2 emissions, they propose to compensate. (And they will not sell compensation to the steak house mentioned above.)
For climate protection reasons, CO₂ avoidance should have priority over other measures. If it is not possible to avoid CO₂ emissions, at least measures should be taken in order to reduce them as much as possible. atmosfair can offset unavoidable emissions for you through high-quality CDM Gold Standard climate protection projects.
So, we do acknowledge that flying is currently still a very dangerous thing for our world. We believe that flights should only be taken if absolutely no other option is available, and if their meaning is truly appreciated. And finally, when we do fly, we compensate with Atmosfair, because we have met with them, and they do take this issue very seriously.
And we cannot wait for synthetic fuels to become widely available.
In November our documentary film took us to Incheon in South Korea for the OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy. Here’s a little video from the trip!
The year is drawing to a close — here’s a look back on what has happened in our project so far. 2018 has been an incredible ride for us, in many respects.
It all started back in February, when we found out that two things were going to happen. One, a group of government representatives from Scotland, Costa Rica and Slovenia were going to gather in Ljubiljana in March, to say openly to the world that they want to pursue a different type of politics in economics, an approach that respects the needs of people and planet. At the same time, we heard that one of the people working on making this government summit happen, Lorenzo Fioramonti (a fierce critic of the GDP and of the way most economic policies are currently being designed), was going to leave academia and join the world of Italian politics, and run for office with the 5 Star Movement. Since the 5 Stars were the strongest contender in the Italian election, this was very interesting news — there was the potential that a man who had written books about how bad a measure the GDP is could become a minister in a new Italian Government!
So we decided that we had to start filming this story, no matter what — a story about people who want to move our world away from its endless “growth obsession”. So we went on our first trip: In the middle of February, we drove up to Scotland, to meet with Katherine Trebeck and other people at Oxfam, to find out what that government summit was going to be about. Katherine had worked on this thing from within the Scottish Oxfam offices, where she’d been a researcher.
On the way to Scotland, on the Le Shuttle train under the Channel.
Nick waiting at Oxfam Scotland’s offices.
Glasgow.
Nick getting a good shot of Adam Smith.
Back onto Le Shuttle.
A few days after returning from this one, we were already off on our second trip — down to Italy. And this time we went fully electric. We met with Lorenzo in Brescia where he had to give a campaign talk, and then we drove him down to Rome, to be able to follow him during this last week of campaigning before the election on March 4th. Lorenzo’s family and his home were still in South Africa where he had been living for many years. As he was launching his career in Italian politics, he turned his parents’ house — which has lots of space — into his new temp home as well.
The week we spent together in Rome was remarkable. We were traveling around the city non stop, went on lots of campaign appointments, saw plenty behind the scenes stuff in the “5 Star Campaign”, we went to their secret campaign headquarters in the center of Rome, and felt the vibe behind and on the stage at the big campaign rallies and events. It felt a little bit like being inside a real-world “House of Cards”.
Very unusual — lots of snow in Rome when we arrived. This is Lorenzo’s parents’ garden.
Nick filming Lorenzo and parents in their kitchen.
At campaign headquarters — Lorenzo in the center, in the foreground Davide Casaleggio, of the 5 Stars.
Luigi di Maio, prepping a campaign rally.
The economics team for the 5 Stars shadow cabinet.
Lorenzo giving an interview in the streets of Rome. On the left, Nick filming Lorenzo being flimed.
Lorenzo and 5 Stars founder Beppe Grillo.
The final 5 Star campaign rally.
Charging the car on the way back.
In early May, it had turned out that the summit in Slovenia was not going to take place — so we had to go back to Glasgow and speak with the team there again — about what was going to happen next. Timing was tight, and we had to somehow fit the trip in. We couldn’t drive — it takes four days driving time alone to go up there and back — so we flew this time around. But we compensated for our CO2 emissions with Atmosfair — like we do with every flight which we cannot avoid.
In theory, a documentary filmmaker only starts rolling his camera after s/he has thoroughly investigated and written down what the story is meant to be, exactly, that s/he wants to tell in the film. Based on this description, you go out into the world, and try to collect your story — or the version of it that reality will present you with. It’s obvious that life will never turn out the way you intend it in your head. But it’s still incredibly helpful to have that idea — otherwise you don’t know what you are shooting for.
It didn’t quite happen that way in our case. Instead, we had been obliged to start rolling the cameras, following these two people — Katherine and Lorenzo — to document what they were trying to do, to help us move to a post-GDP world. But what does that mean in terms of the story that we’re telling? How do we structure it, how do we intend to keep viewers engaged in a topic that may seem very technical to many? We had lots and lots of conversations with lots and lots of people, and particularly with Kim Münster, an experienced film director and producer, who agreed to produce our film and help us structure the whole thing.
In April, we returned to Rome for our second trip there. On the way down, we stopped over in Venice, to meet with and interview Petra Reski. She’s a German writer, but she has been living in Italy (closely following the “5 Star Movement”) for decades now, and she gave us a very helpful perspective on what this movement means for Italy. Then we journeyed on to Rome. Lorenzo had won his seat in the Italian election, and we spent another five days with him around town — while the party was trying to form the new Italian government. The negotiations with the “League” had failed, and now the 5 Stars were trying to figure out how they could potentially form a government with the “Partito Democratico”. And Lorenzo was trying to prepare for his new role, potentially as the Minister for Industrial Development in the new government.
Heading down south, towards the Alps.
On the road again.
Venice.
Charging the car in Arezzo at the Supercharger.
Lorenzo with Pasquale Tridico at a rally celebrating the end of World War 2.
We had the most expensive cappuccino ever at this place. I believe they charged me 7.50 EUR. I felt like an idiot.
Setting up for another long interview with Lorenzo in the garden.
Having a peek at the discussions between party leadership and the 5 Star parlamentarians, about negotiating with the PD.
Waiting for the bus after a long day.
Returning home.
On May 7th, we had the chance to meet up with Tim Jackson in Berlin. He’s a well-known professor, researcher, author and speaker, working on the post-growth agenda. I’d met him once before, in 2017, as we were preparing our climate change show “vollehalle”. It was fun to meet him again in Berlin. He gave a speech in the very impressive hall of the Evangelische Akademie Berlin — check out the floor lights in the pictures below — and we were allowed to film that speech.
Setting up to film.
Tim Jackson presenting.
And then at the end of May, we returned to Scotland. This time with the Tesla, again getting on the Le Shuttle train under the Channel. I really love that train! The trip first took us to Tim Jackson’s university in Surrey, where we had the chance to do a sit-down with him, and interview him for about an hour.
Then we journeyed on to Glasgow and then Edinburgh, for a very particular reason: on May 23rd, the Task Force meeting for the Wellbeing Economy Governments — the group that was originally supposed to meet officially in Slovenia in March — was happening at a hotel in Edinburgh. The idea was to plan the next potential official public meeting, which could now be in South Korea at an OECD conference, at the end of November. So there were representatives from the Scottish, Costa Rican and Slovenian governments, plus people from Oxfam and a couple of universities, getting together to hash out how they could develop their group until that conference. And we were in the room, with the cameras rolling! It was very exciting!
On Le Shuttle.
With Tim Jackson in Surrey.
The Task Force meeting in Edinburgh.
Returning home.
In Edinburgh, Katherine also told us that she was going to go to Costa Rica herself, to speak at a conference, and to (potentially) meet the Costa Rican president, and tell him about this project, and get him excited about it. It was clear — we had to go, too! So we booked two seats on the same flight that she was going to be on (again, we compensated for our CO2 emissions with Atmosfair), to travel with her to Costa Rica, only two weeks later!
But just before that, I had the hunch that I had to go back down to Italy. The forming of the government there had become this never-ending thriller — negotiations with the PD had been cancelled only days after our last trip there, because of a very controversial TV appearance of the former leader of the PD, and so the 5 Stars turned back around to negotiate once again with the right-wing “Lega”. When they finally tried to propose a government together, the Italian President Mattarella refused to sign them into office, for fear of a European backlash against the new minister of economics, a Euro critic. It was apparently all coming to a blow, with the 5 Stars organising a rally to demonstrate against the President, when at the last minute a compromise was found, and the goverment was sworn in. And so the demonstration against the President turned into one to celebrate the first time the 5 Stars were in an Italian Government. Since I only had two days, there was no way to drive down again, so I went on yet another flight, and spent two days in Rome, and got a few great shots and impressions of the vibe both within the 5 Stars, and also from Lorenzo’s point of view, who — at that stage — seemed nowhere near becoming part of the new government, despite the fact that he had been quite close to Luigi di Maio and the party leadership during the election campaign.
And then, only three days later, we went to Costa Rica. It was a great experience — we met incredibly interesting people, the conference called Omina (about sustainable fashion) was inspiring, and even though Katherine did not manage to meet the President (he had to cancel his appearance at the conference), she did meet the First Lady, and we were in the room with them. We returned to Berlin on June 11th, after being away only six days — it had felt much longer because it had been so intense.
Katherine visibly happy about “her own” banner.
Pablo, Alvaro, and Katherine — the Wellbeing Economy force.
Meeting the First Lady (on the right).
Omina vibe.
Alvaro giving his speech at Omina.
Seeing nature in Costa Rica.
On a hike with new friends.
The next trip took us back to Rome, we left Berlin on July 1st. This time, we wanted to be there when Lorenzo brought his whole family — his wife and the two kids — back from South Africa. We documented their arrival at Fiumicino Airport. But even more importantly, we had the chance to witness Lorenzo arriving at his new office — he eventually did end up in the government, he had been named Vice Minister in the Ministry of Education and Research (“MIUR”), and we were there to see his first days on the new job.
heading south, past the symbols of a new world of energy.
The MIUR — the Italian Ministry for Education and Research.
Nick getting shots from across the street from the MIUR.
Near Stazione Centrale in Rome.
The Colosseum.
Sunset over Rome.
Traveling back, charging stop in the Swiss Alps.
In mid August, we returned to Scotland once again — this time because Katherine was coming back from her summer holidays, and we wanted to be present (and film) as she was getting an update about the state of things with the Wellbeing Economy Governments from the Scottish government team.
View of Edinburgh.
Inviting.
Nick, cat photographer.
Which takes us straight to our last Italian journey so far for the film, in early September — and this one was by far the most tiring because we went to so many different places. Our first stop was Geneva where we interviewed Alvaro Cedeno (he’s in the pictures from the Costa Rica trip — but he lives and works in Geneva). From there, we traveled to Milan, where we met up briefly with Katherine (!) who happened to be there that night, and then we shot an interview and other material with a start-up company that we may include in our film.
From there, we traveled on to Genua where the motorway bridge had crumbled a few weeks earlier, and we needed to get shots of that. And from there, we traveled on to Rome, where we spent some more time with Lorenzo — we drove him to a couple of TV studios, for example, where he was giving interviews. And finally, we went with him back up north, to Tuscany, where he had meetings in Pisa and Lucca. It was a super intense trip, but again well worth it.
Preparing the interview with Alvaro.
Genua.
Sometimes hotels have chargers specifically for Teslas — very convenient.
Again the Ministry, but a different building this time.
Getting a nice shot for our film.
Nick filming Lorenzo at the TV station.
Rome skyline.
Lorenzo giving a speech in Lucca.
In late September and early October, we started a little sub-project within our film project — this blog right here, and the social media accounts that we’re using, to publish behind-the-scenes stuff around making this film.
Finally, in the middle of November, our most intense traveling and shooting period began. Within a very short time frame, we first went on our latest road trip back up to Scotland, met with Lorenzo in Berlin and then traveled to South Korea.
Katherine’s husband Mark agreed to be interviewed by us — which was really nice. And we joined one of his Dramble Tours: he himself does these guided tours of Glasgow that include stops in six carefully selected pubs where you get to sample six different carefully selected Scotch whiskys. We had fun. (I was just a bit cold, to tell the honest truth, my jacket wasn’t warm enough …)
On the road again.
Rowan Mataram, at Platform London.
The street outside Nick’s parents’ house.
Edinburgh.
Meeting Katherine and Una before the session with the Scottish government team.
St. Andrew’s, the government building.
Glasgow.
Aberlour, whisky #4 on the Dramble Tour.
On the way back, we actually got into a traffic jam in France that had been organised by the yellow jackets, at the very initial stage of that movement.
Symbol of hope, as we were returning home.
Only two days after our return, Lorenzo came to Berlin! Together with his assistant Nicoletta they came for a few meetings. That made life easy for us — no need to travel to Italy to film our Italian protagonist!
Nick filming Lorenzo inside the Bundestag (Reichstag building).
Coffee break.
Lorenzo meeting with Christoph Gran (left) and Jonathan Barth (right), of the ZOE Institute.
And finally, our last trip this year: to South Korea. The Wellbeing Economy Governments initiative (“WEGo”, here is the website) was going to be launched at a big OECD conference on measurement and statistics there, so the Scottish Government team, teams from other governments, and Katherine were going to be there. And Lorenzo was coming as well. So we had to go, too, and see what it was going to be like, to see that initiative see the light of day. Just like in South Korea, we spent a good deal of time with Katherine, and even managed to fit in a last day of “light tourism” in the old part of Incheon — the city where the whole thing was taking place.
Our two main protagonists, together for the first time.
The big ballroom where all the main sessions took place.
Ready to doc!
The WEGo booth, manned by Michael Cairns (foreground).
Katherine moderating a panel on the big stage.
Dessert.
Nick has to do a nightly backup session. The computer was too slow to get it all done before we went to bed …
The WEGo have launched!
Our main rig for the conference.
Incheon skyline on our last day.
So … that was the summary of what we’ve been up to this year, making this film. (Not to mention other projects that we have worked on.) This does not include, of course, a whole bunch of little things that we were working on here at the office: editing work for funding applications, the countless revisions and reworkings of our various (German and English) treatments and other documents.
2019 will probably begin for the film in the second half of January, with yet another trip to Scotland. We hope to get done with the main bulk of shooting by March — in other words, more or less exactly a year after we started. And after that, we need to sit down and start to work out how to actually make this film — sift through all the material, edit it, and do all the prost production. There is a lot of work ahead of us, and it will be, without a doubt, another very interesting year.
We’ll hope to post another video, about the trip to South Korea, towards the end of this week — so stay tuned! And other than that, have a Merry Christmas Season, and all the best for 2019!
While we’re filming and interviewing people here at the “6th OECD Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy“, we’ll be more active on our social media platforms: Nick will have an eye on our Instagram account, and Martin will take care of Twitter. Find us there if you want to keep up with what’s happening here.
We also have a few behind-the-scenes films in preparation, from our previous trip to Scotland and England — but with all the traveling we simply haven’t had the time to edit them. But we hope to get a couple more videos out in December, before Christmas.
We are just now returning from our trip to England and Scotland, after conducting a range of amazing interviews for our film — with inspiring people both in Scotland and in England. At the same time, we couldn’t help but notice the ripples of political shockwaves rolling through the United Kingdom. The most obvious one being Brexit, of course, which was incredibly hotly debated right when we were in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The PM Theresa May had just presented the results of her negotiations with the EU in Parliament, and all the media were (and still are) full of the ensuing debate. But on Saturday, I got an even greater shock when I picked up an issue of the Guardian.
The front page article was about a report from the “UN rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights”, Philip Alston. He had completed a two-week mission to Britain, following up earlier indications that the situation of the poor and their numbers in the UK were highly alarming. His current report confirms that the situation is dire — after years of austerity policies. Even worse, according to his reporting, the situation is not just unfortunate or tragic, it is the will of the ruling political establishment in Britain.
14 million people in the UK live in poverty — that is one fifth of the population. 1.5 million are destitute — they do not have the money for basic essentials.
And that is happening in the fifth-largest economy of the world, with record numbers of millionaires and billionaires. The size of the issue is hard to even comprehend.
Here are a few quotes from the article:
The government has inflicted “great misery” on its people with “punitive, mean-spirited and often callous” austerity policies driven by a political desire to undertake social re-engineering rather than economic necessity, the United Nations poverty envoy has found.
In others words: a UN official literally says that the British Government is deliberately cruel to poor people.
… compassion had been abandoned during almost a decade of austerity policies that had been so profound that significant elements of the post-war social contract (…) had been swept away.
In other words, the British Government is ripping apart the fabric that holds society together, by giving more to the rich and not caring at all about the poor.
In [his] report (…), the eminent human rights lawyer said that in the UK, “poverty is a politicial choice”.
And we are talking here of the world’s fifth largest economy!
(…) Alston said that the problems were “obvious to anyone who opens their eyes to see the immense growth in food banks and the queues waiting outside of them, the people sleeping rough in the streets, the growth of homelessness, the sense of deep despair that leads even the government to appoint a minister for suicide prevention and civil society to report in depth on unheard-of levels of loneliness and isolation”.
The British Government has a minister for suicide prevention! And yet they don’t think that there is a problem:
The ministers he met (…) were almost entirely dismissive of criticisms of welfare changes and universal credit, he said. Instead they described critics as political saboteurs, or said they failed to understand how it worked.
Scotland is one of the example countries that our film will speak about. And the local Scottish Government is apparently trying to do what it can to work against the horrible effects of the political decisions coming from London:
(…) authorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland are frantically trying to devise ways to ‘mitigate’, or in other words counteract, at least the worst features of the government’s benefits policy (…)
The way many economists and policy-makers think is not only deeply troubling because it is destroying our planet. It’s also deeply troubling because it is destroying people.
That is why we are making our film about Wellbeing Economies. Because this insanity needs to end, and we want to help tell that story.
This week Nick’s on holiday, next week I’ll be away from my desk for a few days. Once we’re both back, our next trip for the film is coming up. In the middle of November, it’s back to England and Scotland.
It’s always a bit of a haul to get there because, as we’ve described here, we do most of our travelling around Europe with an electric car. So it’s a two-day trip to go one way.
Our first stop will be London, where we have an interview scheduled with a political activist, then we’ll drive on to Northampton, where we’ll do another interview, that one’s with a young academic. Then on up to Glasgow — we’re meeting up with Katherine Trebeck again, to get her latest news, and we’ll also hopefully be able to speak with a couple of people from the Scottish Government, whom we’ve met before already, and with whom we want to catch up quickly before everyone goes to South Korea, for the OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy. Also, Nick’s folks live in Edinburgh, so we’ll see them and get to stay at their place and enjoy their hospitality.
Then it’s back to London, where we’ll meet with someone who will be involved in contributing music and potentially something more to our film … we cannot share details yet, but stay tuned, we’ll hopefully be able to share some specifics later in the month. We’ll also do some video reporting from our trip, of course, that’s what this video blog is for!
