An environmental crisis and nobody has the answers - Or why ideology still matters.

The word ideology has unfortunate connotations, but in a world with only a free-market ideology, the lack of alternatives leaves societies directionless.

In public life there are an increasing number of signs that acceptance of an approaching crisis is reaching a tipping point. Alarm over climate change, overpopulation, and peak oil are converging to threaten a maelstrom of Katrina-like hurricanes and financial meltdowns that erodes peoples joy of raising children and planning for retirement. This is the same urgency that imposes itself when a sailor looks up from re-painting the deck to see a line of dark clouds approaching. Without repeating the arguments, and by just simply assuming that this crisis is already taking place, how can effort and innovation be harnessed to shift course?

Why the alarm? Concepts such as climate change, overpopulation, and peak oil are 'significant' concepts - they have consequences. These are consequences that can be imagined through simple cause and effect reasoning from which they draw their power in the popular imagination. Clearly, peak oil must lead to less oil supply and increased fuel prices. That will have consequences, for instance, such as increased transportation costs for people and consumer goods which will lead to economic change and uncertainty. What is harder to imagine is the future contexts of these effects on personal lives and social institutions. Without any certainty of how peak oil, new technologies and other political priorities will coalesce, these imagined futures loose traction and slip into the too hard basket. That is why dialog is such so powerful for filling in the blanks in a way that adds meaning and understanding. Dialog achieves this by sharing knowledge and resolving doubt in a way that just one way communication cannot achieve.

Towards a 21^st century ideology

As diverse as societies and ecosystems are, so are the fruitful directions that can be explored. It is a discussion that is already in full swing and is only held back by a lack of confidence in choosing priorities. To animate such a discussion needs effective ways of thinking together and equally effective ways to apply that in everyday contexts. That means developing shared language and principles that will form frameworks for dialogue and action. Call these political party lines, philosophical attitudes or common sense reasoning, or simply a post-socialist and post-capitalist ideology.

Ideologies come in different flavours. In past times when limited knowledge of the worlds and crude political systems limited open thinking, before internet and television provided alternative perspectives, political ideologies became templates that were imposed by the few that had access to public platforms and communication. In modern, open societies, ideology is the structure of accepted truths that channel politics and media. Ideology in this sense refers to shared attitudes and common understanding.

This openness has made a vast array of ideas and values accessible, from Eastern holism to Northern technologies, and from Western individualism to Southern resourcefulness. And as globalising effects have cross-fertilised cultures and economies from different ends of the world, the room for finding new common ground has also widened. A post-capitalist ideology or rather, a diversity of new post-industrial ideologies can create that space. But what are such ideological frameworks that are relevant to the lives and hopes of people living in a common society?

Cultivating a collective imagination

A 21st century ideology has to validate beliefs and identities of the people it is trying to engage with. Without becoming a homogenizing equalizer, it has to have understandable meaning that different lived experiences and learned knowledge can relate to. It also has to offer credible explanations and convincing guideposts to dissimilar communities of place or interest.

One example is the sustainable towns network who have evolved the notion of community resilience as an organising principle. In the language of these practitioners, it connects the mechanisms of diversity, modularity, adaptability, "tight feedbacks", complexity and self-organisation, with the social characteristics of self-reliance, self-sufficiency and locally-based. This is simply an example of how one movement has grown around a shared set of ideas that have been able to become relevant in the towns and cities that have been drawn into the network.

If the common attitudes and understanding of this network of disparate communities should be called an ideology, then that needs to recognise the history of ideas and experiments, of discussion and debate that are integral to any social response to shared problems and opportunity. Without any central leadership, the success of such a movement to develop a meaningful ideology must lie with a capacity for open dialog. Intelligent debate is not only necessary to validate ideas for change but also to build the commitment to adapt to changes. A collective imagination is a prerequisite to agree on a shared vision and ideology, to maintain direction in a directionless world. The alternative is a return to extremism and autocracy.

Dialog, principles and social realities

As grave as an environmental crisis may appear, the world is full of many other imperatives. Health, children, equality, and heritage are just some examples that represent values not to be neglected.

The scale of the environmental issues have pushed them out of reach of most people, leaving only traces of guilt for not having changed the light bulbs yet. Do-your-bit has little meaning until ownership of problems and solutions can come home. But ar home there are many more mundane problems to resolve. Food and income are a much more practical concern than saving the planet.

In practice, no issue is separable of the many other issues already present in homes and communities. Struggles over privileges, resources and rights have been unresolved for centuries. Conflict between communities and within society set the background for any new change initiative. In any group of people, and more so in communities and societies, there are many issues that have polarised opinions and alliances.

This political background has shaped the way societies are structured, and critically, how people have organised themselves. It unites communities against outsiders and nurtures a latent suspicion of any authority. Social change has to take place in this landscape and therefore must not only capture minds and hearts, but also political agendas and organised groups. As long as issues remain disconnected from the wider social context, disregard for lived realities and competing priorities is inevitable.

A closer examination of the sustainable towns movement will surely find that the values its ideology has embraced are compatible with the ideals that any town or community will want to aspire to. Adopting sustainable practices framed in such way requires no denial of cherished values and lived experience, but gives new energy to dreams of the good life.

What would be organising principles that could engage with other, existing communities of interest? Principles that could become the foundation of an ideological framework that could draw on the many ideas and examples already in circulation? Dialog is necessary to construct this shared understanding necessary.