Governance

The World she is a changin'

I just finished writing a journal article on agency, thank the universe (it only took two years), before the start of the new year. In that article, I concluded by defining agency as as "the latent human ability that acts to influence conditions in their environment that they believe are adversely affecting them individually, their community or their broader environment that contributes to the creation of social and ecological capital” (e-Dialogue, 2009).

The Holy Grail--Next Steps

My research/practitioner team just met over the weekend in Kingsburgh, Nova Scotia to discuss what we thought we should be doing over the next year. Kingsburgh is a very beautiful place, an old fishing village about an hour and a half from Halifax, with very reasonable accommodation right on the ocean, a magical part of this country. It exemplifies some of our problems, however, as many of the old fishing homes have been beautifully renovated and there are huge seasonal homes ranging from 2.5 million to 5 million dollars.

The Good Society--Evidence Based Decision-Making

Fundamental to the good society is the ability of elected officials and their civil servants to make decisions and policies grounded on evidence and sound scientific advice. This is also key to ensuring that the power of elites, and vested interests for maintaining the status quo do not dominate the political agenda of the day, and are kept in balance with the democratic principles of social justice, fairness, equity and sustainable development.

The Good Society--Gathering the Evidence

Governance in the good society is grounded in integrated and evidence-based decision-making based on the science and research circulating widely in society. This carbon map is an example of such evidence, as over 95% of the world's scientists now concur that we are indeed changing the climate as a result of human impacts. We need to think carefully about our own perceptions of what our governments say they are doing on our behalf and what decisions are actually being made. Governments are only as accountable as we make them.