Here and now: what kind of policies do we want?

Climate change is here, is now, and it’s not that shy. If floodings all over paired with temperature above 20 degrees with less than a month to go before Christmas are not big enough signals (let’s not forget summer fires and last year’s storms that destroyed many forests), then I don’t know what it will be. 
Scientists have been saying for a long time that the trends are exponential, logarithmic. This means the curve rises faster and faster as time goes on. Sounds scary, but are we scared enough ? 

There have been many discussions about how to communicate about climate change, with many, including me, advocating for soft solutions. Well, I changed my mind - we should be terrified and communication should in its entirety reflect that. Why hiding our heads in the sand ? It’s easier for older generations to talk and talk, they have always lived a certain way perhaps and think they can continue without much damage. They can take another flight for a short trip because they ‘offset carbon with the rest of their lifestyle’ and yet in the rest of the lifestyle continue to feed the big industry by consuming, buying unnecessary things and thinking that as long as it goes in the recycling bin it’s okay.. 
well. I think it’s time to shift the narrative. But it’s becoming clear to me that this cannot be done by the citizens alone. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s good that everyone plays its part in the game and becomes conscious but it’s not enough.

We not only lack the necessary tools but also in these situations we are like sheep who need a very good border collie to guide them. This said the border collie in itself needs some proper training to guide all of the sheep in the right direction. Imagine the disaster if it was a young one running around spreading madness.... I hope to have painted a good picture getting to  the main point of this post : we NEED good politics. 

I think that is essential to shift the politics focus towards green actions. The climate should be on all electoral programmes as one of the top priorities, and green-type parties should be making a come back, and get near the top!

But of course, it's not enough to be seemingly 'green'. I think it's not enough to say that some policies will be implemented, but these should be defined in their operational terms and be based on a solid baseline. So what do I think good environmental policies should  be based upon? 

1. Be objective. This means that it should be driven by scientific expertise, which have no conflicts of interest and operate with transparency (all raw data open, as they are collected - no hiding, no changing). This should undergo periodic reviews, from panel of externals which should be always formed by new people to avoid corruption patterns forming. 
2. Consider the problem in all of its entirety- same as with the sustainable development goals, that should be considered together and not in isolation,  all solutions to global change should be focused on the natural environment but not forget about the social and economic environment. But I would like to say that I still think we should be forgetting about ‘economy as we know it’ - and find novel solutions.
3. Be creative, inventive, novel. In better words - it should challenge the current state of affairs.
4. Be managed and enforced on a global scale. This point is important because often we think of politics about country based (and even undervalue the power that eu -wide politics could have - yet there is a parliament). This means that actions points and priority focuses should be decided amongst all countries and enforced on a scale above simple governments. A global institution might be needed and given the power to enforce the rules - but again, ideally, this process and their decisions should be transparent. 

What do you think? Do you have anything to add to the list? Let me know below!