On 21 January 2024 I interviewed Natalie Bennett, Green Peer and former leader of the Green Party. We discussed her motivations and concerns, with a focus on the environment, politics and education based on questions raised by my fellow students, my teachers and myself.
Bennett came into politics on 1 January 2006. She told me that her first politics was feminism, and she thought “I’ll go straight to where they make the decisions, to make the most impact”. This stood out to me and reminded me of the famous phrase ‘If you want something done do it yourself’. We can see this reflected up and down the country: people doing it themselves and working towards a more environmentally friendly world.
What advice would you give to young people who are interested in politics, women especially?
“Don’t do things alone. Woman especially, do things together, it’s stronger. Help each other out.”
I like this thought – people are stronger together especially women banding together in a male dominated workplace. As of December 2022, women made up only about 29% of the peers in the House of Lords, and 35% of the members of the House of Commons, which in both cases is an astonishing discrepancy.
For schools, how would you go about making them a greener place whilst still giving students the right education?
“It’s not the school’s fault, but there is a definite lack in education. People will not care about things they don’t love. So, you must help students find that love. Encourage schools to do more hands-on things like planting vegetables, and getting kids involved with learning about nature.”
Lack of funding in state schools means they simply don’t have enough money, which affects students’ learning. Practical skills like planting veg and doing taxes help pupils bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood, and potentially require few qualifications to teach. Art and drama in some schools are being pushed aside for more science-based STEM, but without art or the freedom to express things creatively our society would not progress; art, like science, captures the curiosity of the mind.
What do you feel is the most important global disaster at the moment?
“A female historian I heard speaking many years ago said ‘we won one thing and then we moved on to the next, it was continual progress’. I realised it’s not like that now – we have to keep fighting the same battles again and again. It takes so much more energy; we have got to look at systematic change.”
To me it is like the fight of trying to keep the house tidy. You must always keep picking things up off the floor, or it will be full of clutter, and similarly we must constantly fight for the wellbeing of our planet. “Australia has been one of the absolute slow coaches for climate action, having quite recently had a politician brandishing a lump of coal in parliament and saying this is a brilliant thing. But all around the world, it’s poorer people with less resources who will suffer most. People with better resources and more social capital will find a way.”
In contrast, newly emerging or underdeveloped economies won’t have the funding to protect themselves from the climate emergency without having to call for aid, which can leave them in debt, which means funding cannot go into improving their own infrastructure.
“There is nowhere in the world that is secure or safe for everybody. Jumping on a life raft and sailing away is going to have a very uncertain outcome.” Bennett’s earlier comment about “help each other out” also applies here: we must work together and put aside our differences to make sure we all thrive. We cannot solve all our problems overnight and sadly I do not believe we will solve all of them either. But it does not and should not stop people from trying to make the world a safer place, in all aspects of life. Like the recent COP28 countries have met and discussed ways to reduce emissions.
Does veganism affect the balance of the natural ecosystem just like the over farming of animals?
“The amount of milk and meat we produce is grossly unsustainable and we have to stop factory farming, which would by definition massively reduce the amount of meat consumption. That is my focus.
“Discussing it in the House of Lords last week, it wasn’t just me raising it. If we stop all factory farming it would decrease meat consumption […] what we need is that system change”.
Restructuring the system would allow people to be offered a wider range of food options which aren’t just over-farmed meats, and the more options the more chance people will like it. At the moment in the UK over 70% of animal farms are factory farms according to World Animal UK and Compassion in World Farming, and 1,000 are US style Mega-farms, which is appalling.
“We need to make the most green and environmental thing we can do, also the cheapest and easiest thing we can do, so that that’s naturally what people will do.”
Bennett references the pollution factory farming creates and mentions the River Wye, where over 70% of its pollution comes from local agriculture. Also, most factory farming creates food waste. “Most of what is fed to those animals would be perfectly good human food, and it only produces a small amount of animal protein.” So, why go through the extra process?
I asked her whether it would better to go back to small-scale farming, for example everyone who has the space keeps their own animals. “We have a broken food system. In the UK more than 60% of our calories come from ultra processed foods… We have to get away from this and go back to eating vegetables, fruits, and grains.”
We spoke about the importance of local produce and that “if your village or city was surrounded by market gardens that is where you would get most of what is sitting on your plate, local produce”. In turn locally grown produce cuts down on air and traffic miles, it would be cheaper but seasonal, and having less processed food means we would be living a healthier and cheaper lifestyle.
Could there be something that the government or the local council could do to sustain or reintroduce markets?
“Take for example here in Sheffield, there’s been coverage recently that the market is struggling, but of course it’s open between 8am and 4pm on weekdays and on Saturdays, so for lots of people who work long hours, the markets are not open when they are able to shop. You could do lots of creative things like box schemes, having veg and fruit delivered once a week. But that requires systems that aren’t just centred on half a dozen big supermarkets […] Very often a company will look at produce and pick out what they want leaving the farmer with a field of veg with no market for it. There is massive amounts of food waste.”
Some supermarkets class food that they wouldn’t normally sell as ‘wonky’ – it tastes the same, it is the same, but just looks different so can’t be sold at a normal price or stocked with the rest of the produce. If we encourage big brand shops to sell local produce, it may be more expensive because it’s coming from a small farm but in the long run it will cut down on transportation costs. “Well at the moment they’re operating entirely on the economics of their profits.”
I work part time at a shop locally and every shift I constantly think to myself about the sheer quantity of plastic that wraps veg. Why is it so much?
“A few years ago I went into Lidl and did a rough price comparison and the veg wrapped in plastic was double the price of the loose stuff. And there’s a reason for that. They want to make people buy more. You have to buy the three-pack of peppers although you only want one. It’s much easier to handle this way, you don’t have to be an expert. It’s like a packet of biscuits or something. Whereas loose fruit or veg, you need someone who knows how to handle it, how to pick through it. There is more labour involved than if they were just wrapped in plastic. This is why we see plastic packaging that suits the company’s convenience. But it just encourages waste […] and the council pays to dispose of the waste that the companies force on us.”
Make the change
“It suits the company’s convenience” This is something we see more and more of, but it doesn’t have to be like this. We have to take the leap into more sustainable ways of producing and selling produce. From Box schemes to the local market there are many places that could provide jobs for all ages.
I very much enjoyed hearing Natalie’s thoughts and opinions in this interview and hope it will be enlightening for readers too. Talk to one another about what you believe would make the best positive impact for the future. Take that step in making a change. It doesn’t work unless we all put something into it.
