Epilogue

The real me is a professor of sustainable business. Just in case my university takes this act of love the wrong way, I’ll not be specific about which one. It’s a matter of public record, but it’s irrelevant. We’re all part of the same system and subject to the same pressures.

I love my university. On job satisfaction scores, I give them a full five out of five. Yes, you do provide ‘supportive work environments’ and I can see you’re trying when it comes to sustainability and yes, I’m sucking up, because I’m nervous. My partner warned me against writing this. ‘Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,’ he cautioned. ‘What if you’re sued or trolled, or sacked?’ What he doesn’t realise is that when you’re scared about climate change, everything else pales into insignificance. My thinking is, even if all of that happens, it’s not as scary as the extinction of humanity.

So, I haven’t censored myself. But, like many academics, I suffer from imposter syndrome. A good academic is supposed to focus, but I’ve gone wide, rather than deep. My first degree was in politics with economics, and later I did an Open University Science Foundation course. I worked for a social enterprise, a medium-sized business, a multinational corporation, and then self-employed. I became a working mother, then a single mother on benefit. Wagging fingers helped me to realise I was the cause of the degeneration of modern youth, and responsible for rising crime, the balance of payments deficit, for cutbacks, for the extinction of the red squirrel and for wasps 

My mental health remained sound and I returned to university to do a PhD in psychology. I ended up by accident in the Business School and given the job of teaching business ethics and sustainability because I’d nagged them about recycling bins. So yes, perhaps I’m a bad academic, but who better to have an aerial view of how all the bits of the jigsaw fit together?

It’s a big question. What do we do when our systems are leading us to extinction? It’s hard to see how to get from where we are now to where we need to be – every bit of the jigsaw needs to be part of a new picture. But we don’t have to know everything. All we need to know is the next step and to take it. And just keep going in a different direction. I’ve suggested some of those steps – the big ones – the ones it’s hard for politicians to talk about.

And why the citizen’s jury? Because our political parties are like divorced parents offering sweeties to get their children to like them best. But I don’t want to be the book equivalent of broccoli (substitute your most hated healthy food as appropriate), but rather pizza on a crispy base with lots of toppings. So, if you liked it, please share your opinion on the ideas and tell others about the book, and rate me with lots of stars!