UK citizens are invited to submit their opinion regarding a Green Paper that suggests big changes to our public media channels e.g. BBC, Channel4. The Jewish Voice for Liberation published an article discussing the potential dangers in this idea. The JVL article is full of excellent evidence of the failures of the UK public media to report news events accurately, especially concerning the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israel.
The deadline for public comment is the end of August 2026. This article shares the response made in the name of my publishing company Poems For Parliament. By submitting my response as an organisation I was able to waive the need for anonymity. If you wish to comment yourself on the Green Paper, please go to this document, scroll down to where it says respond online, and then click. Below is my letter to watchthisspace@dcms.gov.uk .
Poems for Parliament — letter to Ian Murray, Minister for Culture, Media and Sport
26 August 2026
Dear Ian Murray
Response to Watch this Space: a new strategic direction for UK media
I am responding in the name of the publishing house Poems for Parliament. We share all the concerns expressed in the letter dated 12 August 2026 from CAMPAIN Ltd and shared publicly in this JVL article. This publishing house focuses on lobbying the UK government to recognise the ecocidal qualities of growth economics. It was established in 2020 and delivered a booklet of poems to every MP in September 2020. The recommendations in that booklet are still appropriate in 2026 and they form the basis of the response from Poems for Parliament to the ‘Watch this Space’ Green Paper.
In order to set a worthy example at the climate COP we need the following:
Raise Awareness — An awareness campaign equivalent to that achieved for the COVID emergency. Advising UK citizens that climate and ecological collapse is now underway. Advising them that in order to mitigate the long-term impact it is not wise to try to maintain all aspects of the way of life that the UK have enjoyed in recent decades. The ecological cost of that life-style was never sustainable.
Emergency Government – Create a cross-party emergency government. This will ensure that the responsibility for the difficult decisions that need to be taken are shared. It will also send a powerful message to other world leaders, that we regard the Climate and Environmental breakdown as both real and urgent.
Ecological Objectives — Make the UK the first country to rewrite its objectives from the perspective of an ecological budget rather than a financial one.
Embrace Degrowth — Make the UK the first country to actively seek Degrowth as part of its emergency damage limitation exercise with regard to the ongoing and rapidly accelerating Climate and Ecological collapse.
Public information is key to achieving these recommendations, but instead it is being used to protect and perpetuate ongoing ecocidal social patterns.
Overall response
The Green paper explicitly states ‘driving growth and inward investment’ as one of its aims. Driving GDP growth is very unwise during escalating ecosystems collapse. For humanity to survive the Sixth Mass Extinction we need to shrink both global GDP and population to a third of current levels. This draft research paper about the cultural causes of climate change links to the relevant research. The paper weaves together psychology, geopolitics, environmental science, economics, philosophy and demography into a single, cohesive framework that might help to steer humanity into a wiser direction. The role of public media is key in achieving the awareness and emotional resilience required for the profound behavioural changes that are needed to soften the unfolding ecological collapse.
Media Spending Power Issues
The media is experiencing spending power issues because of growing wealth inequality and the fact that public assets have migrated into private hands over recent decades. This arises from the fact that there is no cap on personal wealth, and no mechanisms for ensuring that wealth is evenly distributed.
We rely on a model of coercive consumerism to fuel GDP growth. This strategy incurs a high ecological cost. We are in an escalating global ecological crisis and a growing wealth inequality crisis. These phenomena are closely inter-related. We would be wise to introduce a wealth cap at around ten million USD; see Ingrid Robeyns book Limitarianism for the ethical justification. A wealth cap would facilitate a national rationing scheme that ensures basic provisions for everyone whilst we work out how to downsize back within the carrying capacity of the UK whilst hopefully maintaining our sense of humour. Artistic skills and any storytelling that addresses these harsh realities imaginatively will help to build communal and emotional resilience.
Trustworthy Sources
The designers of the online questionnaire will have preconceived ideas about ‘trustworthy’ sources. Any source that challenges their cultural norms will likely be regarded as ‘untrustworthy’. Therefore, all this part of the online survey becomes irrelevant once we accept the need for profound behavioural changes because of ecosystems collapse.
For evidence of ecosystems collapse please refer to the following:
- IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services 2019
- State on Nature Report 2023
- WWF — Living Planet Report 2024
- UK Nature security assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security 2026
- Scientists Warning to Humanity 2026
Questions about Media Literacy
Right now, the UK government is resisting the need for socio-economic transition towards economic Degrowth. Therefore, all the changes in the Green Paper are intended to defend business-as-usual. If the Green Paper was intended to drive the emotional evolution towards maximum mitigation from climate breakdown and ecosystems collapse then the survey would have had a very different framing. However, that is clearly not the case. Instead, the outcome might become tool to perpetuate the misleading belief that growth economics and growing wealth inequality are not driving ecosystems collapse. These dangers are described in detail in the JVL article that included the response from CAMPAIN Ltd.
Timeframe
The suggested time frame extends way beyond the escalating ecosystems crisis. This demostrates the total failure of the UK government to acknowledge the speed and scale of the unfolding ecosystem collapse. Parents are still pestering for grandchildren whilst the chances of humans surviving this century are diminishing daily. Recent research estimates a sustainable global population would be less than one third of current levels. The UK itself is in population overshoot to a similar extent. Any debate about immigration will regress into racist overtones if the reality of population overshoot is not acknowleged. A voluntary birth pause would be the wisest recommendation whilst we reorient our priorities.
The ecosystems collapse is accelerating rapidly. It needs addressing now. During the timescale discussed in this Green Paper we shall see the end of the stable ecosystems that we have known in recent decades.
Poems For Parliament — Commitment to delivering the Education needed for Eco-equity and Degrowth
If the UK government was to aspire to lead the world in shrinking the wealth hierarchy back within the biophysical limits of Earth, then the work by Poems for Parliament can help with this profound change. The public media could lead a citizen-wide assembly to discuss the ecological emergency publicly and explain the need for a wealth cap and to enable everyone to vote on an acceptable level. In the same way a public debate about the eco-cost of modern healthcare could be delivered. An eco-aware healthcare system would include a cap on the eco-cost of healthcare for any individual.
Universities might choose to put a hold on traditional formats for study, whilst a collective envisioning exercise is hosted by public media. All these ideas are described more fully in the paper: Global Imperatives — A call for Leadership from the UK which envisions a UK transitioning to a fair and sustainable economic model.
Environmental Impacts
The opportunity to soften the escalating ecosystems collapse may already be in the past. It is impossible to know what humanity could achieve if they choose profound behavioural changes to mitigate the ecosystems collapse. This is not on any political agenda as yet. We are engineering our own extinction with enthusiasm, in this brief video, George Tsakraklides describes the biological mechanism that is in operation.
Numerous economists like Gary Stevenson , Hans Stegeman Yanis Varoufakis , and Prof. Steve Keen are monitoring the unfolding financial collapse. The public media allows the mainstream economists to continue to deceive themselves and their audience.
To what Extent does the Media need Reform?
It is the GDP growth mindset and tacit acceptance of extreme wealth inequality that needs to be reformed before any improvement in the media content can be achieved. Our modern-day society does nothing to address birth inequity. The wealth hierarchy that exists today is not legitimate. The UK government is doing nothing to challenge this. They continue to employ the public media to perpetuate this inequity and the white supremacy which is embedded in UK and global history.
All our wealth is built on our extractive behaviours towards our colonies and towards Earth’s ecosystems. We need to engage in reparation towards the ethnic groups that lost some, if not all, of their identity as part of the ‘white supremacy’ model. The UK government could begin with a public apology and an acknowledgement that what we did was unjust. They could also apologise to every climate activist and every pro-Palestine activist and release any who are imprisoned.
The Underlying Principles for Public Media
In escalating global ecosystems collapse any public media needs to be designed to facilitate the survival of the majority of its citizens with a minimal further impact on Earth’s ecosystems. This crucial aspect of our future does not feature at all in this Green Paper. There is an underlying assumption that business-as-usual will still be operational a decade into the future. This is not a feasible scenario in escalating ecosystems collapse.
Yours Sincerely
Barbara Williams FSI (Fellow of the Schumacher Institute)
Founder Poems for Parliament