The Ministry Of The Imagination
Policy ideas from a government department that doesn't (yet) exist
Last year, I was asked what I’d do if I ran the world
I got invited on Rob Hopkins’ wonderful From What If to What’s Next podcast to talk about how the advertising industry might help with the climate transition, rather than simply being part of the problem - along with Lisa Merrick Lawless from Purpose Disruptors.
Rob invites people - including Brian Eno, Kate ‘Doughnut Economics’ Raworth, Paul ‘Drawdown’ Hawken, Ekow ‘In The Black Fantastic’ Ekun, Rutgar ‘Humankind’ Bregman and a range of other thinkers so impressive I’m embarrassed to suffer comparison with them - to act as Ministers Of The Imagination, and pitch their ideas to create a better world.
I offered two ideas:
Put Up or Shut Up - Regulating climate communication and claims from companies to restore trust and close the gap between behaviour and dialogue. In short, make it much harder for companies to hand wave and claim they’re doing something, and get concrete about targets, goals, commitments, and delivery.
The Attention Tax - ask companies that command a large share of public attention - especially those who don’t pay their fair share of taxes in line with their profits - to devote a percentage of their media space to climate positive messaging, services and products.
When I offered them, I thought they seemed ambitious. Now, having seen some of the other policy ideas in Rob’s full ‘Ministry for The Imagination’ manifesto, I worry I erred on the conservative side. On offer are ideas about the 4-day work week, rooftop usage, carbon coins, an AI Bill of Rights, education, and recommitting to space travel to remind us of the smallness and fragility of our planet.
Some of these ideas are brilliant, some are ludicrous, many are both. I don’t agree with all of them, and some of the ones that I do find appealing seem so far outside the current state of things that they might seem inoperable.
But any idea that’s big enough will often seem ridiculous, and ‘there is no alternative’ is often the chant of people with little incentive to change things when the current world is serving them well.
In an election year during a crucial decade for the planet, where many candidates and parties will be serving the same reheated thin gruel masquerading as radicalism, this is a smorgasbord of rich ideas on which to feast.
Rob has now compiled them into a manifesto, and released it publicly here. It makes for a companion piece to the excellent thinking that
is doing over at The Elysian and in her community salons.Have a read, dine well, and let me know your thoughts.