Guest post by Chris von Ruhland

Chris von Ruhland is the Green Party’s constituency candidate for Cardiff North and regional list candidate for South Wales Central.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, My Cardiff North.

Will our grandchildren inherit our IKEA furniture?

Probably not.

While it is of moderately good quality, it is unlikely to last that long due to wear and tear or, more likely, being discarded in favour of something newer.

We are constantly bombarded by advertisements that show happy smiling people dancing around their latest acquisition, often in living rooms the size of the ground floor of most people’s houses. The adverts are designed to make us feel inadequate and intimate that our lives will be so much better if we buy the latest sofa, flat screen, or car. It is, of course, a fantasy. But is clearly works, otherwise companies wouldn’t do it.

The pleasure we derive from our latest purchase is transitory, however. The novelty wears off and we find ourselves hankering after something else, because what we have purchased will soon be deemed outdated. But fear not; there is always something else that we can be persuaded to buy.

And so we carry on, working longer hours than we would like, to earn money to buy stuff that doesn’t last, that we don’t really want and certainly don’t need, in the hope that it will satisfy us (it won’t). This is consumerism.

Fun, isn’t it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to do this?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could spend more time with our friends and families, enjoying ourselves and just being human. We could have more time to cultivate our creativity. We could be a lot happier.

Wishful thinking?

Actually no.

What if we designed things to last and be easily repairable? We wouldn’t need to keep replacing them. If we lived healthier lifestyles, we wouldn’t need such a huge and expensive health service. If we were encouraged to use local businesses rather than chain stores and multinationals, money would be more likely to stay in the area rather than being squirreled away in tax havens. If we built houses to be energy positive, like Cardiff University’s Solcer house, we wouldn’t need to spend so much on bills, and people wouldn’t have to choose between eating and heating. If we had a decent public transport system, our roads would be less congested and it would be much safer to cycle, so we wouldn’t need cars so much; many of us might even be able to do without them altogether.

So we wouldn’t need so much money. So we wouldn’t need to work so much. So we’d have more time to spend on things that actually mattered.

And we’d reduce our consumption of the earth’s finite resources.

Because our current lifestyle is wrecking the planet. If everybody on earth lived as we do in Wales, we’d need 2.5 planets. Which we don’t have. So we can’t carry on as we are. Or we can, and leave the consequences for our children and our grandchildren to sort out. And the very poorest people will suffer the consequences of our inaction the most. Not to mention the countless species that will go extinct. The future is very much in our hands.

It’s unreasonable to expect everybody to suddenly change to a more sustainable lifestyle by themselves, even though some do. What is needed is leadership, and there is precious little of this at the moment.

All too often, politicians have to balance the demands of the electorate with limited budgets, all within one term of office. Perhaps it is not surprising that they have little time to give thought to long terms plans. Or perhaps it is. After all, their long term political survival, their desire to see their particular political philosophies realised depend upon them.

But that is what we need; a vision of Wales that goes far beyond the four years to the next election. A vision of Wales in 50 years’ time and beyond. For these are the timescales that we need to think in terms of. Which is why we need Greens in the Senedd. A central theme of green philosophy is to live in such a way that does not compromise future generations; to leave the planet in at least as good a state, if not better than we received it. We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our descendants.

So when you come to vote in the elections on the 5th of May, I’d like you to ask yourselves the following question: what sort of world do you want your children and grandchildren to inherit?

By Chris von Ruhland

twitter.com/chrisvonruhland

Guest post by Chris von Ruhland

Chris von Ruhland is the Green Party’s constituency candidate for Cardiff North and regional list candidate for South Wales Central.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, My Cardiff North.

The NHS in Wales is at crisis point

Working conditions for many health workers are becoming intolerable. Clinicians are leaving to escape the ‘overwhelming bureaucracy, paperwork and rationing of healthcare’; numbers leaving the profession are approaching those that are newly trained. Nursing staff skip breaks, work late and feel unable to deliver the care they would like. Nearly a quarter are looking to leave healthcare altogether, and fewer than half would recommend it as a career.

Coupled with this, over 50% of adults in Wales are overweight or obese, and the number of people with diabetes is expected to reach 300,000 in less than 10 years. Within 15 years, the number of people aged 75 or over will have increased by 76 per cent, and older people are more likely to have at least one chronic condition, such as diabetes, dementia or arthritis, and have more as their age increases. Moreover, problems associated with mental ill health are increasing, and there is still a considerable stigma attached to mental illness; self harm remains a significant problem in Wales. In addition, Wales has some of the poorest areas in Europe; inequality in wealth matches inequality in health, and inequality in Wales is widening. There is an increasing gap in the incidence and survival rates for cancer between the richest and poorest areas. Here in Cardiff there is already a 10 year difference in life expectancy between those living in the Cyncoed and those people living in Butetown.

More money is clearly needed to meet not only existing costs, but those that are anticipated as a consequence of increased lifespan, as well as those that arise due to improvements in technology and our understanding of disease, even though these lead to better detection and treatment. With a £1.5bn cut in Welsh Assembly funding from Westminster, the Welsh NHS will be put under even greater strain. Since Wales receives a block grant from Westminster, increasing funding for the NHS will mean less money for other areas of responsibility such as education, transport, housing and the environment.

The simple solution is for everybody to pay more taxes, since a good quality public healthcare system is a hallmark of a civilised society. I have no objection to paying more taxes, indeed I’d be happy to do so if I was assured that wealthy individuals and corporations were doing likewise, rather than hiding their money away in tax havens. But simply treating ill health is not a long term solution.

Greens in the Senedd would much place greater emphasis on promoting health and wellbeing, and the prevention of disease. We believe that Wales should adopt Health 2020, the new European health policy framework which sets out a vision:

 “to significantly improve the health and well-being of populations, reduce health inequalities, strengthen public health and ensure sustainable people- centred health systems that are universal, equitable, sustainable and of high quality.”

We need to plan our towns and cities to be healthier places to live, which encourage walking and cycling and, together with an integrated public transport system, reduce our dependence on cars and make our streets safer for children to play. We need to discourage out-of-town developments and retail parks in favour of easily accessible shops and services; these in turn support local economies, employ more people and strengthen communities. We need to provide people with the means to improve their own health. To its credit, the Welsh Assembly introduced a National Exercise Referral Scheme, but this was applied to people who already suffered from ill health. Regular health check-ups might be a better way of improving our health. We are already used to the idea of visiting our dentist once or twice a year to have our teeth checked; why not do the same for the rest of our bodies? Simple metrics like blood pressure, weight and diet would allow trends in our health to be identified early so that advice and help could be given before we end up in hospital. While the initial set-up cost might be high, it would be more than compensated by the long term benefits to people and society.

While the government in Westminster is perpetrating an ideologically driven attack on the poorest, the disabled and those most in need of help, here in Wales, we can do things differently. We can focus our attention on addressing the health and social inequalities by helping those in need, not those in greed. But first we need to shake up the Senedd.

By Chris von Ruhland

twitter.com/chrisvonruhland