The agoras in our midst
What is the role of arts and cultural organizations in society? What can they do to engage communities and bring people together? What can they do to promote social justice and encourage action on climate change? What role can they play in building more compassionate and caring communities, and in inspiring volunteering and other civic participation?
Values work begins in a ‘big’ way at Manchester Museum
You may have seen in our previous blog post that Common Cause Foundation are working at Manchester Museum on a programme of work to explore how the museum can convey a deeper appreciation of the values that most people in Greater Manchester share. I’m pleased to say that last month we kicked off our work in a ‘big’ way with a Big Saturday at Manchester Museum!
Values and the outdoors
Inspired by the adventurous spirit of the Scottish naturalist who once tied himself to the top of a tree in a hurricane to experience the exhilaration of nature, the John Muir Award offers participants the opportunity to explore wild places and take an active role in conservation. In October, leaders who deliver the award, including teachers, […]
Do we have time to shift values?
“Do we have time to shift values?” This is a question that is often asked when people respond to Common Cause. Clearly, we don’t have long to bring down greenhouse carbon dioxide emissions very markedly before we hit devastating levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – with profound, effectively irreversible, effects upon our climate. […]
What about people for whom extrinsic values are particularly important?
A great deal of the research that we have brought together on this site points to the advantages, on aggregate, of appealing to intrinsic values in communicating to people about social and environmental problems – and the potential costs of appealing to extrinsic values. But, of course, people aren’t all the same, and it may be […]
Talks on carbon emissions not enough: governments must lead a shift in values, says new report
The 56-page report is being launched to coincide with soul-searching in the aftermath of the Durban Climate Change Conference. It addresses the crucial question: how can governments work to create greater political space for proportional responses to environmental problems? Supported by WWF-UK and Oxfam, the report argues that past and present political objectives have not […]
Opening the ethical debates in advertising
We’ve suggested elsewhere that there are two broad categories of response to Common Cause. The first is to focus on the implications for the campaigns and communications that we are already producing: how might we campaign on biodiversity conservation, or disability rights, or cancer research, while simultaneously helping to strengthen those values upon which systemic […]
Don’t mind the gap between values and action
Professor Greg Maio of Cardiff University has written a short and helpful briefing on the value-action gap. He concludes: The upshot of all this is that, in working to tackle environmental and social problems, we overlook the importance of values at our peril. It is true that we may be able to overlook values in […]