Tessa Ransford

What did you find most encouraging?
I feel encouraged that the message about the dangers to the planet has been taken up in a way that seemed impossible in 2000 and, even if action to remedy the situation is limited, there have been some improvements in eg recycling, insulation and thinking about renewal energy systems. Economics itself will eventually force change in our modus vivendi from reliance on cars, tankers, aeroplanes and an oil-reliant life-style.
     However the time-lag between the message and its take-up needs to be far, far swifter. The recent Copenhagen debacle is surely indicative both of the need to do something and the difficulty of making decisions under our present international political-economic systems.

What did you find most discouraging?
A frightening lack of sheer awareness and knowledge of the past, of history and literature, means that a new generation is forced to learn from square one. Rather than building on and renewing worthwhile traditions, it is modelling itself on reality television programmes. However this means that it is also learning to use the new communications technology, and that news and views can circulate rapidly world-wide. This can be of benefit. It certainly brought mass protests onto the streets against the Iraq war, for climate change and for political change in some countries.
     Most discouraging is the ability of a handful of fairly incompetent people in charge of the world to ignore the will and wisdom of millions, in order to continue the manufacture of wars in order to keep up their profits from the sale of weapons and armaments and systems of destruction. The proliferation of the arms trade is the most discouraging aspect of the last decade, equivalent to the slave trade in its immorality and global prevalence.

Which public figure did you most admire?
In view of all this, I would nominate Alastair McIntosh as my person to be admired in the first decade in Scotland. He has consistently worked on the inward and outward aspects of the future of communities and of the planet. He has done this through the Centre for Human Ecology and its masters course, which has itself struggled to survive. He has also worked in Govan to teach hope and skills to those who have none. He has never shirked from patiently continuing to communicate, teach and learn with young people from all over the world, with Scotland's academic community, with religious and economic leaders and by writing and publishing, this despite becoming fairly seriously deaf and enduring a personal sorrow.

Which public figure did you least admire?
The person I most deplore in this respect is not so much silly, vain, Tony Blair, but the man who undoubtedly knew better and did nothing, who complied with the money-men and the armaments firms, who malevolently works against the struggles for renewal in his own country, Scotland, and is even now betraying himself and the future of us all in these islands, someone I once admired and trusted: Gordon Brown.