The Spanish Opportunity

So.. youth unemployment is high in Spain. Everyone's afraid.

But surely this is a grand opportunity for a renaissance in Europe? Perhaps planting trees, greening the desert.

What isn't needed: millions more tertiary industry employees. Service sector - pen-pushers, or people trying to sell mobile phones, cases, gadgets in shopping centres. There are enough of those, and most of the senior job positions are being held on to by the baby boomers who can't afford to retire due to not saving.

Ok, fine. So the answer isn't more of the same - hurrah! Not more concrete, more commercial, more lives wasted.

I really love Ursula K LeGuin's book "The Disposessed". In one half of it, people are in a perhaps over-communist society - but it works, mostly. When there are emergencies, the people are mobilised to work, for the good of society.

How can the Spanish unemployed be motivated, sustained and utilised?

Or a slightly different question - how can those people be brought together as brothers and sisters in the same manner as during a time of war, but without the actual war?

By best idea would be tree planting. Individual gardening. Self-sufficiency in huge numbers.

Starting something from within - not demonstrating against the government, the lack of money, the austerity. But finding their own solutions, making something wonderful for themselves.

How to get the ball rolling, though, is what I don't know.

There is a huge opportunity there, I can just taste it, almost feel it. It's called meaningful work. Fixing up our despoiled planet, with the resources we have.

What a resource! A whole generation!