Mary-Jayne response…

Mark, you say: “But when presented with a choice of hard work and sustainable simplicity, or resource-hungry luxury, I fear that human beings of all cultures and backgrounds are programmed to go, in their bulk, for the easier option. Whether Amazonian tribesman or newly-comfortable middle-class Chinese or Indian.” Yes, most people make that choice, but […]

Hutongs and Lovelock – a response to MJ

My point on the Hutongs, Mary-Jayne (and see left for a 2007 view of the old simple-but-communal Beijing making way for the much-less-attractive new), was that most people in China and around the world would choose, rightly or wrongly, and whether to later regret or pleasure, to go for the neat, energy-consuming, marbled-floored suburban house […]

OK – so maybe there IS more to say. A response from Mary-Jayne

OK – I said I was going to take a break from blogging on climate change, but Mary-Jayne Rust has come back with some important comments which deserve an airing and a compassionate response. No pictures on this one, but I’ll think of something for the response above… Mary-Jayne writes: You compare the two living […]

Going Quiet for a While

With James Lovelock warning us in his avuncular way at age 90 this week that mankind is going to be reduced to one billion or so souls by the end of THIS century (and I am, as you know, convinced he is right), it’s time, I think, to call a halt for a while to […]

Reflections on Tree’s Reflections

The hoar frost in this picture isn’t in fact from this last bout of cold weather, but from last autumn – a layer of beauty on the top, would you believe it, of a car outside our house in Cirencester, caught in the morning light. What magnificence there is in nature in the smallest things… […]

Dreams and Reflections

In talking to non psychotherapists about climate change and what we may have to offer, I find myself thinking about the ‘one foot in one foot out’ dance well known to psychotherapists in practice. This building of a witness position averts the flip-flop from denial to apathy/despair. But what we touched on in our talk […]

Drought in China, and Understanding Timescales

In the background, with that response to Mary-Jayne now posted below, there have needless to say been some further interesting developments in recent days on the climate change front – with a view to the left of cooling steam I captured rising at dawn from a nuclear power station in Lyon, France. First, this morning, […]

If we’re doomed, then what do we do?

Mary-Jayne, in a comment to the last post, has asked an important question. If the game is up, and as a species we are toast, then what would I (as representative, I guess, of said species claiming, partly as therapist, to have something worthwhile to say) like to see happen in the time we have […]

Oz fires, English snow and Spanish cold

Some thoughts from a trip just concluded to Spain, and thinking also of the devastating fires in Australia. (The picture left is of storm clouds over Ronda, which we visited – yes, EasyJet CO2 – in Southern Spain last week, which is seeing the heaviest and longest-lasting rainfall in a very long time. Very odd, […]