Isn't it fitting that Greta should hail from a nordic region, more-or-less the homeplace, I think, of trolls and other things nasty, like Ragnarok. What is it that brings them out whenever she gets a post or mention on social media.
Tag: environment
Figment of imagination
I once could not imagine that someone human could not respond somehow, at some time or another, to the natural world. Impossible, I would have said. No matter how entrenched in the urban one was, how enmeshed by the artificial, surely the whir of a bird’s wings, the flash of a butterfly’s colour, the shape … Continue reading Figment of imagination
Are we locked in a dance to the death (economically anyway) with fossil fuels
factors other than the purely economic must be taken into account. The problem with our purely economic thinking is that it is tainted with neoliberalist assumptions about worth. Humans, certainly all the ones in the first world, have been programmed to accept the notion that economic growth, most particularly at the personal level, is essential. To challenge this paradigm is to adopt the denialist annoying Greta Thunberg ‘how dare you’ stance. But in fact what we do need to do - if you factor anything other than pure Homo economicus thinking - is to do away with stuff. Perhaps take a significant dip in our GDP rich life. Give up some goods, some cargo, some economic cudos. Will we be poorer for it? Will our health go into decline? Will our world become much smaller? Perhaps we’ll travel less, the carbon load of flying is prohibitive. But will we be poorer? Will our air and waterways be cleaner? Will some of the wilderness be restored? Will we rediscover community? I don’t know, but I don’t think we can continue with business as usual. Because business isn’t (despite what they tell us) everything. We can choose to remain fossil fooled or we can choose not to be.
Thoughts on the climate deniers
Have recently chosen to engage with the deniers. You do not, of course, need ask which deniers I refer to. So here is a list of my replies to some of their unreasoning; names have been changed to protect the approximately ignorant. I've used headings to cluster my replies. Greens started/promote bush fires: Duane, I … Continue reading Thoughts on the climate deniers
On the alleged death of homo economicus
If I am to take Nick Hanauer’s[1] advice and kill off homo economicus then what I fear I’ll be left with is – all that someone of a liberal-humanist bent can ask, I suppose – homo impotenticus. A person unpurposed: because I am not alone, because I am not reified individual, because I am part … Continue reading On the alleged death of homo economicus
To keep politics out, or not?
Should a writer avoid the topical, particularly the political, given that it dates work or that politics and the topical is considered by many to be as dull as dishwater. Take TRUMP. (Please take him and put him away somewhere dark and silent.) Given that he is at the forefront of our world's conscious, it … Continue reading To keep politics out, or not?
Our economic selves; the real enemy?
A question for any reader: does the argument below [introductory paragraph] make sense to you - as proposition, obviously, not fully reasoned essay... Naomi Klein argues in her 2017 No is not enough—among other things— that the Trump presidency is 'a naked corporate takeover' of the democratic process; corporations are 'doing what all top … Continue reading Our economic selves; the real enemy?
Not a political thing; then again, maybe it is…
Speaking of things climatic should soothe us into the realms of the non political; that of course is not so. I wonder if any of Mr. Trump's people - or the mannikin himself - is aware of NASA's perspective on climate change; just another expert agency one can safely ignore, I guess. I know that our … Continue reading Not a political thing; then again, maybe it is…
On Nature deficit disorder
Relph (2011) argues that 'the deepest sense of place seems to be associated with being at home, being somewhere you know and are known by others, where you are familiar with the landscape and daily routines and feel responsible for how well your place works[1].' I cannot claim to be responsible for how this place … Continue reading On Nature deficit disorder
A deep sense of place
Extracts from an essay Let me pose a simple yet stubborn question of what you need to imagine are your last days. Suppose that Death — which nearly had you — has let go for a time; a remission which gives you, let's say, a week's grace. Maybe two. You are spry and full of … Continue reading A deep sense of place



