Seeds for Thought: an Ecopsychology Blog

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I've been trying to write this since I came back from Vancouver two months ago. 
Where is home? At the Islands folk festival with good once virtual and now real friends, listening to Todd Butler sing about leaving Vancouver to go home to the prairies and then finding that he was drawn back to his new home by the ocean?

I read an interesting article on Love Miles by a Pakistani woman living in Britain, moved here by her family as a child. I'm trying hard to be eco-friendly. But please don't ask me to give up flying to visit my family, she says, and I echo.

And here's another talking about the helplessness of not being able to support in family crises.

Meanwhile in my "home" country

Climate change activist stopped from travelling to Copenhagen
 Chris Kitchen held under anti-terrorist legislation (he's really dangerous, glued himself to a statue apparently)

BBC to vet BNP Question Time audience for anti-fascists (but not for BNP supporters, it seems) Although the BNP leadership include convicted violent criminals.

Really stupid award  and as we agonise the guardian ran a competition to describe your eco holiday The winner got  three nights' B&B at Kasbah du Toubkal in Morocco and flights with Royal Air Maroc Eco holidays: Pass me that machete it's titled. Apt?

age of really stupid

Newsnight (BBC) had a good program last week about Copenhagen climate change generally, with positive coverage of Climate camp and Age of Stupid, with some good clips.

It talks about the need for the rich countries to contribute much more than they seem willing to at present, but there's a bit in the middle (about 7 minutes in if you want to find it) that stopped me in my tracks.

The presenter says:
"... and it may take an effort on the same scale as that used to rescue the financial system to rescue the planet.
"

what???
At first this made me despair than anyone can say this with a straight face.

But I hear a lot about how the "electorate" will not stand for money spent on the environment. Did they like bailing out the banks? The car industry? Did anyone ask them?

I thought I was part of the electorate and certainly no one asked me, just like when they went to war with Iraq.

Could "the electorate" just be code for the rich and powerful military industrial oligarchy?

science friction

I found this old post I never published, so here it is.  To be anti science is to be pro ignorance, and I get upset by how many women are proud of it.
..........

I was annoyed a little while ago by a newspaper article scorning a cult based on some obscure science fiction books about Gor, where women were submissive and wore collars and the usual BDSM stuff.

Not because I am in favour (though they were all consenting adults) but because they were scorned not for being sexist but for being sci fi fans and therefore
male
sad
incapable of getting a girlfriend
and so on

er well actually lots of women read sci fi. Lots of women write it. Lots of men and women use it to explore alternative societies with differerent sexual and social customs.

Marge Piercy Joanna  Russ Theodore Sturgeon Samuel Delaney to just get started.

Yes I am pro science, in the sense of "knowing". The reviewer labelled the Gor books as "Politically Incorrect". My most despised phrase, used by people who either can't be bothered to think, or have an easy way to slag off all lefties/liberals. That's us scientists, we like accurate language.

No they are not "Politically Incorrect". They are Sexist, ie they share a coherent worldview that women are different and inferior. This is not the same as Misogyny, sadly lots of theoretically anti sexist men end up distrusting and resenting women because of being sneered at for not being beautiful and macho. 

dreaming and the age of stupid #2

to my daughter  

#1 the night after I saw age of stupid I dreamed I was talking to you
about flying to canada and how bad it was and crying, you were saying
well it isn't forever he will retire in 5 years. (not that that
necessarily helps) short dream, and it sounds sad but I woke as
refreshed as after a cool swim on a hot day.

#2 about a week later I dreamed we were in UK, and watching age of
stupid together. There are interlinked stories of people in different
countries, and one became Vancouver (which isn't), and then we were
there, walking beside an amazing indigo sea. You said "my friend lives
near here, shall we go and visit?" I said we'd better get back, we are
really in england watching this ...  we are really dreaming this, well
actually I'm really dreaming this" and woke up

I do have lovely dreams about you all sometimes.

manifestations of the desire to tame

ONE
A beautiful, sunny, spring day. Elsie and I sit outside to listen to the breeding birds and the big bumblebees buzzing. Then ROAR. Our neighbour's lawn mower. Elsie cries at the intrusion.

TWO
"Is she good?" Countless, countless times I'm asked this question about Elsie. They mean does she cry. Yes, she expresses herself. We have managed to avoid teaching her to stuff her feelings down. We want her to know that we know that the only way she has of expressing herself (the difficult feelings) is through crying. And that is fine and good. She may cry due to hunger (although I try to feed her before she resorts to crying), but mainly she cries due to pent-up tensions relating to learning new things, seeing new places and people, becoming frustrated by her powerlessness and inability to do everything she wants to do. We get frustrated by those things too but instead of having a good cry about it, we tend to push our feelings down in a myriad of ways: eating, sleeping, smoking, drinking, TV, Internet, bitterness, cynicism, hurting others ... and more!

So, yes, she is very good. She was born that way. You are very good too. You just behave in not-so-good ways (as I do) because you've been hurt (as I have been) and these are your coping mechanisms (and mine).

dreaming and the Age of Stupid

I went to see Age of Stupid and wish everybody would go, well UK anyway so far.

People who've seen it mostly think it's great, and I've been puzzled by fellow environmentalists who don't want to. Preaching to the converted they say, as if there was a divide. 

But it's a continuum. At one end Clarkson and the guy from AoS setting up a cheap airline in India who wants everybody to be able to fly. At the other maybe some perfect person chained to a power station and living on leaves. But most of us in the middle somewhere. The woman in AoS celebrating defeating a windfarm proposal, who asked if she is worried about climate change says Yes of course we are, nervous smile, becoming uncertain. You. Me.

get Clarkson

Environmentalists are often stereotyped as negative, against, angry.  Is this fair? Do we look up at the stars or down at the mud? (And anyway I like mud)

MIke Cohen's methods are wonderful for reconnecting us with nature, making us feel good again. But should we? Or should we be despairing with Joanna Macy?

Dog crap when I'm out walking  makes me doubly cross, because it is disgusting and irresponsible, but also because it forces me to notice it if I don't want to step in it. I try to avoid that which just makes me pointlessly angry. 

For example Top Gear. Yet I can't believe that mainstream television gets away with actively encouraging law breaking, hate speech. Where are the thousands of protests that rock the BBC over many less obnoxious and pernicious broadcasts? 

Nowhere. Because I'm certainly not going to watch it in order to complain. Mary Whitehouse and successors are happy to wallow in what they ostensibly hate just to get rid of it. But clearly we environmentalists are not so negative. 

Campaigning will necessarily involve us in going where we don't want to be, the boredom of economics, meetings, leafletting shopping centres and roadsides. It's important to remember what we are fighting for too, what we love. Please try Mike Cohen's reconnecting with nature I mean really, get out and do it, don't just read about it.