Seeds for Thought: an Ecopsychology Blog

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.