no control planet

looking at planet earth with curiosity - pastel and watercolour

I have forgone a week of blogging due to a wonderful family visit: it was worth it, but I have missed this space! 

The image is one I made earlier - about two years ago - when I was doing an Artella-land e-course in self-portraits called 'me-flections'. [Artella e-courses are full of bad puns]. 

The image, of me looking at the planet with curiosity and concern, is relevant right now, because Australia is (possibly, teeteringly,) on the verge of introducing a price on carbon, as announced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard last Sunday. 

Coincidentally, my sister, who is a climate scientist, was visiting Australia, and she gave a talk at UQ last week, which I managed to get the gist of, about the inherent difficulties of making accurate predictions of the consequences of future climate change, such as sea level rise, based on scientific analysis of past data. Too many gaps in the data, too many variables, to get a totally firm answer. Hard science, it turns out, is also subject to uncertainties, just like 'soft' science such as 'does art therapy work and how/why?' One other (obvious) point I managed to grasp, is that there is 'no control planet' - we only have this one, so we need to look after it...basically the industrialised age has been a huge uncontrolled experiment, and the results are emergent: they will only become clearer over the next century or two.

Human beings don't like uncertainty. So we create our own narratives to avoid this (to fill the void?): the Australian media (mainly owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is, coincidentally, teetering on the verge of being totally discredited) have been kindly telling their version of the climate story, which is that a carbon tax is unaffordable, unwarranted, unfair and no doubt also totally un-Australian. 

Yes its been an interesting couple of weeks. 

Timely as ever, my friend Amanda, who inspired me to write this blog, asks 'why do you blog?' in her latest post. Part of the answer is here: great-advice-for-creatives - its about having a space for creating, writing and thinking practice - just doing it, despite its imperfections and the anxiety and the thoughts that its self-indulgent nonsense...however it has helped me to have a theme, which is to continue 'doing what matters', to keep focusing on my behavioural goals, which I outlined at the end of December. [Interestingly this is the post that gets the most 'hits', according to the stats, (which I confess, I am slightly addicted to reading).] 

After six months, I am ready to review some of my goals, but that is going to have to wait. 

Funnily enough I never seem to be short of material...in fact I would like to write more often, but time seems to disappear like sand through the hour glass...or is it just easier to slump in front of the tv at night when I am tired...?

On another matter. Yesterday I made an almost vegan* chocolate pie, which didn't taste of tofu. Yum.

Its good to be back. 

more later.

* the chocolate had dairy in it