ABSTRACT
I would like to open the discussion of John Keene’s excellent chapter by underlining and elaborating on his central point: the difficulties, general and particular, of following the reality principle with regard to the topic of climate change. Keene sums up one of Freud’s (1911) main claims as follows: the task of the ego (is) to wean itself away from its early reliance on magical and wishful thinking and painfully attempt to represent to itself what really is the case. This is a lifelong struggle. And, as Keene shows, there are particular obstacles to reality-principle functioning when it comes to climate change. I see the whole of my contribution as a discussion of what lies behind these difficulties.
