ABSTRACT
This exploration of some difficulties in our psychological relationship to the planetary ecosystem grew out of two challenging conversations. The first was with my grandson, who worries about the possibility of a Third World War; the second was with a politician, who questioned whether we will be able to do anything in time about climate change. Children are acutely aware of their dependence on adults for their safety and survival, and so they can be sensitive barometers of the pressure of anxiety about keeping the world safe for human beings. Keeping the world safe for human beings looks increasingly difficult, as the actions needed to prevent global warming from exceeding 2°C have widely been opposed or not implemented. Given that so many of our inherited adaptive patterns were developed to manage problems on a family and local scale the challenges of cooperating on a planet wide project are daunting and require the acknowledgement of many difficult aspects of our individual and collective behaviour.
