changing habits

How do we change habits for the better? Everyone says the ban on public smoking has worked, and the fagaholics who huddle in office doorways and outside hospital buildings look like losers, definitely. But climate change? The personal response is pathetic, small gestures that seem demeaning. Except that they are evidence of an intention – learning to have respect for the resources on which we depend totally for life – the four ancient elements of earth, fire, air and water. Don’t leave the tap running. Turn down the thermostat. Cut back on the airmiles. Dig the allotment. The change of consciousness that we need is to be reflective about our consumerism, the way we come to need what we want. After my car coughed and died on the motorway, I never got around to replacing it. Urban living does not need cars, generally speaking. (If I had small children would I be saying that? Small children living in buggies that transform into car seats are like little emperors looking out passively from their private thrones, while the adults text and tweet. What price attachment in the digital age?) An advantage of ageing is the slow erosion of what we need. Survival is in the end more important than status. With age we recover the peasant mentality of our ancestors - ‘There are other things in life’: I overheard two men saying this in the pub, facing their own retirement.