Day 1 Where to Start?
As October draws to a close, Autumn has come roaring in. Last night wind shredded the darkness, hurling water against the bedroom window, fat drops pounded the conservatory roof below.
While my husband snored gently at my side, I lay awake, feeling caught between two worlds – one reality the cocoon of a warm, dry bed, safe and shielded by solid walls built from the granite bones of the moor – the other? Vast black night, wild and unbiddable, a force that is literally a wake-up call. A force that encompasses small human places like my home but is undeniably more than human – it can be hard to hold the knowledge that human activities impact something as immense and ‘other’ as storm.
Where to begin with addressing climate change? It’s easy to ignore problems, easier than facing up to reality and doing something. Towards the end of her book Wilful Blindness Margaret Heffernan points out the world isn’t linear, it’s a complex system where small changes can have big impacts. We may not know where to start, but that isn’t the issue – what matters most she argues, is that we start.
This is something coaches know how to work with, giving me confidence to share a ‘thought for the day’ as COP26 gets underway. It’s borrowed from Heffernan – “Where do you start? You start where you are.” It’s echoed in a quote I often use from Theodore Roosevelt who famously said:
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”