Who, or why, or which, or what, is Greeneralia?

This is not, for once, the idea of a committee or an international organisation. Greeneralia began from one person’s observation that there seem to be a plethora of committees involved in preventing global catastrophe without apparently getting anywhere very far or very fast. COP succeeds COP, but the pace of change is glacial.Greeneralia believes that each and every person on this planet needs to be engaged. We are not only dependent on each other, but on every other Animal, Plant, Fungi, Protista, Eubacteria and Archaebacteria

                                                                                                               Macro or Micro
Macro? or Micro? You have the wrong perspective”, said a much-respected friend, as I explained to him the thinking behind the Greeneralia website. This unexpected challenge transported me back to the world of university tutorials, and being politely but firmly corrected by the academic at whose feet we were sitting. Perhaps I had better abandon months of work and think this out again?

Of course, I knew what he meant: there are no great men, only great committees. Major decisions affecting the planet can only be made at national or international level. Making changes which might avert catastrophe can therefore also only be made at governmental level. And the governments in question, since they are the major causes of the environmental catastrophes looming, are the BRICS ones (though of course the rest of us are also to blame).
This is the world of political, economic and statistical reality. But there is another reality I was taught as a child by my father – what to do when facing a dragon of vast and alarming proportions. Look at it through a pair of binoculars in reverse, reducing the horror to a manageable size. Then pick it up quickly, put it in a matchbox, take it to the attic and hide it in a forgotten suitcase. This childish tale has stood me in good stead in adulthood: when faced with an apparently insuperable problem: begin by treating it AS IF it could be overcome. The modern visualisation might be astrophysicist Danail Obreschkow‘s Cosmic Eye. We would lose nothing by acting as if the climate crisis could be attenuated. At this point, further discussion about its deadliness is wasted: we are now said to be at 90 seconds to midnight.

Or, as Arthur Hugh Clough put it:

Say Not The Struggle Nought Availeth?

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

So what can we, frail individuals acting alone, do to avert the worst effects of the coming onslaught?

Recycle, repurpose, degrow, tread lightly upon the earth. Build holistically and seek synergistic strategies.
And team up with others doing the same, ant with ant, and bee with bee.