It's hard enough to get your head around the fact that Granny is dying
and that we may have to sort out her personal affairs. So, it's no
wonder that we struggle to get our heads around the fact that mother
earth is dying too. Heavens above, we might have a lot more sorting out
to do. Thinking and talking about death is hard. Are you ready to face
the fact that our mother is dying?
Wendy's previous book, Surviving a 'New Norm', created by Loss and
Bereavement: moving from Trauma to Insight, told how Wendy moved forward
from the traumas and bereavements in her own life. The two central
messages in Mother is Dying adapt her understanding and experience of
the effects of trauma and bereavement to those that will occur during
the slow demise of humanity on our planet, as she sees the future, which
is a highly plausible vision.
Mother is Dying has both pessimistic and optimistic tones and the change
in climate change throughout the world is now critical.
The distinctive contribution of Mother is Dying is asking us to consider
now the emotional trauma of climate change and the losses it will bring.
It is understanding the way that people will react to the major changes
in our lives brought about by climate change - the outcome of global
warming - that is so important to finding ways to reduce the impact of
those consequences.
If trauma and bereavement are our reactions to future climatic changes,
how should we respond? What can we, as individuals do? Wendy is an
idealist at heart, describing how both individuals and society need to
adapt to the dangers of global warming that lie ahead.
One of the delights of Wendy's book are the ideas for what we can do
both individually and in our local communities and these permeate her
writing.
I am less sanguine than she is; her actions are necessary, but will they
be sufficient? The responses to climate change require holistic
whole-world concerted actions in a rapid timescale. Mother Earth will
survive, but will humanity survive with it? What will you do to make a
difference?
DR DAVID WHITE
MBE, Biologist, The Cavernoma Alliance.
