getting real

A friend emails this link to an excellent online essay by the late Oliver Postgate, the creator of Bagpuss and The Clangers, which takes aim at self-serving descriptions of reality ('political reality', 'commercial reality', 'financial reality') and, in particular, the ways this has supported inaction over climate change.

One provocation for the essay was Tony Blair's remark in May 2005 that

' . . . the reality is that you’re never going to tackle global warming by cutting economic growth or your living standards, and whatever people might want us to do there, the political reality is that it isn’t going to happen . . .'

Postgate points out that we shouldn't let 'political reality' prevail over 'actual reality'.