These days, we tend to feel guilty or bad about more and more things, because they have a destructive impact on the world we share with others. Sometimes this can lead to an all-consuming anxiety, feeling like just existing as a normal person in an industrial society is a sin in itself.
How to transform this general anxiety into something more useful?
A good friend of mine, Sergio, gave me something of an answer to this last night. He said:
“When you’re thinking of doing something, and wondering whether that thing is sustainable, imagine what would happen if everyone did the same as you.”
I find this such a useful thought, because it highlights how small choices have big impacts when you look at the bigger picture.
things that might have been otherwise 
a couple of things which have been coming to me as ‘problems’ with the sustainability / climate change campaigning have been the ‘but there’s no point in us doing anything because what about china’ issue, & also the general problem of there being a certain level of… sanctimoniousness amongst some of the loudest campaigners – that they give an impression of seeing themselves as perfect examples of the sustainable living, whilst the rest of us are just willfully raping the planet.what’s occurred to me as a solution to the first problem is trying to encourage a level of altruism in making sustainable choices, which works just as well on the personal level as it does on the international level – yes, the developing world does have an entitlement to the best standard of living, which will inevitably involve more co2 than we’ld really want, so how about the developed world doing more of its share of the work so the developing world doesn’t have to? Not everybody can realistically travel to work by bus, train, or cycle – so how about those who live on the bus route which goes past both their homes & their places of work with a 20 minute journey between them, using the bus so those who don’t don’t have to?the other problem could be handled by campaigners being as willing to own up to their own personal failings as much as their achievements – i’m trying to encourage a blog climate change chain of action for that kind of thing to at least happen in the blogosphere !
I know now that this of course is a version of Kant’s categorical imperative…