Thanks Michael. Appreciate the thoughtful response. It’s interesting you don’t disagree with my analysis of the current situation, but leap straight into the debate at the end re sex vs consciousness? It’s not, like Vanessa Andreotti’s cliffs, a polarised binary – sex OR consciousness – where’s the middle of the tightrope balancing act there? Capitalism is not some vast system of sexual selection, and nor will we meditate our way through this mess (although it would certainly help!). If I was being provocative (you know me!) I would say precisely the same arguments were made during the years of slavery. Owning slaves was a way to ‘get on’ in life, the economy would collapse without indentured labour, and why would anyone voluntarily give up these benefits and privileges at the expense of others? A combination of incomparably courageous uprising & resistance from slaves themselves, increasing moral indignation and activism, and finally legislation, ultimately bought emancipation (even if the financial compensation went to the oppressors not the cruelly exploited). Why should our unnecessary desires be served up at the grotesque expense of other people, planet and ecology? That’s the consciousness aspect, and I certainly think it’s on the rise mid-pandemic (NB not ‘post’ yet). Regulation & legal action is key – hence the seismic impacts of the Dutch Court’s decision on Shell. Some change will have to be forced. But we ain’t going to end ecological slavery by making it sexier or higher status to own/exploit fewer slaves (human, animal, vegetable or mineral) are we? Hence the moral indignation. I can’t claim to have every answer to what system could or should come next, but I suspect like emancipation it won’t bring cataclysmic economic collapse as feared, but morph into something very different. Selling sustainable growth as consultants is a lie. My piece focuses primarily on carbon as the relatively straightforward measure. However the unwravelling of life’s web & the exploitation of other humans are just as troubling…