 Hi, it's question in time again and this one says there seems to be an increasing number of environmentalists saying it's too late, what do you think? Well the problem is we don't know. Systems are inherently unpredictable, the global system is something you know the human brain has never had to figure out what's going on that kind of scale before you know this evolved this amazing thing in our heads evolved to be able to remember where things were in a forest environment probably you know what times of year to find things to basically take the senses, our sensory experience of the world and reward us for doing what nature required us to do to do the right things to to survive and thrive that environment and we've never had to think on a global scale before you know we've been thrust this creature that's evolved in a very kind of localized context into this global stage and being given the tools to make a difference to change things on that scale so it's really challenging because it seems we can change the climate we've seen we certainly can see the evidence of plastic that we've been producing in the oceans how it's affected life on earth it seems that we are putting well we know we're putting carbon into the atmosphere and it seems that that is having an effect on global weather and temperatures and so on we don't know you know tipping points are quite tricky because it's it's not clear where those tipping points occur you know they might be very close by they might be quite some long way in the future and all we can do or scientists can do is extrapolate to make models to extrapolate possibilities of the different levels and you know weather forecasting has got pretty good over the last couple of decades with computer models and so on so there's some evidence to say that we can make a fairly good guess about what might happen but then at the same time when you talk to weather forecasters they say well you know the slightest change in this thing might make this other thing happen and so we think 19 chances out of 20 it will happen like this but this other thing happens and it will be completely different so essentially we don't know and I think all the time we don't know of course there is a point in trying to do something about it we don't we don't know whether action now will make a difference to the future future generations the young people who are standing up now to try and say you know let's we need to do something about this because you're in charge now but you won't be here when we're inheriting the earth that you're creating now so so yes whether it's us humans making the climate change whether it's the Sun doing interesting things and there was plenty of evidence to suggest that the Sun is in some way contributing to what's happening on the earth's weather now we know that space weather can create effects on earth doesn't really matter what's happening if it's happening if it if something might happen in the future that would be catastrophic then why wouldn't we try and do something about that so for me doing what I do I feel I have to feel optimistic about the future I think in part because I meet lots of people of a like mind who are also wanting to make a change and when you get into permaculture and you start doing creative things when you start assembling ecosystems to meet our needs and to create beauty in the landscape then how can you not be optimistic and feel joy there and even if things do go horribly wrong in the long term why why spend a long time worrying about it we can worrying for me is something that we do it's a an emotion to make us think I need to do something about it you know to worry and to not do not act is going to just create more worrying so why not say okay yes this might happen that could be bad let's do something about what can I do as an individual right now to make a difference to the future and to make a difference to now and to the people around me and the world that I inhabit and so for me permaculture gives us the tools to make a difference now and hopefully the difference that we make now will make a positive difference in the future