Letter published in the Plymouth Herald 17th March 2009

Dear Sir,

I SUPPOSE those who know me will be expecting me to write bemoaning the introduction of cheap flights to London City from Plymouth.

I have no criticism for the bosses of Air SouthWest or Plymouth Airport for seeing the business opportunity and going for it; it may be environmentally irresponsible but that is not what they are paid for.

I went to a talk by Margaret Wheatley on the subject of coherence in chaotic times. Some interesting ideas but several flaws. She started by inviting everyone to subscribe to a very negative picture of our current social state. Whilst for some people some of her observations may hold good it is clearly not true that everyone experiences the world in all the ways she described - I think her usual audience might be stressed out amenican businessmen for whom much of what she says probably resonates. The audience of sustainability minded people at this talk also seemed keen to lap up the doom laden scene she painted, which I think reflects very badly on our tendency in the 'environmental movement' to want things to be bad so that we feel justified.

There is nothing 'necessary' about her way of looking at the current social world - certainly there are lots of problems and everyone probably experiences some of them, but equally I think that everyone has something good in their lives and Ms Wheatley's approach tends to throw that baby out with the bathwater.