Jane Robertson

The world is becoming a busy noisy place and it is good to find a pastime that creates a different space, another dimension. Our paintings mean a lot to us because they remind us of lovely places we have visited and enable us to remember them in detail. It takes time to study the colours and contours of a scene. It may be that the drawing is an inadequate representation of the three dimensional scene spread out before us, how can it be anything else, but the process of trying to represent it on the two dimensions of the blank page is intellectually rewarding. The emerging picture is not just about the scene before you but also about your response to it at the time.

Ecology and economics share a common root: the Greek word oikos, meaning a house. Ecology is the way the natural world manages its house. Economics is the way society manages its house. The contentions of this book are that the natural world is the best guide to our economic activities, that supply and demand are insufficient determinants, that profit and loss are not alternatives, that wealth cannot be created but can be lost. Ecological economics is a term that has been coined to encapsulate these ideas. We can stop throwing away food before and after it gets to the table. We can learn to deal with our pollution. We can stop wasting our resources. We must look again at our priorities. We're in a race against time. Perhaps there's not time enough, but it's in everyone's interest to try. If we keep our activities on a human scale, maybe the passengers can regain control of the runaway train.