I’ve been asked quite a lot about the design of the WWF Natural Change Project programme. ‘What do you do?’, ‘Where do you start with such a big subject?’.

Great graphs communicate important insights in compelling ways. An earlier version of this one apparently made a strong impression at the Scottish Parliament in June last year.

Three things you need to know:

1. Each bar is a set of actions to reduce carbon emissions.
2. Every bar below the line saves money, every bar above the line costs money.
3. The wider the bar, the more carbon saved.

Back in November I wrote about my secondment to the Active Earth Foundation. To cut a long story short, the financial support that was assured the project when I took the secondment didn't come to fruition and I left at the end of February, very relieved to be out of an increasingly stressful and difficult role.

Mary-Jayne (www.mjrust.net) and I have just returned from our annual Ecopsychology Course residential at Doune on the wild Knoydart peninsular (www.doune-knoydart.co.uk), in the north west of Scotland.

The film ‘The Age of Stupid’ has been enjoying the patronage of Ed Miliband. Apart from the inconvenient fact that the government’s policies don’t square with the message of the film, this is a good thing.

But perhaps Ed Milliband could answer this question: ’since you are so aware of the drastic nature of the problem with climate change, why are you not telling it like it is?’

In other words, why is there no serious attempt to alert the public to the scale of the climate change problem?

This is dangerous because most people reason that, if there were a serious problem, the government would tell them about it. But since the government is silent (other than saying ‘please insulate your roof’) the problem can’t be all that bad…

Most people aren’t stupid. So, Ed Miliband, what about some leadership from the government?

The good news is that 14% of Scots are 'deep green' according to the Scottish Government's latest research. They believe climate change is an immediate and urgent problem and say they know a great deal or a fair amount about it. (Don't blame me, that's how the survey defines 'deep greens', nothing to do with the deep ecology movement).

The bad news is that 'deep greens' are no more likely to fly less or drive less than others.

Lord Adair Turner, chair of the UK government's advisory committee on climate change, makes tackling climate change seem (relatively) easy. But is keeping it simple, stupid? Or is it a sensible strategy to avoid frightening the horses?

Fact No. 1: the human eye can see more shades of green than of any other colour.

Fact No. 2: while there has been little progress in addressing environmental issues, there is now a great deal more awareness of them than a few years ago.

As a result it is not surprising that the green movement is showing increasing signs of splintering, as Paul Kingsnorth's article and blog suggests. Green-ness used to be classified as either light (with a lot of white and prone to green or whitewashing) or dark and somewhat forbidding. Then there is the acid green of those prone to violence in the name of protection. But there is also the blue-green, who put the conservative in conservation, and the red-green (which should really be called brown) who link social issues to environmental concerns.

And there is also the question that Paul raises of what it is all for. On this there are the technical greens, who may not even ask the question, as long as there is some environmental benefit. And the spiritual greens, for whom that is the whole point.