Here is good antidote to deep anxiety about climate change..

Find a nice spot with no tree in it. Maybe it's in your garden, if you're lucky enough to have one. Maybe it's some clearing near a footpath where you like to walk..

Go to your garden center and buy a tree sapling.

Bring it to that spot and plant it in the ground.

You can then visit it, water it and watch it grow.

I'm renting this place where I'm setting up a new studio. I don't know how long I'll be here for. Maybe a year, maybe for the rest of my life, who can tell? Not just because my life is unpredictable and chaotic. It's also the state of the world..

The climate, so I'm told, is fast approaching a tipping point. Rate of change could yet be slowed, possibly, to bring us back from the brink of extinction - but as things stand and the way things seem to be going, it's an outside chance that we (humanity) will get it together in time.

The future of generations to come hangs in the balance. Will our children and grandchildren have to suffer and endure a life of brutal struggle - fighting for survival against angry forces of nature and against one another for scarce resources - food, water, shelter - or will they enjoy the priveliged life of abundance that we have known?

It's really heavy stuff to consider. Will they have any future at all? Will any of the things we value so highly today - money, property, qualifications, identity - have any value in the world of the not-too-distant future.. if much of our species is about to go extinct and what we call 'civilisation' is about to end?

These and similar thoughts have been going through my mind recently. More so since the latest major report gave us just 12 years to change our ways before unstoppable, runaway global warming takes hold. It doesn't look like many people are in much of a hurry to change their ways. What would be the point of anything, if there was no future? Depressing.

I made a little semi-circle of some old roof tiles, next to the outside workshop and woodshed I'd built, and filled it with earth. I didn't know quite what to plant there. Maybe some herbs, or a winter veg garden. Then it occurred to me - why not plant a tree there too? I love trees and trees are good. Also, I work with wood, which is made from trees, so I should by rights plant some to replace the ones I use. While I'm here I can look after it and watch it grow. Trees can be good company, you know. Sometimes better than people..

Having decided to plant a tree, I felt instantly much better, more optimistic. It wouldn't be a big thing.. not some great geo-engineering world-saving project.. but it would still be something..

I thought about what kind of tree to plant. Settled on an almond tree. Everything about almond trees is good. In the springtime it makes amazing white-pink blossom with the most delicate intoxicating fragrance. Then it grows almonds, which you can eat fresh when they're green, or later in the season roast them and eat them as a tasty savoury snack. When the tree dies you can use the wood- a dense straight grained hardwood that turns from light to dark brown with age - to make all sorts of things. On this climate, on these rocky hills, almond trees grow well without too much looking after.

An almond tree has a life span of about 20 to 25 years. I imagine one day cutting down the old tree, being old myself, and turning it into something.. a mandolin maybe, or part of one.. or maybe if I'm not here any more, someone else might.. and even if nobody does, it doesn't really matter. A tree is a good thing.

I guess the feeling of calm optimism will pass. I'll once again be gripped by the kind of despair a passenger on a fast moving train headed for an unfinished bridge over a deep gorge might feel. But when that happens, I'll know there's at least one thing I can do...

...Go and plant a tree!