Thoreau and Me

Some heavy reading on the ecological and climate emergency leads Cédric, a forty-something painter living in Paris, to question his life choices. In a state of vulnerability, racked with eco-anxiety, he is contacted by the spirit of Henry David Thoreau: writer, environmentalist and the author of Walden.

Two centuries separate Cédric from the author who, depressed by the narrow materialism of industrialised America, retreated to a single-room cabin in the woods by Walden Pond. But as their Socratic dialogue continues, Cédric notices striking parallels between the suffocating commercialism of mid-19th-century America and the unsustainable, alienating, tech-driven consumerism of today. Both societies are shaped by a single priority economic growth that not only squanders the earths resources but separates human beings from nature. Inspired by Thoreaus return to nature, Cédric begins dreaming of his own retreat from urban life: his own self-sufficient cabin in the woods.

In Thoreau and Me, Cédric Taling explores the causes and consequences of todays climate emergency. Blending humour, philosophy and fiction, Taling asks how, at a time of unprecedented ecological and climate breakdown, we can learn to live with and respond to eco-anxiety.