Bryan Murphy's Blog - Posts Tagged "paradox"

Don’t get me wrong, I do not like the man, but I have found a disquieting similarity between us while reading Bill Bryson’s excellent collection of essays in honour of The Royal Society, the UK’s national scientific body, entitled “Seeing Further”, whose final essays concern climate change. This brought it home to me that both Trump and myself are accidental environmentalists. I have a few unsought credits on my green account. For most of my life, I have not driven a car, though mainly for financial and contrarian reasons. I also spent several years in Third World countries, consuming at Third World levels. I’d dearly have loved to shower regularly during the 3 years I spent in a tropical city, for instance, but there was rarely enough pressure to bring water up to my flat. My biggest contribution to Mother Earth has been in not having children, thereby saving the resources that they and their progeny would have wolfed. This was largely for selfish reasons, not to save the world. Trump, of course, acts on the biggest stage, and what he does makes a phenomenal difference. He doesn’t want to save the world, yet he is doing just that. His disengagement from climate change concerns, and his actions to destroy his own country’s environmental future, have called everyone else’s bluff. Not only are USAmerican States and cities pledging to counter the harm his measures are doing, but the international community is finally getting its act together and signing up for joint action. If Trump continues in this vein, they might even take that action. Let us hope it will not be too little, too late.
Seeing Further: Ideas, Endeavours, Discoveries and Disputes — The Story of Science Through 350 Years of the Royal Society