So David
Attenborough made it to the White House to talk about Climate Change, Nature
and the Environment with President Obama.
It was all quite polite, David is used to talking to people of high
status, as in carefully and avoiding trouble.
The President was equally polite, despite being unused to dealing with aged
pensioners who worked in button factories.
But there was
common ground left unexplored. The
President's job requires him to send US troops to many places. One of the cutting edge formations is that of
the 82nd Airborne Division. David would
have been aware of them as a boy. They
were difficult to avoid spending quality time around Leicester in the early
months of 1944, before going to France.
During the
period 1940 to 1945 the population of the town was obsessed by weather and
climate, which may in part explain David's early interest. There were two reasons, one was the bombers,
incoming German and then outgoing British, American and Allied. The other was food supplies. The margins were very tight.
When the 82nd
left the area Leicester missed the men and they missed the additional sources
of scarce supplies that seeped out of the American stores and eased the margins
for many people. If David seems to be
too much of a worrier about weather and sustainability he has memory of what it
was like for people to be short and not knowing where the next meal might be coming
from.
What he is
also aware of is that since that time the world population has quadrupled and
the pressure on land, water and supplies has increased. It has been astonishing that we have been
able to provide for so many, albeit with large numbers left without. The question is how many more can we cope
with and can we retain even our existing levels of supplies?
The issue of
what climate change may be occurring and with what effect is debated far and
wide and can be seen elsewhere. What we
cannot avoid is that in history there have been catastrophic geophysical
incidents that have had global effects on population.
Also, what
cannot be avoided is the knowledge of the collapse of so many civilisations
either urbanised or agricultural for other reasons. The President and David
skirted these in their discussions leaving a vaguely academic feel to the
discussion. It might help to persuade
more people to take an interest but there is too much in the media claiming our
attention for other things.
Another
subject not touched upon is that of Grey Owl, see Wikipedia, who so impressed
David and his brother Richard in 1936, and later turned out to be not quite
what he seemed. Richard in 1999 made a
film about him as a late apology. Also,
absent from any media mention is the younger brother John, despite his
abilities, might he have been at the Grey Owl lecture and had been less
impressed?
My position is
very simple. If climate has changed in
the past, and on occasion radically, then it might do again or even will, we are only a lump of matter spinning about
in vast space.
It is when and
not if.