Who said this? some raving lefty presumably…
“”While the conventional, political dangers – the threat of global annihilation, the fact of regional war – appear to be receding, we have all recently become aware of another insidious danger. It is as menacing in its way as those more accustomed perils with which international diplomacy has concerned itself for centuries. It is the prospect of irretrievable damage to the atmosphere, to the oceans, to earth itself.
What we are now doing to the world, by degrading the land surfaces, by polluting the waters and by adding greenhouse gases to the air at an unprecedented rate – all this is new in the experience of the earth. It is mankind and his activities that are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.
The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto. Change to the sea around us, change to the atmosphere above, leading in turn to change in the world’s climate, which could alter the way we live in the most fundamental way of all. That prospect is a new factor in human affairs. It is comparable in its implications to the discovery of how to split the atom. Indeed, its results could be even more far-reaching.
The evidence is there. The damage is being done. What do we, the international community, do about it?
In some areas, the action required is primarily for individual nations or groups of nations to take. But the problem of global climate change is one that affects us all and action will only be effective if it is taken at the international level. It is no good squabbling over who is responsible or who should pay. We have to look forward not backward, and we shall only succeed in dealing with the problems through a vast international, co-operative effort.
The environmental challenge that confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world. Every country will be affected and no one can opt out. Those countries who are industrialised must contribute more to help those who are not.
The work ahead will be long and exacting. We should embark on it hopeful of success, not fearful of failure. Darwin’s voyages were among the high-points of scientific discovery. They were undertaken at a time when men and women felt growing confidence that we could not only understand the natural world but we could master it, too. Today, we have learned rather more humility and respect for the balance of nature. But another of the beliefs of Darwin’s era should help to see us through – the belief in reason and the scientific method.
Reason is humanity’s special gift. It allows us to understand the structure of the nucleus. It enables us to explore the heavens. It helps us to conquer disease. Now we must use our reason to find a way in which we can live with nature, and not dominate nature.
We need our reason to teach us today that we are not – that we must not try to be – the lords of all we survey.
We are not the lords, we are the Lord’s creatures, the trustees of this planet, charged today with preserving life itself – preserving life with all its mystery and all its wonder.
May we all be equal to that task.”
Actually in the week where everyone’s scrapping over her legacy it was Mrs Thatcher. I remember this speech being made. People couldn’t say she went green, but that she went emerald. This speech as I remember had an enormous effect. As Jonathan Porrit says
“It wasn’t until Mrs Thatcher went into her short-lived green period that things really took off (for the green movement). “Before Mrs Thatcher started to talk about the ozone layer and climate change, lots of people said: ‘These green issues are just for weirdos treehugging. But if Mrs Thatcher’s saying something like that – there must be something in it’.”
In her memoirs she at least partially recanted, but however cynical you are about timing (the Greens were high in the polls) she helped green issues go mainstream. With all her other many faults that at least is something in my view.
Neil
