You’re probably tired of the constant coverage you received from Glasgow over the past week and are ready to get some rest.
I’ll test your patience, though. Let me tell you a fascinating statistic that may have gone unnoticed.
Air travel can be extremely harmful to the environment. This is because planes release a large amount of carbon.
Particularly private jets that carry the elite few.
We’ve seen enough of them in Glasgow to prove — if we needed any more proof — that hypocrisy really is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.
John Humphrys: Surely Greta Thunberg must be a shoo-in for the Nobel Peace Prize? At least she was before her foul-mouthed speech at Cop26
In simple terms: don’t do as I do, do as I say.
Unless, of course, you’re Boris Johnson, in which case different rules apply.
Trendy trainers are another source for greenhouse gas emissions, but you may not be as familiar.
Shoes that are so outrageously expensive, they prove the First Law of Successful Marketing.
Think of it as a fashionable product. Make a flashy, expensive version.
Consider making a few at the beginning and then increasing your price.
And hordes of gullible teenagers — and plenty of older people who should know better — will break down your doors to get at them no matter what it does to their overdraft.
But it’s the cost to the environment that really matters.
There are reckoned to be 25 billion pairs made every year, mostly from several forms of plastic made with fossil fuels that can’t be recycled.
These people contribute more carbon than the whole aviation industry. Yet, few young adults who are self-respectable would be able to see the latest version of this aircraft.
There are also the latest, most fashionable tops and dresses as well as jeans on the lower end of this price range. It is possible that they were made in Far East sweatshops by people on hunger wages, but this does not matter.
They are Hoovered up — often to be worn once, then cast aside. Cheaper is better. Again, it is important to remember that the environmental cost can be very high.
This could be the exact same group of young people who consider it their God given right to fly abroad and spend gap years.
The same young people who order takeaways whenever they’re peckish. Who howl with anguish if they can’t go clubbing. Who adore avocados — possibly the most polluting food on the planet.
And the same generation who can’t be bothered to get vaccinated against Covid. The latest figures show a third still haven’t been. They say that it doesn’t matter if the virus is spread to others. We’re young. We’ll survive.
On the sixth day of the 2021 Climate Summit in Glasgow, demonstrators join the Fridays for Future march. It will take place on November 5, 2015.
As I type this, I can hear the wheels turning on the tumbrel. Humphrys, to the guillotine
What a reactionary to vilify these young people! These young people will need to save civilisations from the fiery future that their elders left them.
Let me quickly say, “Yes, they’re wonderful in many ways.” They are my children and grandchildren. It is obvious. For as long as history has been going, young people saw themselves as victims while their elders were the beneficiaries.
And to be fair, aren’t we older folk benefiting from generous state pensions that have been protected above all other Government financial commitments?
Don’t we all live in lovely houses we bought for a pittance 50 years ago when they can barely afford to rent a room in a slum?
Well, yes, there’s something in that. The pensions chicken is now home.
And a Government minister this week said old people ‘rattling around’ in houses too big for them must downsize and make way for young people in greater need.
Which one has paid for Covid the most?
We can understand students missing school or having to attend virtual lectures, but how about those thousands of elderly people treated as garbage?
To be taken out of hospitals and placed in care homes. In their final hours of life, they are denied even a hug or a kiss from anyone close to them.
These were their true victims. Some of them are still living. Too many old people are shunted off to care homes that charge outrageous fees for disgracefully inadequate ‘care’.
Our climate change policies are causing global warming, and young people believe that this is a threat to their future.
However, we were able to do what many others are doing today in many ways.
Yes, that is true. Always has been. Greta Thunberg is surely a strong candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
She might even have been, at the very least, before her foul-mouthed tirade at Cop26.
While she and her devotees call for the end of capitalism, others continue to feed it.
The Nike CEOs are giddy as their profit skyrockets.
The idea of old and young does not have any new meaning. I remember the 16-year-old William Hague berating his elders at a Tory conference for their half-hearted approach to socialism: ‘It’s all right for you lot,’ he said, ‘most of you won’t be around in 30 years’ time. But I will!’
John Humphry says there are reckoned to be 25 billion pairs of ‘trendy trainers’ made every year, mostly from several forms of plastic made with fossil fuels that can’t be recycled.
Climate change, however, is a different story. There has always been something a little dodgy about the simplistic argument that it’s we oldies who selfishly bury our heads in the sand while the young are selflessly virtuous.
Sir David Attenborough has not yet reached his prime. The retired vicars who attempt to insulate us homes with misguided, well-meaning efforts to fix ourselves to the road are also not in our first flush of youth.
Even so, the young have cause to be outraged at the mess we oldies have made of their planet and there’s some evidence that many are prepared to make changes to their lifestyles.
Others may go vegan or cycle more.
But I suspect their idea of the good life in a rich country like ours is not so very different from their parents’.
They may have fewer children than we had, but in many cases that’s because they’re getting married later and enjoying their single lives.
I wonder how impressed they’ve been by the wretched Harry and Meghan promising they will have no more children.
I suspect they might be looking at the Sussexes’ lifestyle with its Californian mansion and private jet flights and thinking: ‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of that!’
But the horrible reality is that we face an existential crisis — and what matters is that we recognise that young and old share it.
Ultimately, it’s pointless berating one group or the other for their selfish behaviour.
Instead we must answer the question, which has plagued philosophers across the centuries: How do we live an exemplary life?
Next week, we will be commemorating the sacrifices of so many who fought in both world wars. When Churchill used the expression ‘their finest hour’ he was referring not only to those heroic men and women who gave their lives but to the nation.
Parents and grandparents were aware that they all had it in common. A few made the ultimate sacrifice. Most made a contribution.
They realized they could not choose. It was about survival of the nation.
Climate change is infinitely complicated.
Cop26 will likely fail as every politician is limited by one calculation. What sacrifices can I make for my people?
China is the largest polluter of all the countries on Earth. China’s president is well aware that a reduction in coal production will cause many to suffer, and could be forced from power.
It’s tempting for us to say what the hell; we’re minnows in this tank of sharks! We have the moral obligation to behave virtuously, even though it may be tempting.
Although the younger generation is good at criticizing older people for their errors, they should not judge them on whether or not they have more virtue than us.
It’s about how all of us, young and old, find a way of adjusting the rules by which we live for a much greater good.
Perhaps even giving up that pair of new trainers is a good start.