IF YOU THINK GRETA'S A GLUM BUNNY,
LISTEN TO NIALL'S DOUR THUMPING IN THE THUNDERER:
I have said more than once in recent years that our era has more in common with the 16th and 17th centuries than with any intervening period — and not just because of the splendidly Stuart-style constitutional crisis currently gripping the British Isles. It is the early-modern world all over again, not least because the effects of the internet on popular belief so closely resemble the effects of the printing press.
The challenge of millenarianism — as Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore pointed out in my favourite sketch from Beyond the Fringe — is what to do when the end of the world fails to happen.
THE TIMES OF LONDON:Greta is right about one thing. The chances are virtually nil that the governments of the world will do as she asks. While the West virtue-signals, China, India, Brazil and others will continue to attach more importance to growth than to curbing emissions. The planet will grow warmer, just as it grew colder in the 1600s. And we shall adapt, taking advantage of the technological innovations that will gradually improve how we generate and store electrical power and ward off flood waters.
Haven't we hear this somewhere before ?
