Pulse

Hollywood and make patriotic films.’
    ‘Mind you, Bush made Reagan look good – almost classy.’
    ‘Someone said of Reagan that he was simple but not simple-minded.’
    ‘That’s not bad.’
    ‘Yes it is. It’s sophistry, it’s a spin doctor’s formula. Hear it from me: simple is simple-minded.’
    ‘So we all believe in climate change?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘But do we, for instance, believe that there’s plenty oftime for scientists to find a solution, or that we’ve reached a tipping point and in two, five or ten years it’ll be too late, or that we’ve already passed that tipping point and we’re going to hell in a handcart?’
    ‘The middle one, don’t we? That’s why we all try to reduce our carbon footprint, and insulate our houses better, and recycle.’
    ‘Is recycling to do with global warming?’
    ‘Need you ask?’
    ‘Well, I only ask because we’ve been recycling for twenty years or so, and no one was talking about global warming back then.’
    ‘I sometimes think, when we’re driving through central London in the evening and see all these office blocks with lights blazing away, that it’s a bit bloody pointless worrying about leaving the telly and the computer on standby.’
    ‘Every little makes a difference.’
    ‘But every big makes a bigger difference.’
    ‘Did you see that terrifying statistic the other month – that something like seventy per cent of passengers on flights in India were first-time fliers using budget airlines?’
    ‘As they have every right to. We did. We still do, most of us, don’t we?’
    ‘Are you saying that out of some sense of fair play we have to let everyone else become as filthy and polluting and carbon-emitting as we’ve been, and only then do we have the moral right to suggest they stop it?’
    ‘I’m not saying that. I’m saying they can hardly be expected to take lessons from us of all people.’
    ‘Do you know what I think is the most disgusting thing, morally, in the last twenty years or whatever. Emissions trading. Isn’t that a disgusting idea?’
    ‘All together now …’
    ‘“It’s the hypocrisy I can’t stand.”’
    ‘Beasts, all of you. But especially you, Dick.’
    ‘One thing really annoys me. You sort out all your recycling and put it in separate boxes, and then they come round with the van and throw it in higgledy-piggledy, mixing it all up again.’
    ‘But if we think we are at the tipping point, what chance do we believe we have of the world agreeing?’
    ‘Perhaps as much as one chance in five?’
    ‘Self-interest. That’s what makes things tick. People will recognise it’s in their own interest. And that of subsequent generations.’
    ‘Subsequent generations don’t vote for today’s politicians.’
    ‘What has posterity ever done for me, as someone asked.’
    ‘But politicians know that most voters care about subsequent generations. And most politicians are parents.’
    ‘I think one problem is that even if we accept self-interest as a useful guiding principle, there’s a gap between what your actual self-interest is and what you perceive it to be.’
    ‘Also between short- and long-term self-interest.’
    ‘Wasn’t it Keynes?’
    ‘Wasn’t what?’
    ‘Said that thing about posterity.’
    ‘It’s usually him or Oliver Wendell Holmes or Judge Learned Hand or Nubar Gulbenkian.’
    ‘I don’t know who or what you’re talking about.’
    ‘Did you see that French champagne houses are thinking of relocating to England because soon it’ll be too warm for their grapes?’
    ‘Well, in Roman times –’
    ‘There were vineyards along Hadrian’s Wall. You’re always telling us that, Mr Wine Bore.’
    ‘Am I? Well, it bloody bears repeating, because maybe it proves that it’s just the great cycle of nature coming round again.’
    ‘The great recycle of nature.’
    ‘Except we know it isn’t. Did you see that map of globalwarming in the paper the other day? It said a four-degree rise would be utterly disastrous – no water in most of Africa, cyclones, epidemics, rising sea levels, the Netherlands and south-east England under water.’
    ‘Can’t we rely on the Dutch to sort something out? They did before.’
    ‘What timespan are we actually talking about?’
    ‘If we don’t agree now, we could have a four-degree rise by 2060.’
    ‘Ah.’
    ‘You know – I expect you’ll all beat me up for this – but there are times when it feels almost glamorous to be part of