And another thing

Rubbish, entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Paul Johnson

Wednesday, 13th June 2007

Do the scientific pantheists believe this? Do they accept that humans come before non-human things, or do they regard the distinction as meaningless? In a pantheon, everything, from humanity to inert matter, is a continuum. Some Christians have always distinguished between the flesh and the spirit (valuable) and the world (rubbish). Thus John Donne in his Progress of the Soul (1612) asserts, ‘What fragmentary rubbish this world is, thou know’st.’ Many, from St Augustine to Newman, would agree. Indeed in a certain frame of mind, honest scientists are bound to agree too. The entire universe is undergoing entropy, moving from primal order to growing disorder. Unimaginably huge quantities of celestial rubbish are produced every second by the process of heat loss and its consequences. In one sense the universe is a gigantic rubbish pit or incinerator, both now regarded as unacceptable by the prevailing scipan wisdom. But the way in which the universe creates and deals with its rubbish problem is beyond the power of man. We cannot control even its comparatively minor activities on earth. A single major volcano can generate more ‘emissions’ than humanity in its entire history. The earnest ecologists who claim to be ‘saving’ the planet and/or the universe remind me of Sydney Smith’s Mrs Partington trying to deal with the Great Storm of Reform by sweeping the water with her broom from her doorstep.

But that is not going to stop the enthusiasts from trying. We are in for a rough time. They will soon discover that they cannot deal with the consequences of consumerism — rubbish — without trying to control the thing itself. I foresee an infinite number of laws ordering what we may produce, buy and use. Just as the notion of the ‘hate crime’ is the beginning of the end of free speech, so rubbish control will end freedom of purchase and much else. The notion that human freedom will indefinitely expand is out of date. For those in authority now, freedom is disorder and must be reversed if the world is to be ‘saved’.