The green gospel
From Paul Horgan
Sir: I read the article by Allister Heath (‘It’s a wonderful world: richer, healthier and cleaner than ever’, 2 December) with interest. The author is correct to point out that the optimism of Indur Goklany’s book will be drowned out by the doom-mongering of the environmentalist lobby. I believe that the reason for this is simple. Environmentalism is the new religion of the Western world. It has replaced the scientific secularism of Marxism/socialism, which itself replaced monotheism when this began to be discredited by Darwinism.
This Earth worship has all the hallmarks of Christianity, which is why it is so easily accepted by the non-church-attending masses. Just as the Roman empire discovered, when the masses have embraced a religion the state has to follow, and it is doing so with a vengeance.
Consider this: the ejection from Eden and original sin are replaced in environmentalism by the transformation of the largely agricultural economy by the Industrial Revolution into a polluting hell on earth. The Ten Commandments of this new faith are the injunctions to lead a greener lifestyle. We have Armageddon replaced by the cataclysm of global warming. True salvation is achieved by going green — recycling wherever possible and driving an economical car. Sinners are the people who drive 4x4s, and the Second Coming becomes an age of total use of sustainable resources and de-industrialisation when we may return to the pastoral age we abandoned.
The religion has its own church and prophets, represented by unelected and unaccountable groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, whose words are accepted as gospel. It has its militants, who picket power stations and destroy farming and other businesses with which they do not agree. Their theology precludes all forms of industry as we understand it and results in the ignorant persecution of the innocent. We saw this with the Brent Spar affair, where the dumping of a redundant oil platform caused boycotts and demonstrations despite the fact that the environmental impact of the operation was minimal.
Of course, in this new age, what Allister Heath wrote will be seen as heresy. It remains to be seen how this new Church treats its heretics.
Paul T. Horgan
Crowthorne, Berkshire
From Mark Austin
Sir: While I agree with the thrust of Allister Heath’s article, he has inadvertently made a statistical error in assuming (or giving the impression of assuming) that an average lifespan of, say, 30 in the past means that most died at about that age. In fact, the figures are distorted by a very high rate of infant mortality. If we assume 50 per cent infant mortality before the age of one in the Middle Ages (a not unreasonable assumption), the average age at death of the remainder would be 59, with relatively low mortality rates at the age of 30.
Similarly, much of the improvement in life expectancy in the Third World has come about by falls in infant and maternal deaths.
Mark Austin
Morden, Surrey
Oxbridge dropouts
From Geoff Parks and Mike Nicholson
Sir: Your article ‘Why so many state school pupils drop out of Oxbridge’ (2 December) is highly misleading. Oxford and Cambridge have the lowest drop-out rates among undergraduates of any UK higher education institution, with less than 2 per cent against a national average of some 14 per cent. The universities remain committed to attracting those students with the greatest ability and potential to succeed at their studies, whatever their background. The collegiate system means that students receive a good deal of support, pastoral care and encouragement, which is why our figures are so consistently low.
Geoff Parks
Director of Admissions for the Cambridge Colleges
Mike Nicholson
Director of Undergraduate Admissions, University of Oxford
From Tommy Wide
Sir: Charlie Boss says state school pupils are dropping out of Oxford ‘in unusually high numbers’. But he is wrong. Considering that 53.4 per cent of all students at Oxford are from state schools, a 60 per cent drop-out rate from the state school sector does not seem particularly startling. As an Oxford student myself, I am surprised by how well my friends from state schools deal with the ‘potentially elitist social side’. Although problems do exist, these statistics are hardly ‘a major blow’ for those campaigning for broader participation at Oxford.
Tommy Wide
Somerville College, Oxford
Invasions of the Bruce
From K.R. Houston
Sir: In his review of the recently published biography of Conrad and Barbara Black, Byron Rogers recounts a spat he once had with Lord Black over what constituted the last serious invasion of England. Mr Rogers states that a landing of French troops in 1216 ‘was the last real foothold gained by a foreign army on English soil’.
Yet more than a century later the army of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, invaded the north of England on several occasions, a tactic that forced his adversaries to the negotiating table and led to the Treaty of Northampton in 1328, in which England recognised Scotland as an independent kingdom.
Either Mr Rogers’s view is a bit skewed, or he is one of those people who considers ‘England’ and ‘Britain’ to be interchangeable; in which case, I suppose, Scottish invasions — even successful ones — don’t count!
K.R. Houston
Edinburgh
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