my environmental heroes
Some left a message on my phone because they wanted to write an article about 'environmental heroes'. I'm not sure about you, but I think the term is loaded and overused. I also don't think I have done anything that is remotely heroic.
That said, I had a good few minutes thinking to myself about who are my heroes. So here are my top five environmental(ish) heroes.
- My wife, Dr Heather Turner. Although she works as an academic statistician, she is the best example of an honest-to-goodness environmentalist that I know. For example, whilst I was researching palm oil we decided to try living on a palm-oil free diet. Being a man, this just sounded like a good idea. But my wife has clung stubbornly to the task - to the extent of checking the ingredients on every single item that we buy. I am honored to live with someone who is far, far better than I am. My better half.
- The almost forgotten James Starley, the Coventry-based entrepreneur who invented the modern bicycle. To start with, he worked for a company that made sewing machines and in his spare time he invented his bike. As the sewing machine market slumped, he transformed the business to mass-produce the bikes instead. Eventually they moved into motorbikes and then cars. His descendents began the Rover company. But just imagine the impact he has had on the world with his invention. And his amazing ability to turn an idea into a city-saving enterprise. Inspiring.
- Indian academic Vandana Shiva, India's one-woman answer to the multinationals' control of food. Whilst the agrochemical companies insist that monocultures with genetically modified genomes are the only solution to vitamin deficiencies amongst the poor, Vandana insists that it is the monocultures which have caused the problem and that multi-tiered traditional home-gardens were able to support families with all the nutrients they need for their diet.
- Gandhiji. Who believed in this stuff from first principles long before anyone else. Who lived his life as an open-book which we still, fifty years on, have not really learned to read. We are not worthy of his example.
- Dr E A FitzPatrick (Fitz). Whilst primarily known within the microscopically small field-within-a-field of micropedology, Fitz was the architypical anarchist. He had a wicked sense of humour even when I met him, well into his 80's, still trying to get the authorities to listen to his rationality instead of their obvious irrationality. I am honored that I had the opportunity to meet a man as great as he was.
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