Ecological discussions in our Pub
George, a stranger and Fred explain how to save the planet
George explains stuff.
We were having a quiet drink and discussion in the Bellender Arms, our favourite pub where we enjoy quietly discussing important issues over a local organic beer or two. Sometimes three local organic beers when the discussions get heated.
George didn’t often speak but that evening he seemed very motivated.
“Think of those champion swimmers”, he said. “They shave all their hair off to reduce drag.”
We were struggling to see where he was going with this as the conversation was about climate change.
“Well it’s obvious isn’t it?” He continued. “Back in the past Europe was covered with trees and so were most other places, we cut nearly all of them down and we’re doing the same thing all over the world.”
A glance around the bar showed that I wasn’t the only one with a perplexed expression.
“Oh come on” he was getting a bit frustrated, “we cut so many trees down that we’ve reduced the planet’s drag which means it’s spinning faster and rubbing harder against the atmosphere and that’s what’s heating the climate up. It’s all about friction”
There was silence around the drink stained table, and then the rest of us decided we needed another beer.
Someone we didn’t know who joined in a discussion.
It was a quiet evening in the Bellender Arms and, probably because we were gazing at the liquid in our glasses, the discussion turned around ocean warming and sea level rise.
We felt a bit wary about the new person sitting at the bar who had ordered a commercial lager rather than one of our local ales. Despite this we were, of course, ready to listen to their points of view.
“As far as I’m concerned, sea level rise is mainly caused by people like me,” the stranger said.
You can well imagine that we were curious to understand why this person thought that.
“I learnt in school that when water is warmer it takes up more space and this is the case with the oceans,” the person continued.
“We know that” said George, “but why are you the cause?”
“I like to go to the beach but I live inland, like millions of other people” the stranger replied, “at the end of the summer the water is noticeably warmer than at the beginning of the tourist season”
Our village is by the coast. This was not a particular revelation, it must be said.
The stranger continued, “so each year tens of thousands of people rush to the coast and we spend our time swimming in the sea, the effect of all of our bodies is to warm the water, this causes it to expand and so the sea levels rise.”
A leaky beer tap could be heard dripping in the sudden silence that followed this statement.
The stranger hadn’t finished, “ it could be argued that the Archimides displacement effect might be involved, people’s bodies displacing the water and making the level higher, like in a bath. But I have observed this is probably negligible as not all the tourists are in the water at the same time.”
Later on, after the person had left, we decided that the consumption of commercial lager might have something to do with this sort of fuzzy thinking. George was the only one who thought that the theory might be worth considering, but as he runs an ice-cream parlour even he wasn’t keen to promote the idea that tourist’s body heat causes ocean level rise.
How to ‘save the planet’ according to Fred
Fred is one of those people who is an instant expert on any given subject. During our Pub discussions he would check things out on his smartphone and then make contributions based on his Web searches. Few of the rest of us approved of this and frankly found it a bit annoying. We called him ‘Fred the Web’ as he didn’t seem to have any opinions of his own but trawled them from different social media streams.
One recurrent problem was that Fred didn’t really understand some of the stuff he came across on the Web. This meant that he would often give it large details about things he didn’t fully understand. He once told us that he was sure he was a gender non-binary Cis male.
There were quite a few of us that evening in the Bellender Arms, the discussions roved around a lot of subjects but kept coming back to our favourites like biodiversity loss, climate change, environmental destruction and what to do about the ‘Banksy’ that had appeared overnight on Carla’s garden wall. She was very upset as hundreds of people came to see it and took the time to peer over the wall into her garden. She found this a bit intrusive and Fred’s declaration that ‘she was a victim of unforeseen consequences’ got right up her nose.
“I am an ecologist,” claimed Fred that evening.
“No you're not,” came a reply from someone heading to the toilets. “You haven’t got a scientific bone in your body.”
“No, not an ecologist, I mean an ecologist.” Fred retorted.
“Oh, ok I get it,” came the voice from the toilets, “you don’t mean ecologist in the sense of someone who has spent years deeply studying the science of ecology of natural and artificial systems and tends to have evidence based views and opinions.”
The voice continued, drowning out the normal toilet sounds, “YOU mean ecologist in the sense of someone who knows very little about the science of ecology and understands even less. Said person being full of vague ideas about said science and highly opinionated ideas about Nature based on romantic literature and some paintings by Constable? Said person being also very upset about how we are treating the ecosystem, even though they don’t really understand what an ecosystem is and probably thinks you can get one from the £1 hard discount shop in town?”
“You’re a cynic,” claimed Fred.
“Whatever,” came the echoey reply.
“To get back to what I was saying,” Fred was off again. “I am now an ecologist and fully engaged in the Fight to Save the Planet.”
The capitals were audible. As it turned out Fred had spent the night watching tutos on Youtube after having used the search line ‘how to save the planet'. Fred’s head was now a seething ferment of views and opinions coming from the extreme eco-left all the way to the extreme eco-right. It was a revelation to us that one single brain could comfortably hold such diverse and opposing views.
Fred had been particularly taken by the views of a group called ‘the Quantum order of enlightened free electrons.’ Apparently they referred to themselves ‘the Cats in a box’, something that was to be expected I suppose. It seemed that these Cats had developed a unique approach to saving the planet, which Fred was, of course, eager to share. He launched into a long, indeed very long explanation of why, according to the Cats we were in a planetary pickle. This exposé covered everything from the Ancient order of Mu, Atlantis, the Knights Templar and the German philosopher Heidegger which came as a surprise as his works are notoriously difficult to understand. Apparently the Cats had developed Heidegger’s concept of ‘Seinsvergessenheit’ which they translated as "abandonment of being" in their own particular way, which Fred went on to explain.
“All our ecological problems are caused by Being and Doing,’ Fred expounded. “Therefore these problems are ontological by nature.”
A deep silence followed this proclamation.
Fred hadn’t finished “therefore if the problems are caused by Being and Doing the solution to our environmental problems is obvious.”
“Are you talking about mass-suicide or something daft like that?” came a voice.
“No! Of course not, there is another way, a much easier way.”
“Well bloody well get on with it will you, this is taking forever,” complained someone from the shadows.
“Alright, alright! The Cats call it eco-morpheus, the best way to save the planet is to spend as much time as possible sleeping and napping. When people are having a nap their ecological impacts are massively reduced.” Fred finished, at last.
I don’t know if a part of the Cats’ strategy was to take ages propounding this view, either way it was effective as several people had nodded off, thus helping Save the Planet. Which was nice.