Don't despair.... Americans can be relied on to do the right thing......... eventually!

Read this.... make America great again.

Back in the 1980s we took our family holidays in the USA children flew at half price and we had a 20 kg baggage allowance each. This  meant we could take our own camping equipment, hire a car and take off into the boondocks.

We camped, walked and paddled canoes in National Parks and State Parks from Yosemite to the White Mountains and the Boundary Waters. The United States was a world leader in nature conservation, environmental ethics and protection........ and the provision of excellent campsites.

In 1985 I travelled from Maryland across the country to California to study the development of sustainable agriculture paid for with a Winston Churchill Fellowship. Then the USA seemed to be leading the world in the science and practice of sustainability. From Chesapeake Bay through the "flyover states" to Davis. It was  based on sound science and practised by non-corporate farmers.

Today the United States has inaugurated a new President who rejects science, environmental protection, many basic human rights and what I used to think was the innate politeness of Americans.

Coal has had it's day;  that was true when my father, a coal miner, retired fifty years ago. Oil is rapidly being replaced by renewable technologies and the future lies with those who develop, sell and implement them.

2016 was the third year in a row when global temperatures exceeded all previous highs. The global average temperature was 1 C higher than in 1916. It may not sound much but we are close to the irreversible tipping point of 2 C.

If the USA does not take responsibility, as the world's 2nd largest polluter and shoulder that responsibility for it's global as well as domestic good then others will.

The Chinese people are choking to death and China is the biggest polluter but they understand and accept the science. They seem to be prepared to do something about it. They accept the need to control their pollution and to  invest in new technologies.

Don't despair, the American people have a history of doing the right thing........ eventually.