scattyme (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} scattyme) wrote,@ 2008-03-17 19:24:00 |
|
Hot air
I'd thought that today I would write something about my fourth attempt at getting a European driving license. I'd assumed I'd have a good whinge about the arbitrariness of the driving test procedure in France (uncannily similar to that of Ireland), and my own irrational but nonetheless deep-rooted conviction that the European driving test is a crucial rite of passage.
However I've been distracted pretty thoroughly by the death of Will Howard.
Will was one of the people involved with Cap and Share, a plan (or framework, or campaign, depending on what angle you're looking at it from) for dealing with climate change in an ethical way. He was the driving force behind the UK campaign to implement Cap and Share and put an enormous amount of time and energy into it. He went so far as to cycle from his home on the Welsh coast to Brussels on an electric bike last summer in order to promote Cap and Share at the EU.
At that point he already knew he had cancer - in fact he'd been diagnosed some years before and had been having bouts of treatment for it off and on. He and I had talked on the phone quite a bit and I finally got to meet him in January when I went to the meeting at Schumacher College.
At first impression it was obvious that he was very frail physically, but I tended to forget this as the weekend wore on because he had such amazing energy. He would facilitate talks and give summaries of discussions and was obviously very much on top of things. I also thought he was very modest and unassuming, playing down the amount of effort he'd made on things like the Cap and Share website.
I got to meet his wife, Lyn, as well as his sister and brother-in-law, who lived close to Schumacher. Lyn and I hit it off well. She told me that he was doing OK although the chemo was hard on him.
After we all went home from that meeting I got the odd e-mail from him as part of the wider Cap and Share mailing list, with suggestions about things to do next in the campaign. It seemed like everything was just carrying on as normal. But all of a sudden last week we heard that he had gone into hospital. Then Lyn sent out an e-mail this morning telling us that he had died.
What makes me angry is that he didn't live to see Cap and Share, or some similar idea, being implemented. It seems more and more likely that something along those lines will come into force sooner or later - it just makes so much sense intuitively. If and when it happens he'll deserve a great deal of the credit for getting it up and running. It's so sad that he won't be around to see that and to soak in the praise, which would surely be a good antidote for cancer. I also feel really bad for Lyn and their two teenage sons.
Anyway - I don't know yet if I passed or failed that driving test this time. If by some miracle I passed I'll have the dubious pleasure (as a privileged Northerner) of being able to make an even more wildly disproportional contribution to global warming in the years to come. It would certainly be nice to have something like Cap and Share in place to help redress the balance.
Will's work should count. If enough of us are willing to use our imaginations, then one day it will count.
I'd thought that today I would write something about my fourth attempt at getting a European driving license. I'd assumed I'd have a good whinge about the arbitrariness of the driving test procedure in France (uncannily similar to that of Ireland), and my own irrational but nonetheless deep-rooted conviction that the European driving test is a crucial rite of passage.
However I've been distracted pretty thoroughly by the death of Will Howard.
Will was one of the people involved with Cap and Share, a plan (or framework, or campaign, depending on what angle you're looking at it from) for dealing with climate change in an ethical way. He was the driving force behind the UK campaign to implement Cap and Share and put an enormous amount of time and energy into it. He went so far as to cycle from his home on the Welsh coast to Brussels on an electric bike last summer in order to promote Cap and Share at the EU.
At that point he already knew he had cancer - in fact he'd been diagnosed some years before and had been having bouts of treatment for it off and on. He and I had talked on the phone quite a bit and I finally got to meet him in January when I went to the meeting at Schumacher College.
At first impression it was obvious that he was very frail physically, but I tended to forget this as the weekend wore on because he had such amazing energy. He would facilitate talks and give summaries of discussions and was obviously very much on top of things. I also thought he was very modest and unassuming, playing down the amount of effort he'd made on things like the Cap and Share website.
I got to meet his wife, Lyn, as well as his sister and brother-in-law, who lived close to Schumacher. Lyn and I hit it off well. She told me that he was doing OK although the chemo was hard on him.
After we all went home from that meeting I got the odd e-mail from him as part of the wider Cap and Share mailing list, with suggestions about things to do next in the campaign. It seemed like everything was just carrying on as normal. But all of a sudden last week we heard that he had gone into hospital. Then Lyn sent out an e-mail this morning telling us that he had died.
What makes me angry is that he didn't live to see Cap and Share, or some similar idea, being implemented. It seems more and more likely that something along those lines will come into force sooner or later - it just makes so much sense intuitively. If and when it happens he'll deserve a great deal of the credit for getting it up and running. It's so sad that he won't be around to see that and to soak in the praise, which would surely be a good antidote for cancer. I also feel really bad for Lyn and their two teenage sons.
Anyway - I don't know yet if I passed or failed that driving test this time. If by some miracle I passed I'll have the dubious pleasure (as a privileged Northerner) of being able to make an even more wildly disproportional contribution to global warming in the years to come. It would certainly be nice to have something like Cap and Share in place to help redress the balance.
Will's work should count. If enough of us are willing to use our imaginations, then one day it will count.
