e’re doomed,” says
Mayer Hillman
with such a beaming smile that it takes a moment for the words to sink
in. “The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet
because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no
means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And
very few appear to be prepared to say so.”
Hillman, an 86-year-old social scientist and senior fellow emeritus
of the Policy Studies Institute, does say so. His bleak forecast of the
consequence of runaway climate change, he says without fanfare, is his
“last will and testament”. His last intervention in public life. “I’m
not going to write anymore because there’s nothing more that can be
said,” he says when I first hear him speak to a stunned audience at the
University of East Anglia late last year.
From Malthus to the Millennium Bug, apocalyptic thinking has a poor
track record. But when it issues from Hillman, it may be worth paying
attention. Over nearly 60 years, his
research has used factual data to challenge policymakers’ conventional wisdom.
In 1972, he criticised out-of-town shopping centres more than 20 years
before the government changed planning rules to stop their spread. In
1980, he recommended halting the closure of branch line railways – only
now are some closed lines reopening. In 1984, he proposed energy ratings
for houses – finally adopted as government policy in 2007. And, more
than 40 years ago, he presciently challenged society’s pursuit of
economic growth.
When we meet at his converted coach house in London, his classic
Dawes racer still parked hopefully in the hallway (a stroke and a triple
heart bypass mean he is – currently – forbidden from cycling), Hillman
is anxious we are not side-tracked by his best-known research, which
challenged the supremacy of the car.
“With doom ahead, making a case for cycling as the primary mode of
transport is almost irrelevant,” he says. “We’ve got to stop burning
fossil fuels. So many aspects of life depend on fossil fuels, except for
music and love and education and happiness. These things, which hardly
use fossil fuels, are what we must focus on.”
Read more: 'We're doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention | Environment | The Guardian
