Our Snowflakes are in meltdown!
WHaTEVEr happened to the stoical British stiff upper lip and the mantra of keeping calm and carrying on? instead, we seem to have bred a generation of doom-and-gloom hysterical snowflakes. Take the over-reaction to the Operation Yellowhammer revelations: our farmers grow plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, but heaven forbid there might be delays to our supplies of feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, truffles and extra-virgin olive oil. Do we seriously believe European producers will withhold their goods from us? i can’t recall any delays to our imports before we joined in 1973 — and that was before the channel Tunnel and fleets of huge cargo aircraft. Take the new religion of climate change: the average global temperature has increased by only one degree centigrade in the past 100 years, and there have been wildly fluctuating extremes of our climate over thousands of years, yet ours are the first generations to panic about it. Humans are just tiny grains of sand, with no more influence on Nature than had King canute. Take the hysteria of the Extinction rebellion cult: youngsters chant virtue-signalling but meaningless slogans and wave placards daubed with vague and hypothetical generalisations. is it any wonder so many children these days are suffering from anxiety and depression? Take the protests against fracking: i don’t remember demos when we destroyed men’s health by sending them into the bowels of the earth to dig for coal in the dark. it is essential for our well-being that we utilise a wide variety of energy options, but i suspect it will be the same naive people who will protest if the lights go out and they can’t use their TVs and computers, or charge their phones and electric cars. Of course, we should guard against complacency and take the utmost care of our environment. But we need to keep a sense of proportion and logic.
BRIAN RUSHTON, Stourport-on-Severn, Worcs.