British eco-toffs

Given that green thinking represents a reaction against modernity it is not surprising that it appeals to aristocratic types. There are a couple of reminders of this fact in today’s British press.

First, an article by Geoffrey Lean in the Telegraph: “For much of the Nineties, three of Britain’s bolshiest environmental pressure groups were led by a baronet, a hereditary peer and a prince of the realm. Prince Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron of Greenwich was the international head of the World Wide Fund for Nature (aka the World Wildlife Fund). Peter Robert Henry Mond, 4th Baron Melchett, ran Greenpeace in Britain. And the director of Friends of the Earth was one the Hon Sir Jonathon Espie Porritt Bt.”

And more on Jonathon Porritt in a piece in the Independent:

“He is the son of Arthur Porritt, the New Zealand athlete and surgeon who won the 100 metres bronze medal in the famous “Chariots of Fire” race at the 1924 Olympics. His father also went on to become Lord Porritt and New Zealand’s Governor-General.

“Educated at Eton and Oxford, Porritt is in theory doubly-titled – he is “Hon” as the son of a life peer, and also Sir Jonathon Porritt, Bart, having inherited the baronetcy which was also awarded to his father.”