This article is a preview from the Summer 2019 edition of New Humanist

It’s always a pleasure to hear from my former students. Although most of them do not appear to have made all that much of themselves since they graduated from York, it’s refreshing to learn that they have, by and large, not become addicted to dangerous drugs or been required to serve even modest terms of imprisonment.

So when I met up last month with Pete Nichols and Dave Hegarty I was looking forward to hearing their news and exchanging a few memories of the time we’d spent together on the Heslington campus. All went extremely well until our second pint. Pete had outlined the distinctive benefits of working for Deliveroo – “I can work whenever I want, that’s the great advantage of the gig economy” – while Dave had waxed lyrical about the skills he’d acquired as a fully qualified barista: “You’d never imagine the mess some trainee baristas can make of a single macchiato.”

Matters only began to drift downhill when Dave inquired about the part I’d played in the recent Extinction Rebellion demonstrations. Was I still as militant as I’d always sounded in my second-year lectures on the coming crisis of capitalism?

It’s not easy to explain why one hasn’t been on a demonstration. Whereas a headcold or stomach upset or the need to visit a sick Bunbury are quite acceptable reasons for failing to attend an academic do or the Sunday morning tango dancing in Regent’s Park, something more telling is required from a paid-up radical who has missed out on a opportunity to change the world. Even as I was stumbling my excuse, Dave came straight to the point. “Don’t you think it’s important for us all to think about the next generation? Our children and our children’s children.”

Back at home I checked my balance sheet. How was I doing when it came to thinking about the next generation? There was, of course, the relatively generous provision I’d made in my will for my grandchildren. But that was mere cash. It did nothing whatsoever to slow the melting of the icebergs or the warming of the oceans.

If push came to shove, I could point out that I’d made some minor contribution to the environment by having two separate kitchen dustbins, although under duress I would have had to admit that there were late-night moments when I tossed any detritus at hand into the nearest receptacle. I had sought to avoid plastic pollution by taking my own canvas shopping bag to Waitrose, and only last week I’d brought home an unbagged floret of broccoli which had sat naked and unrefrigerated on a kitchen shelf until it had unfortunately travelled well beyond its sell-by date. I had also taken to switching off the hall light after visiting the bathroom, pressing the Eco button on the dishwasher and, on at least a couple of occasions, saving several gallons of water by sharing a distressingly murky bath with my partner.

But had any of these gestures been informed by a genuine concern for the next generation? Had I ever lost a moment’s sleep fretting about the manner in which my sweet little grandchild and millions of others might be burned to death by global warming or washed away by floods? Never had any such horrific prospects interfered for a second with my intended summer flight to France or my intention to purchase a new laptop, or my burning desire for the navy blue lightweight suit I’d spotted on a rail in Topman.

This wholesale lack of real concern for the next generation was, I reluctantly acknowledged, the result of an ideological fixation. All my life I have believed that there are only better times ahead. Perhaps not the Marxist revolution that I’d more or less promised to Dave and Pete but at least the arrival of a more benevolent society. If I’d thought at all about the next generation it had only been with a certain envy. As prophets like Steven Pinker continue to aver, history may have its ups and downs but its only true direction is progressive.

That recognition has at least prompted some renewed ecological concern. I’m managing with my existing summer suit, taking the Eurostar to France, sticking with my recalcitrant laptop and paying ever more attention to my six-year-old granddaughter. It’s had a mixed reaction. Last week, as I was scurrying to find her copy of Alice in Wonderland, I overheard her complaining to her mother. “Mummy, why does Grandad keep picking me up and saying he’s terribly sorry?”