25 Aug 2009

Teddy Goldsmith RIP


Very sad to hear Teddy Goldsmith has died, long expected he had cancer alas

Will write more about him tomorrow....stayed with him once and met him a few times.

Both an essential thinker and pretty right wing!

The Economist noted back in 1999:
'He has never brooked any compromise with governments and big business; the “policy-wonking” has been left to his more emollient successors such as Jonathan Porritt of Friends of the Earth. Unlike the vast majority of his fellow campaigners, he is also well to the right of the Conservative Party on social and moral issues. This has made him an acquired taste even within the environmental movement. He has recently lost one editor of the Ecologist magazine, Nicholas Hildyard, for precisely these reasons.'

Which is a pretty decent summary....you can't dismiss his contribution which was important but no getting away from his negative features....must write about Godard as well (he is hale and healthy I believe).


Tricky when people are mixtures of the wonderful and the reactionery!

Much easier to simply praise or demonise.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

"Tricky when people are mixtures of the wonderful and the reactionery! Much easier to simply praise or demonise."

It is,but there is so much more spice in being a little of both! Certainly Teddy Goldsmith' case, much to the dismay of the rigid and narrow minded. Those didn't like that a bit, it made them feel far too uncomfortable.

Mike Feinstein said...

Are there any office GPEW statements on the passing of Teddy Goldsmith? I am with the Editorial Board of the GPUS newspaper Green Pages www.gp.org/greenpages and we'd like to include a mention of this in our next issue.

Thanks
Mike Feinstein
Santa Monica, California

Derek Wall said...

Hi Mike,

the gpew have produced a statement which I have helped with, will post it when it is up!

thanks,

Derek

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