by Terry Morgan
CHAPTER 28
Kevin Parker was not a churchgoer. His Sunday ritual, if indeed there was one, included digging around and uploading any fresh information onto the Malthus Society website, lunching at the Royal Oak, perhaps watching football on the wide screen in one of the bars in Bristol Docks and evenings in another of the many Clifton bars. All of it was intended to distract him from remembering it was Monday the next day.
It was in the Richmond that he often met up with Tom Weston, one of the founder members of the Malthus Society. Tom was a retired biology teacher, a Paul Ehrlich fan and, despite his age, still ran a dusty little second hand book shop in Clifton that specialised in books on the environment. He had a whole shelf with a sign over it saying "Paul Ehrlich." In fact, copies of Ehrlich's book, "The Population Bomb" were always on the shelf and had been selling since soon after the book was published.
In it, Ehrlich had argued that the human population was too high already, and that while the level of disaster could be mitigated, humanity could not prevent severe famines, the spread of disease, social unrest, and other negative consequences of overpopulation. Ehrlich's views on the situation had evolved over time but he was always a strong advocate of government intervention into population control.
And Tom also had collections of other books and papers dating back to 1948 - the time of the "neo-Malthusian" debate. His collection included Fairfield Osborn's "Our Plundered Planet" and William Vogt’s "Road to Survival." Tom had, at one time or another, read it all. But, alongside Thomas Malthus, Ehrlich was the man who had inspired Tom.
In turn, Tom was the man who had inspired Kevin and widened his understanding of the subject and, despite the age gap of over forty years, Tom was still the same old man who Kevin relaxed with, the man he listened to and the man who Kevin most respected.
But Tom was not a man of the internet. He was someone who appeared frightened by technology and preferred books. But Kevin often had his laptop with him in the pub and Tom could be persuaded to put on his glasses and read whatever subject of mutual interest Kevin found. Tom had even learned how to press the scroll down button.
"What do you make of this then, Tom?" Kevin slid the laptop between the beer glasses towards Tom.
"Woss that then? Tom said in his Bristol accent.
"A posting on the Malthus Society website."
"Woss it say then?"
"Here, read it," said Kevin and Tom donned his glasses and peered at the screen.
"Can't read it for love nor money. Too dark for me."
Kevin leaned over, brightened the screen and increased the font size. "Try that."
Tom squinted at it. Then he scrolled down with an arthritic finger. "Bless my soul," he said and adjusted his glasses. "I know that fellow."
"What do you mean you know him?" Kevin said, "It's only a screen name."
"Yes, but he's written stuff before. I mean real stuff, not on computers. Big fan of Ehrlich. In fact he was at Stanford. "
"Got anything of his on your shelves, then Tom?"
"Probably, " said Tom. "His name is Solomon."
"Yes," said Kevin, "That's his screen name, Tom. But I think I've seen stuff from him before - admittedly it was a while ago. He's a Boston group member. What's his real name?"
"Solomon, you young fool - David Solomon."
"How the hell do you know him, then Tom?"
"Someone brought in a pile of old Journals of Clinical Microbiology - interesting journal - you've probably got it up at the University. He had written something on viruses that caused respiratory tract infections. I read it - it was during the bird flu scare - thought I'd better know something just in case. I've still got the journals somewhere - not a popular item."
Kevin looked at Tom, marvelling at both the old man's memory and the amount of uninspiring literature he seemed to find time to read while waiting for customers. But, Kevin reminded himself, Tom was still a biologist at heart and understood a thing or two about what he read.
He pulled the laptop back towards him and re-read the posting from "Solomon" - "Agree, with day-owl - Sub Saharan Africa drought insoluble but the day of reckoning is fast approaching."
It was the Mohamed El Badry effect - any mention of Africa was starting to interest Kevin. He'd even spent the entire morning researching facts, figures and maps of Nigeria. He then did his own scroll, going a long way back but could only find one post from Solomon. It was a year before and it said simply: "Tired of waiting, friends. Moving on." Kevin now remembered it but, like so many others it seemed, Solomon had decided he had better things to do than follow pointless chatter on the Malthus website. So why, then, had he suddenly made a return?
"So what else do you know about Solomon, Tom?" asked Kevin, as Tom started to put away his glasses.
"He was a microbiologist," Tom said, "Just like Ehrlich. I checked some of the other things he had written and he sounded just as controversial and political as Ehrlich. He mentioned Marxism a lot in one article, then stated he had become a Green, then an environmentalist. He wrote an article about destruction of rain forests and said, quite rightly, that it was being driven by commercial demand - where there's market demand someone will exploit it and to hell with the long term. Clever scientist, very sensible and logical but also crazy and a bit mixed up as well I reckoned."