Photo Caption: At Isle of Wight action organized by my daughter.
I stepped in to rescue a provincial botanic garden on the Isle of Wight four years ago. The unique sub-tropical micro climate we have there allows us to grow plants outside that are under glass elsewhere in the UK. I have learned a great deal about climate change from that vantage point. I have worked through the carbon mathematics which indicate that we cannot exploit known fossil fuel reserves without sailing past the “dangerous” threshold. I have seen that reserves which cannot be extracted, so called stranded assets, will impair oil and gas valuations. I have sold my fossil fuel stocks and made the placard in the photo to raise our local voices against more fossil fuel extraction. I hope my classmates and fellow Deerfield alums will be on the right side of history regarding this pivotal issue – all activists in our own small ways. I am watching the “Drillery” vs. Trump spectacle with trepidation having lived outside the U.S. for the last 26 years.
John T. Curtis II
1977
