It's all about me, me, me!

We seem to live in an ever more me-centred world. Last night I watched President Trump talking about his decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Change Agreement. His reasoning ran along these lines:

• Back in 2015 when America signed the agreement all the other countries of the world cheered. 
• They were really happy because they knew that this agreement would put America at a disadvantage. 
• They were all secretly laughing at America. 
•  Now he is putting all of this right. 
• Nobody can laugh at America ever again. 

Rather disturbingly, his audience clapped and cheered.

Large parts of his country suffer from the problems of climate change. Even his own place at Mar A Lago suffers from flooding because of climate change.

His own states are combining against him over this. One of the residents of Florida expressed his amazement that their "so-called president" (his words, not mine) was working against the good of the country.

But the whole climate change thing is apparently something dreamed up by others, such as the Chinese, so that they can beat the USA. And the president said he wanted to put America first. Clearly the reason why the nations of the world want to fight climate change and why Mr Trump denies it is all about America being first as well. What a man!

Meanwhile, another president, Monsieur Macron of France, is asking everyone to "make the world great again". I wonder where he got that slogan.

The whole business of denying scientific fact is hard to understand. Does it take a special mindset to look at all the evidence and simply deny it? It may be, however, that in some areas of knowledge this blinkered approach might be about to change. The Pope has made a judgement about evolution and the big bang theory. He says that belief on both of these bits of science can be considered quite compatible with a belief on a supreme being. God, he said, is not some kind of magician who could wave a wand and make stuff happen. So why not accept evolution. God still needed to create the original beings which were then going to evolve. Similarly for a big bang to take place God had to create the necessary conditions.

He has not so far explained where God came from in the first place! But his declaration might change some attitudes to education in some parts of the world.