Roger bannister quotw9/7/2023 ![]() ![]() Based on that resource, I estimated what it would take for America to do its share of limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees. could meet our accepted share of the global emissions reductions needed to stabilize at 2 degrees, and found that it is clearly feasible and essentially cost-free. NRDC recently published a comprehensive study of how the U.S. More recent analysis is much cruder but does not at all claim much less show that the 1.5 degree goal is unachievable. They show that major changes in the global energy system are needed, but they are mainly ramping up and expanding the scope of efforts that are already underway. ![]() On a global level the International Energy Agency has for years published studies showing how to meet the more mandatory 2-degree goal also adopted in the Paris Agreement. If the captain of the Titanic had announced that the ship was about to hit an iceberg, the passengers’ attitude would have been “party on!” Conversely, if he had said that the ship was expected to avoid hitting the iceberg, the attitude of passengers would also have been “party on!” But if he has announced “I’m concerned that the ship could hit an iceberg, but if everyone runs to the starboard rail I think we could miss it” then people would have been motivated to act.Ĭareful analysis shows that the more ambitious climate goal is achievable. Tom Friedman spoke of the following metaphor on how people react to climate change. ![]() The Paris Agreement set a goal of “pursu efforts” to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees, and 190 nations, essentially the whole world, signed on.īut I perceive that this goal lacks inspiration-of the type that Roger Bannister provided: Even among those who recognize the danger of allowing climate change to exceed 1.5 degrees, many people seem resigned to the belief that the goal is impossible to realize. (Coe himself ran a then-world-record 3:47.33 mile in 1981.)Ī key problem with doing something serious about stopping climate change is the lack of inspiration. "There was not a single athlete of my generation that was not inspired by Roger…” observed Sebastian Coe, UK Olympic gold medalist and president of the International Association of Athletics Foundations. The interesting story is that once the goal was accepted as being achievable, many people achieved it. So the real story of the four-minute mile is this: when no one thought a 4 minute mile was possible, no one tried very hard-thus no one succeeded. By 1964 an American had beat the target while still in high school. Within 4 years 17 additional runners are known to have had times that beat 4 minutes. The movie would have ended here, and there would have been no connection to the question of limiting climate change. So a dramatic pause occurred right after Bannister crossed the finish line and fell into the arms of his friend, nearly passing out.Īfter this pause, “the announcer read out the time: ‘3…’ The rest was drowned out by the roar of the crowd. In those days timing was done by hand and several timers recorded and compared results. You have seen this type of movie many times: through hard work (he was still a full-time medical student), study, training, and will-power, Bannister overcame all the obstacles at a public race in May 1954, fully 9 years after the Swedish record of 4 minutes one and 2/5ths was set.Īnd naturally he won. Of course, Bannister couldn’t prove it could be done, because it had never been done before. “There was no logic in my mind that if you can run a mile in four minutes one and 2/5ths, you can’t run it in 3:59… I knew enough medicine and physiology to know it wasn’t a physical barrier, but I think it had become a psychological barrier,” he later recounted. And for years it wasn’t.īut Bannister, a medical student, believed the goal was possible to meet. The 4-minute mark seemed like a brick wall that would never be toppled. But, time and again, runners came up short. When Sweden’s Gunder Hagg ran 4:01.4 in 1945, the chase was truly on. The Hollywood version of the Bannister story could be this: for years, people believed that humans were physically incapable of running a mile in 4 minutes. The numbers were easy for the public to grasp: 1 mile, 4 laps, 4 minutes.” Bannister died on March 3 rd 2018, but his story continues to be important to all of us that are concerned about climate change: “The quest to break the 4-minute mile carried a special mystique. Roger Bannister was the first man to run a mile in under 4 minutes. ![]()
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