Laudator Temporis Acti

A.L. Rowse (1903-1997), "Vanishing Britain," Portraits and Views, Literary and Historical (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1979), pp. 234-239 (at 235):

Myself, I see no reason why anybody should have a car unless he needs one for his business: four hundred people in one train are better for the landscape, fuel, etc., than four hundred people in separate cars. There are far too many people anyway in an overcrowded island — fancy importing more, simply because the whites won't work, and here people have 'never had it so good', in that revealing phrase. With too many people there is naturally pollution of every kind — in the air, the rivers and streams, around the coasts, with consequent destruction to bird and animal-life. I am less concerned about the disappearance of the natterjack toad than I am about the destruction of sea-birds, and the recession of wild-flowers from the hedges within miles of towns — the motor-car again. Mr Christian rightly notices the diminishing primroses. When I was a boy the hedges all round my native town were starred with them in spring — not so today, for the hundreds of idiots picking them. (Why must they do it? Answer: because people are idiots.)