Stephen Tindale has sadly passed away. He’ll be missed as a voice of reason in the debate about sustainability

By Lee Petts

Stephen Tindale, the former boss of Greenpeace in the UK and the man behind Climate Answers, has passed away.

This news has genuinely shocked and saddened me. In the last few years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Stephen on the campaign to support shale gas extraction and use in the UK, and he very kindly wrote the foreward to our paper on using shale gas community benefits to boost domestic renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.

We shared the same, pragmatic views on a range of environmental and energy issues, including the role for nuclear power, the realistic limitations of renewables, and GMO food: that we shouldn’t let the best be the enemy of the good, and that we need to recognise that no single solution is perfect.

I, and many others, will miss Stephen’s voice of reason. The environmental movement needs more people like him that are prepared to flex their position based on an evolving understanding of the world around us, rather than sticking zealously to a fixed ideology.

Goodbye Stephen, RIP.