How does this story, based 185 years ago on Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle, relate to what is happening in the world today?

Syms Covington discovered a frightening fact—that most people refuse to believe what they haven’t seen with their own eyes. Today we have a similar situation with the slow but steady differences we are noticing due to climate change. A threat much more frightening than any dragon.

Science often tells us things we don’t want to hear. The Victorians didn’t want to believe in evolution, to hear that humans descended from apes. The Bible had taught them humans were different and better than other animals. So Charles Darwin waited twenty-three years before publishing his groundbreaking book On the Origin of Species, because he didn’t want to cause trouble and upset his family and friends. Now his findings provide the basis of nearly all the biology we study.

There are scientists in the same position as Darwin was, right now, but this time their findings are very urgent. It’s taken activists, like the brilliant teenage Greta Thunberg, to show us that we must listen to scientists, even if it is hard to hear what they tell us. Darwin had time to spare. We do not. It might not be affecting most of our lives yet, but climate change is a fact, and every one of us can do something about it.

Young people, like you, are willing to believe what they cannot see, and are as fiercely protective of our planet as a dragon over her eggs. It is you who will stop us from burning. Thank you.

1809 February 12. Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, a small village in England. His father was a doctor and his mother the daughter of a famous china factory owner, and they lived in a large house.

As a small child, he spent most of his time outside and collected birds’ eggs (only one from each nest) and pebbles. He also loved to read.

1817 Darwin’s mother died. His three older sisters and older brother helped looked after him and his younger sister.

1818 Darwin was sent away to boarding school, age nine. He hated being away from home and wasn’t a good student—he couldn’t remember all the things he was supposed to. But he loved science and made a chemistry lab in a toolshed in his garden at home! His friends nicknamed him “Gas.”

1825 Darwin was not doing well at school, so he was sent to Edinburgh University medical school with his older brother, who was becoming a doctor. Darwin hated watching operations and finally confessed to his father, a year later, that he didn’t want to be a doctor.

1828 Darwin was sent to Cambridge to train to be a vicar, as many vicars studied nature as a hobby. He didn’t enjoy studying and spent most of his time outside again, collecting beetles.

1831 Darwin was given the chance to be a “gentleman companion” and naturalist (someone who studied nature) on Captain Fitzroy’s round-the-world voyage on the Beagle, which would be away for at least two years.