So interesting. It's the kind of text that makes you feel like you've acquired the skills of an owl. You see more clearly, the visual field is expanded beyond your comfort zone, your routine...
After my second reading, two things keep nagging at the back of my mind:
Most of the events mentioned are the results of things our legislature did, or more likely, did not do.
And;
At the heart of our problem, here in the US, is our hapless addiction to shopping and unreasonably low prices. I don't mean just plastic gee-gaws, but more significant products like pots and pans, garage door closers, plywood, power tools, etc.
Agreed, I think both are true of Britain as well. Although the cheap products have allowed other things to become much more expensive (housing, taxation etc), so people don't have much disposable income to show for it.
Wessie, thank you for this analysis and numerous insights - certainly one of the most informative articles I have read for sometime. Your research is impressive! You have provided me with another way to better understand what is happening in this very troubled world of ours and deal with the "noise" of both bias and often uneducated opinion.
This helicopter view of the madness is illuminating (even if more depressing) not least because it shows that the puny cheers in the UK about environmental virtue are shown to be transparent, or indeed wholly imaginary. In the real world, the problem was off-shored to China, where the filth and pollutants (if I understand you right) have bloated out larger on aggregate than if we'd carried on forging and smelting stuff here.
Plus our insatiable lust for crap tat pumped cheaply out of China from sad factories with minimal oversight is filling the seas with bits of fibre at a rate of knots. I gather microplastics are also being found in our organs and brains. How grimly poetic.
So interesting. It's the kind of text that makes you feel like you've acquired the skills of an owl. You see more clearly, the visual field is expanded beyond your comfort zone, your routine...
Thanks. That’s how I feel when I research this stuff.
Previously read it on UnHerd. Epic.
Cheers!
Excellent essay. Thanks.
After my second reading, two things keep nagging at the back of my mind:
Most of the events mentioned are the results of things our legislature did, or more likely, did not do.
And;
At the heart of our problem, here in the US, is our hapless addiction to shopping and unreasonably low prices. I don't mean just plastic gee-gaws, but more significant products like pots and pans, garage door closers, plywood, power tools, etc.
Agreed, I think both are true of Britain as well. Although the cheap products have allowed other things to become much more expensive (housing, taxation etc), so people don't have much disposable income to show for it.
Wessie, thank you for this analysis and numerous insights - certainly one of the most informative articles I have read for sometime. Your research is impressive! You have provided me with another way to better understand what is happening in this very troubled world of ours and deal with the "noise" of both bias and often uneducated opinion.
This helicopter view of the madness is illuminating (even if more depressing) not least because it shows that the puny cheers in the UK about environmental virtue are shown to be transparent, or indeed wholly imaginary. In the real world, the problem was off-shored to China, where the filth and pollutants (if I understand you right) have bloated out larger on aggregate than if we'd carried on forging and smelting stuff here.
Plus our insatiable lust for crap tat pumped cheaply out of China from sad factories with minimal oversight is filling the seas with bits of fibre at a rate of knots. I gather microplastics are also being found in our organs and brains. How grimly poetic.