Instead of confronting the real problems in life, and possibly losing votes, politicians try to distort the truth and divert people’s attention.
The news that recycling will soon be made compulsory is a case in point. Ignore for a moment the minutiae of this proposal, which would be impossible to enforce if it ever made it into law, and consider instead the ignorance of sociology and ecology this reveals in our elected representatives.
A recent study by statisticians at Oregon State University in the US concluded that the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of having an extra child is almost 20 times more damaging than some of the other environmentally sensitive practices people might apply in their entire lives, such as driving a high-mileage car. A child potentially produces more descendants in future and the environmental effect can be many times a person’s impact during their lifetime.
So our politicians are blowing smoke in our faces when they try to portray recycling as some sort of panacea for our societies’ ills. Instead of addressing the actual cause of social and ecological degradation – such as having ever more children or allowing droves of people into the western world – they instead want to force us to sift through our garbage like filthy apes and be grateful for the opportunity.
It is a desperate attempt on their part to divert attention from the hideous reality of it all, that our planet cannot support the ever-burgeoning number of people on it (seven billion and counting) and will soon plunge into civil war over the most basic of resources: fresh water, food, and fossil fuels.
Welcome to the future.