Being Green - 22 December 2017
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BEING GREEN 2018 Continua.
It’s that strange inter-mezzo kind of period for many of us. Between one number and the next, the odometer clicking over into 2018 year-number, so here goes on the year in retrospect. As you would expect when it comes to the state of our planet and all the pressures we’ve reported on and many of the issues that we haven’t, same old same old.
It’s easy to be downcast by some of the Big Picture stories like President Trump and the Climate Change Conference pull-out by the USA. Probably a case of low-hanging fruit for the President – deliver on your election promises by a sweeping gesture of nose-thumbing at the scientific and responsible government establishment, ignorant and couldn’t-care-less supporters cheering, and certain high-stakes industries only too happy at a get-out-of-jail card. But in the long term, we shall see, won’t we? And what can we do about it anyway, except follow the news, shake our heads or perhaps even sign one of those Internet petition things?
I’d like to think actions of politicians like UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove have been prompted as a reaction to the irresponsibility of Trump. Minister Gove has emphasized his government’s commitment to legislating cutting down of plastic in packaging, more efficient use of it; outlawing plastic microbubbles that get into the food chain, and particularly reducing or stopping plastic pollution of the oceans. Nine billion fewer single-use containers for instance, were produced this year in the UK, much more to follow, says Gove. He will set out how government policy will help this generation be “the first to leave the environment in a better state than we inherited it.” Unquote.
Applause for Michael Gove and many politicians and ministers like him. What do we mean by ‘the environment’ though, and how do we measure what state it’s in?
It can be done, and is done by scientists, specialists of one sort or another, and published by the CBO’s, NPO’s and do-go
It’s that strange inter-mezzo kind of period for many of us. Between one number and the next, the odometer clicking over into 2018 year-number, so here goes on the year in retrospect. As you would expect when it comes to the state of our planet and all the pressures we’ve reported on and many of the issues that we haven’t, same old same old.
It’s easy to be downcast by some of the Big Picture stories like President Trump and the Climate Change Conference pull-out by the USA. Probably a case of low-hanging fruit for the President – deliver on your election promises by a sweeping gesture of nose-thumbing at the scientific and responsible government establishment, ignorant and couldn’t-care-less supporters cheering, and certain high-stakes industries only too happy at a get-out-of-jail card. But in the long term, we shall see, won’t we? And what can we do about it anyway, except follow the news, shake our heads or perhaps even sign one of those Internet petition things?
I’d like to think actions of politicians like UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove have been prompted as a reaction to the irresponsibility of Trump. Minister Gove has emphasized his government’s commitment to legislating cutting down of plastic in packaging, more efficient use of it; outlawing plastic microbubbles that get into the food chain, and particularly reducing or stopping plastic pollution of the oceans. Nine billion fewer single-use containers for instance, were produced this year in the UK, much more to follow, says Gove. He will set out how government policy will help this generation be “the first to leave the environment in a better state than we inherited it.” Unquote.
Applause for Michael Gove and many politicians and ministers like him. What do we mean by ‘the environment’ though, and how do we measure what state it’s in?
It can be done, and is done by scientists, specialists of one sort or another, and published by the CBO’s, NPO’s and do-go
