UK’s Michael Gove: People Are “Remarkably, Suicidally Careless” With The Planet

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Whatever may otherwise be said about the UK’s current environment minister Michael Gove, he does occasionally make some notable comments. Most recently, Gove was quoted as saying that people can be “remarkably, suicidally careless” with the planet and that it was “impossible” for plastic usage to remain as high as it is now.

single use plasticsWhile politicians do often mouth similar sentiments, the comments from the UK environment minister do seem particularly blunt in this case, as the world is more or less now on a course that could be described as leading directly to “death.” That’s a bit like watching someone drive a car at high speed into a concrete wall (perhaps an inevitability considering modern society’s structure).

Will the comments from Gove amount to much in practice though? Probably not, though they were made in response to commitments from 40 firms in the UK to cut plastics use over the next 7 years, it should be noted.

What do those pledges mean in practice? Not much, just that “100% of plastic packaging will be reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025.” Nothing as comprehensive as would be required to curtail further degradation, in other words.

At the launch of that initiative in London, Gove stated (as quoted by Reuters): “When we think about the plastic we throw away, there is no elsewhere, no other planet, where that rubbish goes.”

That’s a good point, though I suppose that some will try to deflect the implications by stating “that there’s always Mars” (or what not), which is something that I’m highly skeptical of. It seems to be the case that almost every aspect of modern society is at this point undermining the foundations on which it resides — with trends pointing towards nonlinear collapse events of various kinds due to follow over the coming decades and centuries due to problems of: pollution, topsoil erosion and nutrient depletion, water scarcity, climate weirding, and associated social and political death cults of various kinds. (All a la the late-Bronze Age civilizational collapse.)


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James Ayre

James Ayre's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy.

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