Single-Use Plastic Bags: Was it Ever a Good Idea? Did you ever walk through the supermarket and think, "OK, so all of the people selling stuff can use single-use plastic. Like all the wrapped meat and vegetables. But the people buying stuff have to lug along bulky multi-use hessian bags, or, if they are just dropping in to buy a few items after work, have to juggle milk, bread and toilet rolls as they walk back to the car. Or buy a special bag. And who, exactly, is benefiting from this? The supermarkets, of course. They save all that money providing plastic bags while virtue signalling that they are saving the planet. Whoever came up with that idea knew they were on to a winner. Just as some EU countries may now wonder, given the devastating economic effects of Covid-19, whether to follow Poland in backing out of their 2050 emissions targets for reducing emissions, Covid-19 is starting to wind back the plastic-bag decision in various places in the US, and undoubtedly
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Russia's Climate Policy: Virtue Signalling Soviet Style On 11 December last year the Moscow Time s noted that Russia ranked 52nd out of 61 countries for its adoption of climate change goals, as assessed by the Climate Change Performance Index. "The report’s authors criticized Russian policymakers for lacking a strategy to lower carbon levels by 2050 and having no plan for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, as well as for its new coal terminals currently under construction." In a further swipe, it pointed out that Kazakhstan was the only post-Soviet country to place lower than Russia. So on 4 January this year Russia published a strategy to address climate change. But unlike the breast-beating, economically disastrous plans like that adopted by the UK, Russia's plan specifically aims at taking advantage of global warming. And, as the Japan Times points out , by taking 1990 as the baseline, just before Russia's economy collapsed (and with it its ca
If You Need Cheering Up While You're in Lock Down No, not a picture of a dog in dark glasses or a video of someone falling off their skateboard. It's an expert demonstration of the Deep South Shuffle. Just pair up in the middle of the lounge, turn the sound up, and go for it. Or just watch some cool dudes show you how it's done . Harry Wiren
If You Think Your Covid-19 Lockdown is Bad… [Special note: I know I said we were going to talks about things other than Covid-19, but Kate convinced me that this was worth an exception. Harry] Pity our poor New Zealand friends. Here is the government advice: Self-isolation means staying at home . The Government has asked all New Zealanders to stay at home to help stop the spread of COVID-19. You can leave your house to: · access essential services, like buying groceries, or going to a bank or pharmacy · go to work if you work for an essential service · go for a walk, or exercise and enjoy nature. If you do leave your house, you must keep a 2 metre distance from other people at all times. Police may be monitoring people and asking questions of people who are out and about during the Alert Level 4 lockdown to check what they are doing. Sound reasonable? Maybe. But there is police-state-like creepage to these regulati
Why Do University Students End up so Woke? If you're the sort of person who worries about what is being taught to young people at universities, especially in the humanities, and why most of the absurd examples of de-platforming occur there, you are right to worry. Universities churn out graduates who find jobs in the media, in the public service, in politics, and, well, in universities, to complete the cycle. Sky New Australia has strong opinions on this, plus an unexpected new way of getting an insight into what's going on. Read more .
What's Wrong with Human Rights? As we all know there has been much heated discussion about rights, and it has been particularly fierce in the transgender battles. Much of the focus there has been on men who have transitioned and their right to be treated as women. If recognised, this right means they can, for example, compete in women’s sports and occupy women’s safe spaces. However, in criticising aggressive transgenderism, more often than not the wrong culprits are fingered and the reason the whole thing has got out of hand is overlooked. First, the culprits. People have always said and demanded daft things, and the internet has only exacerbated this phenomenon. But, traditionally, if a lobby group demanded something the majority felt was outrageous, they would simply be ignored. Or, if their demands were directed at government, told their request had been taken under advisement and they would be informed of the outcome in due course. The heart of the problem with
In Lockdown? Want to Read about Something Other than Covid19? Will the world ever be the same again? How long will the pandemic last? How many will die? Will this be the end of bricks-and-mortar shopping? Is it the end of global tourism? Will thousands of people in lockdown go mad? You can spend all day reading about all these questions, from any number of sources, but why not give yourself a break and read about something else? As part of helping people to keep distracted and their brains active during these trying times, we are ignoring corona virus and continuing to tackle other vexing issues. So visit Urtica Ferox for a break! David Wolcott is coming out with a controversial new piece on human rights later today, and we are very excited to have signed a new writer (more details soon). Harry Wiren
Thinking with your Epidermis and Genitalia On Sunday (15 March 2020) Joe Biden announced during the CNN Democrat debate, "If I'm elected president, my cabinet, my administration, will look like the country. I commit that I will, in fact, pick a woman to be my vice president." Fitness for the position, apparently, is a secondary consideration. Where is Christopher Hitchens when we need him? In a 2008 article he wrote: People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of ‘race’ or ‘gender’ alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Hitchens died in 2011 and so missed the worst of the latest obsession with identity politics, but it is worth looking back at the arguments of this intransigent writer . And David Wolcott will be writing more extensively about
A Glimpse into the Future Mirror It is June 2025. Coronavirus mutated and became both airborne and far more deadly. Millions died. Although the plague has finally passed, Italy has become a social and economic wasteland and huge numbers of people are emigrating. Through a combination of control and good fortune, Tunisia has remained free of the virus and has even managed to benefit and build a thriving economy. As a result, large numbers of Italians, along with other Europeans, are travelling in desperation across the Mediterranean to live in Tunisia. At first the Tunisians welcome this migration, but as time goes by the local people become disturbed at the proliferating construction of Catholic churches, the many restaurants and bars that sell alcohol when it used to be rare, and overall the rapid growth of Western culture in Tunis and other major cities. Women wear provocative clothing, and couples (especially gay couples) behave in public in ways that many locals find o
Peak Technology and the Societal Sweet Spot In my previous post on peak technology and technological determinism , I talked about the idea that various technologies reach a peak of usefulness and/or performance, after which they begin to decline due to various factors, such as environmentalism, government regulation, or just change for the sake of change. I began to talk about what encourages peak technology and laid the blame at the door of technological determinism: the belief that technology must keep changing, we can’t stop it, and this is all a good thing. The trouble is, while I was writing this piece I was watching a new documentary series on Netflix on the Unabomber, and I found myself starting to sound like the Unabomber’s treatise about the evils of technology and industrialisation. So I was heartened when, by the end of the series, a number of people (including his down-to-earth chief prison warden) argued that there was nothing wrong with the ideas that Ted Kacz
Peak Technology Some time ago I had car trouble. My Mazda suddenly wouldn’t go beyond second gear, and because I live an hour’s drive from the city it was a big problem. So I visited my local garage, who passed me on to an automatic transmission specialist. He diagnosed that there was nothing actually wrong with the gearbox. Instead the sensor was malfunctioning, giving a faulty signal, and the car had gone into “limp-home mode”. Then he laughed and said, “Yeah these days we make most of our money fixing sensors. We hardly working on actual transmission systems.” Limp-home mode. Great. I started brooding on how in my younger years there was no limp-home mode in my old Austin A35. You could crank start it if the battery died, and it could be worked on and parts replaced with a socket set and a jack in the backyard. You didn’t have to have expensive, fragile, electronic systems replaced, and it didn’t talk to you. Sure, someone might be able to use a bent coat-hanger
The Gentlemen: Thank God, a Movie without a Woke Lecture I walked out of The Gentlemen feeling as if I’d been cleansed. Cleansed of all the bullshit that chokes social media, gushes through mainstream journalism and encrusts every conversation. I’d had a good time, a rare thing these days at the movies, without having to grit my teeth through any left-wing finger-wagging or pointless proportional representation of appropriate identity groups. And even rarer, I hadn’t thought, “Well that might have been better with half an hour cut out”. Hugh Grant is brilliant as Fletcher, the ageing, sleazy journalist who narrates the whole story to Raymond Smith, played by Charlie Hunnam. Fletcher has broken into Smith’s house to convince him that he must be given £20 million to stop him going to the media, and he delights in revealing all the dirt he has uncovered on Smith’s boss, Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey). And there is a lot of dirt indeed. Pearson arrived at Oxford Univ
When Iran Runs Out of Water, You’ll Know Why There is an interesting article in Quillette called “How long before the regime falls in Iran?”, by Art Keller, which I highly recommend. It includes a lot of interesting discussion about the regime in Iran, how fragile it is and how it manufactures support, but the part I found most interesting relates to water. “ Iran is running out, fast,” Keller says. “Nothing to do with climate change, and everything to do with the sort of epic state mismanagement reminiscent of China’s ‘Great Leap Forward’.” Note the phrase “nothing to do with climate change”. It is worth archiving this story for the time when Iranian society implodes and the Guardia n and New York Times mindlessly and automatically point the finger at fossil fuel use. Nikahang Kowsar is a critic of the regime and a geologist before he became a political cartoonist. According to Keller, Kowsar was forced to leave Iran 20 years ago for his cartoons mocking the regime, bu