Monday 1 March 2010

Environ-Mentalists


I was going to write a piece on how to solve the dual problems of world hunger and world peace, but I decided to make a cup of tea instead.

We were watching Country Tracks on TV yesterday, primarily because the programme focussed on the River Avon (of which there are several), whose source is just up the road in Acton Turville.

There was an item about the Severn Gorge and a bunch of conservationists were bemoaning the fact that the place had become overrun by several species of tree. Earlier in the last century sheep and rabbits inhabited the slopes and the intense cropping ‘managed’ the environment. What they wanted was to turn back the clock and have the place as it used to be – complete with sheep.

However, they seemed totally oblivious that the current ecology is totally natural and what they wanted to turn it into was originally a highly manufactured ecology created by man and his flocks of sheep. I found their attitude totally bizarre.

In a shock report the Food Standards Agency has discovered that popcorn, coca-cola and toffees sold in cinemas are not in fact endowed with the health-giving properties everyone thought they possessed.


8 comments:

The Irascible Fairy said...

Hmmmmmm - The current ecology, the one with a few scrubby trees, is not natural - but it would be if left alone for a couple of thousand years or so. Of course interlopers like rabbits and sycamore trees would have to be removed and wolves, bears and other mega fauna would have to be reintroduced. Then we'd have the original ecology. Till then probably better to manage the countryside as we always have done.

Richard x x x

Chairman Bill said...

Countryside should not be managed - it should be left to its own devices, if it is to be countryside. What we term countryside is actually farmland or park.

Alan Burnett said...

Pop-corn. Coca-Cola and toffees will give you energy and therefore help you to live your life. That seems to fit the bill for "healthy" in my book.

Jinksy said...

Just shows that the most intense cropping is carried out in cinemas... by human sheep...

Steve Borthwick said...

Individual human brains find it very difficult to imagine this world without them in it; much suffering is caused by this phenomenon.

Since we are part of the ecology of this planet and not separate from it, then there is an argument which says that whatever we do is "natural"; what we should probably outlaw is unsustainable and indiscriminate development, rather than aspiring to build some kind of medieval theme park.

Beth said...

Solving the world’s ills or a cup of tea? Wise choice.
Not that I think you couldn’t accomplish the former… ;)

Ms Scarlet said...

...I hope it was Green tea...
Sx

♥ Braja said...

I don't know what I'm reeling from more: that someone is saying environmentalists are often idiots, or that the food in cinemas isn't nutritious.

:)