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Anorak News | What’s Your Poison?

What’s Your Poison?

by | 27th, September 2004

‘IRAQ occupies a space once briefly dominated by green issues.

Will sleep ten

A couple of General Elections back, when the Greens were on the up – and David Icke was saving the world from lizard men – politicians talked much about wind power and alternative energy sources.

Had the hot air they spouted been bottled, the energy from it would now be powering a small town the size of Milton Keyes.

But now, after a break of a few years – in which the front page has been dominated by hot issues like the war on terror, Euan Blair‘s flats and David Beckham’s sex life – environmental issues are back on the political agenda.

Granted, they’re on page 11 of the Times, but back they are.

And the news is that ministers are to give local authorities the powers to offer citizens incentives to go green.

Cynics who have watched the stick replace the carrot in the attitude to motoring, may suspect these inducements to follow the lines of “Recycle food packaging or have your fridge towed away” and the levying of a £5 surcharge on every kettle boiled.

But Eliot Morley, the Environment Minister with a such low profile that when viewed from certain angles he seems to actually disappear, says that though a charge on waste was discussed it was rejected out of fear that people would see it as a “stealth tax”.

So he and his muckers are opting for rewards instead. For instance, every time a bottle is tossed into a recycle bin, the recycler gets points.

And points make prizes, and can be cashed in against admission to the local cinema or swimming pool.

Given the country’s love of booze, it’d be better to stick huge wine and beer dispensers in every town centre, thus allowing budding environmentalists to top up the one bottle they are each allowed with impunity.

The additional benefits are that we’d all be too drunk to drive, so reducing pollution, and warmed from within, negating the need for that gas guzzling central heating.

And we’d all forget about Iraq…’



Posted: 27th, September 2004 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink