Threading a camel through a needle…?

Just before we all heard of something called Covid-19, we were obsessing with what material straws (for our drinks) are made of? Paper straws started showing up – after all, we have to save our planet right?

Now we hear that discarded Covid-19 PPE (largely made of plastic and certainly bigger than straws) are now filling up landfill sites and clogging up the oceans. Price of human survival? But that indeed, is the reality of life. If you’ve ever had your back against the wall in a life or death situation and you’re not suicidal, that is when you see what human beings are prepared to do, to survive.

While the Greta Thunbergs and David Attenboroughs of today go around stressing the need to save the climate (and rightly so), millions of children are dying from lack of access to basic provisions such as food, in poor countries and even here in the UK and other supposedly developed countries, many are living in poverty, some are getting killed on our streets etc. So, are we really looking at the most urgent priorities? Because when it comes to it, we were very prepared to get plastic masks and gloves etc. out there in huge quantities to stay alive. But I am sure in a few month’s time, we’ll be back to the most critical subject of paper straws, as millions of children in Africa and South East Asia die of hunger – but I suppose that’s not our problem, it’s their corrupt leadership etc., we’ll leave them to it, while we concentrate on the more noble and tv-worthy task of saving the planet from plastic straws, till the next pandemic demand we clog landfills and oceans with discarded plastic PPE.

None of us truly understand what hunger and hopelessness is, unless you have experienced it. I am not talking about hunger-strike or religious fasting, which are situations of choice and you know food is available if needed. I am talking about hunger of a kind that you do not know where or when the next meal will come from. It takes a full belly to worry about melting iceberg.

We really are laughable!

Yes, the wider implication of changes to the climate results in some of the situations that lead to hunger e.g. floods. But I am sure hunger’s been around well before fossil fuels… and we continue to look the other way…

Climate change and sustainability are big issues BUT the world needs some frigging perspective!!!!!!