Greenpeace needs recycling.

I like to think of myself as a normal sort of person (despite my warped sense of humour) I recycle as much stuff as I reasonably can, and like most parents I run around the house after the rest of the family closing doors and turning lights off. I hate seeing food go to waste and will happily eat stuff well past it's best before date rather than throw it in the bin. As long as it is roughly the same colour as it's meant to be, doesn't smell too bad and isn't growing larger than it ought to be with a fur coat then it's edible. I save old bits of scrap wood and metal, in case they come in handy. I have solar panels on my roof to make my own electric and I have a water butt in the garden to collect rainwater for the garden. I think I do my bit.

I refuse therefore to be bullied into caring for the planet. So far as I can tell it's much bigger and older than me, and it has survived pretty well on it's own.

Charities however think differently. Greenpeace keep sending me emails begging for money. According to Greenpeace evil corporations are exploiting our planet drilling for oil in the polar regions and doing massive environmental damage. This is killing polar bears and melting the ice caps. Apparently.
Greenpeace beleive they can save the polar caps from melting if I pay them enough money. They will save the lives of many cute polar bears.

Well let's just think about this shall we. I don't buy the cute polar bear image - they are vicious bastards who kill for fun. And they are all left handed, which is just sinister. Had they said penguins they might have been in with a chance. Any animal that evolves to such a degree that it can only survive in a specialist environment just wasn't thinking about survival when it evolved. So polar bears have what's coming to them. Or do they? By my reckoning, they have 50,000 years in which to evolve into something that likes it warmer and with less snow. And then they'll have to evolve back again.

Secondly, if I pay Greenpeace money, they will drive in cars to an airport, then fly out to somewhere near the polar regions before getting on diesel burning boats to go and disrupt oil drilling operations which they say are responsible for the melting ice caps. But surely their flights will contribute to the global warming they say man is causing, thus further weakening the fragile planet? And I hardly think that setting up a protest camp outside the doors of BP, Shell and Mobil will have any real effect. The oilmen will go fully prepared for the elements, knowing they have a tough job to do. The sandal wearing hippy hypocrites will have to do the same, burning lots of fossil fuel to keep themselves warm. And they won't be able to do what the Inuits do and wear seal skin and polar bear fur, because that's cruel to the nice animals. 

Thirdly,let's look at the science of it all. The earth has a wobble in it's axis, this is what gives us winter and summer. We now know that the earth is on a tilting elliptical spiralling orbit, gravitational pulls from other orbiting bodies affect our orbit to a greater or lesser degree each time we meet. This maximizes, or minimizes the wobbling tilt of the earth, and when these forces are multiplied as two or more of the orbiting masses co-incide we get an ice age. That ice will then gradually melt until weather cycles, and the above forces shove us into another cycle of ice age. Global warming is not caused by mankind, it is a naturally occurring event, and nothing Greenpeace or anyone else can do will avert it.  We are due another ice age in around 50,000 years time. Greenpeace really need to start thinking about how we are going to survive that, and start working with the global corporations and scientists  not thwarting them as they try to make the best of the limited resources our planet has.

So on this issue at least, don;t give to Greenpeace, save your money, spend it on a big block Chevy and burn as much fossil fuel as you like, because you only have one lifetime to enjoy it. And 49,930 years or so after you've gone you won't need to worry about global warming, the ice caps or polar bears.

FOOTNOTE: Did I mention, by the way that just two of the fleet of four North sea Ferries operating from Hull put put out more CO2 pollution each year than every car in the UK combined? I'm still going to Amsterdam on my holidays on the ferry though. It's too wet to drive. Bloody global warming.

Difficulty making both ends meat

There has been much in the media in recent weeks about the presence of horse meat in our burgers, mince and other processed foods. This does not concern me unduly. The French have always eaten horsemeat, and other than smelling of garlic is doesn't seem to have done them any harm.
On it's heels comes the news that ASDA SmartPrice corned beef might contain vets drugs.
This doesn't concern me either, as I rarely eat corned beef, and if I do it just means I'll get a decent nights sleep for a change. Probably.
It might concern me if my children were likely to eat drug contaminated meat, although this is as likely as an honest politician. The girl child appears top have turned into a vegetarian. I don't know why, but I suppose i have to live with it. The boy child is much more frustrating. He will eat processed chicken nuggets, made from reconstituted chicken and mechanically recovered crap pressed into loose chunks with bits of pork, fat and the lips and tongues etc, then covered in breadcrumbs so it looks nice. But he resolutely refuses to eat fresh chicken breast.
Even more frustrating is his stance over sausages. These are loosely speaking made of meat, the origin of which is debatable, breadcrumbs, spices and in some cases wood shavings. He will happily eat the middle of the sausages, but will not eat the ends. I have explained that the ends are exactly the same as the middle but to no avail. I have explained that the ends are entirely arbitrary, in that up until someone (or these days a machine) twists the sausages into separate links, that part of the sausage is exactly the same as the rest of the sausage. Does he understand this? Yes. Does he agree this is the case? No. Would it matter then if the people at Walls and Richmond filled the ends with wood pulp? After all, in the current recession they must be finding it as hard of the rest of us in making both ends meat.