Megan Cox Gurdon writes about eco-propoganda drowning our children.
Contemporary children are so drenched with eco-propaganda that it’s almost a waste of resources. Like acid rain, but more persistent and corrosive, it dribbles down on them all day long. They get it at school, where recycling now competes with tolerance as man’s highest virtue. They get it in peppy “go green” messages online, on television and in magazines. And increasingly, the eco-message is seeping into the pages of novels that don’t, on their face, necessarily seem to be about environmentalism at all. . . .
Thus we have the spectacle of a 12-year-old becoming distraught when her father orders seared tuna at a restaurant (this happened to a friend of mine), on account of over-fishing, or a 6-year-old (son of an acquaintance) panicking at the prospect of even a yogurt container going into the trash: “But I can use it as a toy!”
Oh my soul. For balance sake, I know a child who asked to have a pink pocket knife to go with her pink rifle, so that when she shoots a deer (or whatever animal) she can clean it. She’s a good, little reader too, so no snarking at her. (HT: Loren Eaton)
“… his rifle … she shoots a deer…”??
My son tried to take brand new things to the recycling bin.
Sorry, Tom’s Son. That’s one reason I will never amount to anything as a writer, no doubt.
I think I’m going to lose on the recycling front. My wife wants to buy a mulcher. Ah, the sweet smell of decomposing table scraps!
We recycle some things, and we take our own trash to the dump. It’s very economical for us. I don’t like to think about whether it makes any sense, because it’s not my decision. If the businesses or governments can’t figure out if recycling works, I don’t think I’ll be able to either.
When recycling makes economic sense, I’m all for it. But it needs to make economic sense. Taking your brand new notebook to the recycling bin because you got the simplistic message that recycling is good does not.
That’s right. Recycle banana peels, not notebooks.
Another interesting one on the economics of recyling here. Okay, the horse is no longer twitching; I’ll stop hitting it.