Media Charlatans, Climate Hypocrites, Fashion Nonsense
Media
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| The Charlatan, unknown artist, Photo Credit: City of London Corporation [CC BY-NC] |
In an age of 24-hour news, declining ratings and intense
competition, the commodity in greatest demand is noise. Never mind the content,
never mind the facts: all that now counts is impact. A loudmouthed buffoon,
already the object of public outrage, is a far more bankable asset than someone
who knows what they are talking about. So the biggest platforms are populated
by blusterers and braggarts. The media is the mirror in which we see ourselves.
With every glance, our self-image subtly changes.
…My hope is that the tide will turn. People will become so sick
of the charlatans and exhibitionists who crowd the airwaves that the BBC and
other media will be forced to reconsider.
(George Monbiot, The Guardian, 2019)
Hasn’t the battle been lost? Look at the general public’s fascination for
the so-called reality shows like Love Island.
Climate Hypocrites
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The Commencement of the Deluge, William Westall (1781-1850)
Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND]
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There are those admirable saints who really do practise what they preach, but I bet most of those who profess to care about the planet are just as hypocritical as me. I don’t think it makes us bad people, just typically, fallibly human, lacking the willpower to do the stuff we know we ought, such as shedding a few pounds or putting away more in our pension.
…I already know we’re fast approaching a catastrophic climate tipping point and yet I’m just not very good at forgoing a steak, particularly when I know plenty of others won’t be either. … So public policy inevitably ends up with sin taxes as the go-to policy lever for trying to get us to switch away from the bad stuff.
Sure enough, a meat tax has been mooted. But the big problem with green taxes is that they hit the least affluent hardest. It’s people on low incomes who are most sensitive to marginal increases in the cost of their food and flights and who might decide they can’t afford their one holiday a year as a result. But it’s the very well-off who can much more easily absorb the cost of green taxes who do the bulk of the polluting: the richest 10% of households in the UK produce four times as many emissions as those in the bottom 50. That’s one reason why a jury set up by the Food Ethics Council rejected the idea of a meat tax last week.
…I want to do more, but I know I need someone to force me to take my carbon footprint more seriously. And perhaps that means people will become more willing to countenance something more radical, but fairer, than sin taxes; saying there’s only a certain amount of meat or air miles we’re going to consume as a population every year and once it’s gone it’s gone.
…People could be allocated polluting credits to cover activities such as meat eating and flying that they can sell or buy in an online marketplace.
(The Observer, 2019)
If you are into the
“carbon footprint movement” then surely your lifestyle must reflect that to
some degree? For some it may well mean abstaining from red meat completely
whilst for others it might be reducing its intake. As for “polluting credits”
doesn’t that just mean the richer you are the more you can ignore your own
carbon footprint? Isn’t that what the super-rich do already? Don’t they say
they plant trees or donate money when they fly in their private jets to offset
their “carbon footprint”?
Fashion
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Cinderella, Valentine Cameron Prinsep (1838-1904)
Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]
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(Anna Murphy, The Times, 2019.)
Messaging? What are you on about?
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