If Other Experts Were as Qualified as “Climate-Change Scientists”

On the ABC’s “QandA” an awarmist, scamming cretin, Bahareh Sarah Howard*, asked Sen. Cory Bernardi a stupid question:

Senator Bernardi, last week you said it was “good news” that the Federal budget had abolished the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and that the government was “still committed to abolishing the Climate Change Authority and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation”.  As a researcher in climate change and renewable energy, I presume that when your car mechanic, your dentist, or your plumber tells you there is something wrong with your car, your teeth, or your pipes, you listen and act.  Why is it that you ignore the advice of climate change experts, from every corner of this planet who are urging us that climate is changing and we must act to reduce CO₂ emissions now?  Australia is per capita the largest emitter in the world.†

The silly cultist and aspiring hierophant fails to recognise that, currently, car mechanics, dentists and plumbers don’t duplicitously predicate their remedies on a scamming, self-serving, pseudo-scientific conjecture.  We may, however, imagine what a wonderful world it would be if tradesmen, medical specialists and various other experts were as qualified and as proficient as she and her fellow hoaxers:–

Visiting the new-age car mechanic:

Mechanic:  How may I help you?
Customer:  My car just needs a tune-up, I think.


Mechanic: Ho! So you think you’re the expert, eh?


Customer: No, I just—
Mechanic: We’re the experts here; now, your car obviously needs a new, non-polluting electric engine and, of course, a nice new, non-polluting, heavy battery will just fit into your boot very snugly.


Customer: How much will that cost? And where am I going to put the family’s luggage when we go on holiday if you put a great big battery—which is surely not as non-polluting as you say—in the boot?
Mechanic: First, apart from a few charges, imposts, dues, tariffs and levies, and a series of weekly payments, the engine is completely free—


Customer: Free?


Mechanic: Courtesy of the taxpayer, through the engine-change levy and the renewable energy subsidisation tax; and, as for holidays, you ought to know by now that going on holidays is very bad for the planet, so don’t.


Customer: But I can see from all the photos around this garage that you regularly fly overseas for—


Mechanic: That’s different.
Customer: How?


Mechanic: It just is.


Customer: Well, I don’t want to insult you or anything but are you a qualified tradesman?
Mechanic: Of course; I have an associate diploma in automotive studies from the Australian Climate Institute.


Customer: Right, well, I think I’ll drive away and have the car fixed later. You see, it wasn’t anything urgent—


Mechanic: Too late, under provisions of the engine-change legislation I’ve had to seize your vehicle and we’ve already started replacing your old, wicked, fossil-fuel engine.  Trust me, I’m a automotive-change expert.

Visiting the new-age dentist: 

Dentist: Before we begin, just sign these consent forms here, here and here.  Good, well done.  Now, what seems to be your problem? 
Customer:  My upper left premolar smarts, and I think it could do with a filling.  All my other teeth, thank heavens, are fine.

 
Dentist:  Ah, yes, they must be removed.

 
Customer:  They? 
Dentist:  Yes, all of them. 
Customer:  Don’t you need to take an X-ray or something first? 
Dentist:  No, modern dental-change science is beyond nasty, ancient and dangerous techniques now.  I’ll just ring the nurse and she’ll take you and your forms to the dental-change facility.

 
Customer:  Hell, what did I just sign?

 
Dentist:  This is permission to hold you in detention for six months on an anascorbic diet; that one’s garnisheeing your wages for the next fifty years; and that one’s subscribing to a monthly recipe service for nutritious vegetable smoothies.

 
Customer:  Hey, what?  What, what’s an anascorbic diet when it’s home?

 
Dentist:  Well, we remove Vitamin C from your diet so that you develop a therapeutic form of scurvy, which allows all your diseased teeth to fall out naturally and relatively painlessly.  Then, if you recover, you’ll enjoy for the rest of your days slurping nutritious vegetable smoothies or soups without ever having to chew like a beast of the field ever again.

 
Customer:  What about false teeth?  What if I want to eat a steak?

 
Dentist:  All teeth (97% of dental-change scientists agree) are bad for the planet, and so is eating meat:  it’s murder. 
Customer:  Look, are you a qualified dentist? 
Dentist:  Of course; I have an Bachelor of Arts in Dental Studies from Swinburne. 
Customer:  Who were your teachers there? 
Dentist:  An accountant, an archæologist and a career politician.

 
Customer:  Look, I think I want a second opinion. 
Dentist:  Too late.  The science is settled and, anyway, you’ve signed all the forms already.  Bye.  Take him away, nurse.  Next!

 A visit from the new-age plumber: 

Plumber:  Here I am at last. 

Customer:  Good, there seems to be a leaking pipe somewhere, because our garage has been flooded for the last couple of—

 

Plumber:  Wait, I’m the plumbing-change expert; I tell you what’s wrong. 

Customer:  Plumbing-change expert?  So you’re not an actual plumber with a trade certificate? 

Plumber:  Ah, far better than than that, I have a masters degree—in the media’s acceptance of global plumbing change.

 

Customer:  So you’ve studied the history of plumbing rather than learn how to mend broken pipes and such? 

Plumber:  Who said anything about history?  We studied models at the Institute for Plumbing Change!


Customer:  Okay, so how will you mend my pipes?

Plumber:  Mend them?  I’ll get a team of young migrants to pop by in a few weeks and they’ll tear out all the current plumbing and install new stuff.

 

Customer: Why? 

Plumber: Well, just looking at this sink here I can tell you that it has to go. 

Customer:  Why? 

Plumber:  It’s made of stainless steel, you fool!  Do you know how wicked it is to source the components of a stainless steel sink?  My god, man, it even has carbon in it! 

Customer:  I should have thought you’d support a carbon sink.  No?  Anyway, you’ll replace it with ceramic or plastic—

 

Plumber:  Ceramic? Plastic? What are you, a lobbyist for the evil mining or fossil-fuel industries?  Wood, man; the sinks, basins, pipes, sewers and all the rest must be replaced by ethically-sourced, sustainably-harvested wood products.

 

Customer:  Wooden products?  How will they last?  Stainless steel is used precisely because it doesn’t corrode, and the same goes for plastic pipes; what will stop the wood rotting? 

Plumber:  Since you’re so bloody well-educated, can’t you think of anything else which doesn’t corrode? 

Customer:  Don’t tell me that wooden pipes will be gold-plated? 

Plumber:  Ethically-sourced, of course.  Look, trust me:  I’m a plumbing change expert.

*  who intends to “develop scenarios to determine carbon dioxide emissions involved in the transition to a 100 per cent renewable energy sector in Australia and the world”, whose “passion is in social and environmental entrepreneurship, which has the potential to have a broader, multidisciplinary positive impact on the global level.”  Ah, yes, researchers no longer have boring old interests or specialities but, being so unscientific, irrational, eager and fervid, they have passions.
†  a lie:  see “Australia the Highest Emitter of Carbon Dioxide?” at Impact of Climate Change.

UPDATE:  see also by “Dean, King, Krauss and Bernardi on Q and A” by Matt Hayden.

Peacock on Eating and Drinking

From Headlong Hall (1815) by Thomas Love Peacock, Chapter II:

“In the controversy concerning animal and vegetable food,” said Mr Jenkison [the statu-quo-ite], “there is much to be said on both sides; and, the question being in equipoise, I content myself with a mixed diet, and make a point of eating whatever is placed before me, provided it be good in its kind.”
In this opinion his two brother philosophers practically coincided, though they both ran down the theory as highly detrimental to the best interests of man.
“I am really astonished," said the Reverend Doctor Gaster, gracefully picking off the supernal fragments of an egg he had just cracked, and clearing away a space at the top for the reception of a small piece of butter—“I am really astonished, gentlemen, at the very heterodox opinions I have heard you deliver:  since nothing can be more obvious than that all animals were created solely and exclusively for the use of man.”
“Even the tiger that devours him?” said Mr Escot [the deteriorationist].
“Certainly,” said Doctor Gaster.
“How do you prove it?” said Mr Escot.
“It requires no proof,” said Doctor Gaster:  “it is a point of doctrine.  It is written, therefore it is so.”
“Nothing can be more logical,” said Mr Jenkison.  “It has been said,” continued he, “that the ox was expressly made to be eaten by man: it may be said, by a parity of reasoning, that man was expressly made to be eaten by the tiger:  but as wild oxen exist where there are no men, and men where there are no tigers, it would seem that in these instances they do not properly answer the ends of their creation.”
“It is a mystery,” said Doctor Gaster.
“Not to launch into the question of final causes,” said Mr Escot, helping himself at the same time to a slice of beef, “concerning which I will candidly acknowledge I am as profoundly ignorant as the most dogmatical theologian possibly can be, I just wish to observe, that the pure and peaceful manners which Homer ascribes to the Lotophagi, and which at this day characterise many nations (the Hindoos, for example, who subsist exclusively on the fruits of the earth), depose very strongly in favour of a vegetable regimen.”
“It may be said, on the contrary,” said Mr Foster [the perfectibilian], “that animal food acts on the mind as manure does on flowers, forcing them into a degree of expansion they would not otherwise have attained.  If we can imagine a philosophical auricula falling into a train of theoretical meditation on its original and natural nutriment, till it should work itself up into a profound abomination of bullock’s blood, sugar-baker’s scum, and other unnatural ingredients of that rich composition of soil which had brought it to perfection, and insist on being planted in common earth, it would have all the advantage of natural theory on its side that the most strenuous advocate of the vegetable system could desire; but it would soon discover the practical error of its retrograde experiment by its lamentable inferiority in strength and beauty to all the auriculas around it.  I am afraid, in some instances at least, this analogy holds true with respect to mind.  No one will make a comparison, in point of mental power, between the Hindoos and the ancient Greeks.”
“The anatomy of the human stomach,” said Mr Escot, “and the formation of the teeth, clearly place man in the class of frugivorous animals.”
“Many anatomists,” said Mr Foster, “are of a different opinion, and agree in discerning the characteristics of the carnivorous classes.”
“I am no anatomist,” said Mr Jenkison, “and cannot decide where doctors disagree; in the meantime, I conclude that man is omnivorous, and on that conclusion I act.”

The Reverend Mr Portpipe in Melincourt (1817) by Thomas Love Peacock, Chap. XVI:


“When I open the bottle, I shut the book of Numbers.  There are two reasons for drinking: one is, when you are thirsty, to cure it; the other, when you are not thirsty, to prevent it.  The first is obvious, mechanical, and plebeian; the second is most refined, abstract, prospicient, and canonical.  I drink by anticipation of thirst that may be.  Prevention is better than cure.  Wine is the elixir of life.  “The soul,’ says St. Augustine, ‘cannot live in drought.’  What is death?  Dust and Ashes.  There is nothing so dry.  What is life?  Spirit.  What is spirit?  Wine.” 


From Nightmare Abbey (1818) by Thomas Love Peacock, Chapter II:

MR. GLOWRY:

You are leaving England, Mr Cypress. There is a delightful melancholy in saying farewell to an old acquaintance, when the chances are twenty to one against ever meeting again.  A smiling bumper to a sad parting, and let us all be unhappy together.
  

MR. CYPRESS (filling a bumper):

This is the only social habit that the disappointed spirit never unlearns.

THE REVEREND MR. LARYNX (filling):

It is the only piece of academical learning that the finished educatee retains.

MR. FLOSKY (filling):

It is the only objective fact which the sceptic can realise.
  

SCYTHROP (filling):

It is the only styptic for a bleeding heart.
  

THE HONOURABLE MR. LISTLESS (filling):

It is the only trouble that is very well worth taking.
  

MR. ASTERIAS (filling):

It is the only key of conversational truth.

MR. TOOBAD (filling):

It is the only antidote to the great wrath of the devil.

MR. HILARY (filling):

It is the only symbol of perfect life. The inscription ‘HIC NON BIBITUR’ will suit nothing but a tombstone.

“If I Drink Water while This Doth Last” (words by T. P. Peacock, music by Deadman Turner):

If I drink water while this doth last,
May I never again drink wine:
For how can a man, in his life of a span,
Do any thing better than dine?
We’ll dine and drink, and say if we think
That any thing better can be;
And when we have dined, wish all mankind
May dine as well as we.

And though a good wish will fill no dish,
And brim no cup with sack,
Yet thoughts will spring, as the glasses ring,
To illume our studious track.
On the brilliant dreams of our hopeful schemes
The light of the flask shall shine;
And we’ll sit till day, but we’ll find the way
To drench the world with wine.

Leunig the Ochlophobe

The “morons” whom Leunig feels he must despise
might be the folks his supporters organise.
The “barks” which the ochlophobic bigot hears
could be servile laughter, not those whom he fears.

“Zero Discrimination”

A man, John, wearing obviously expensive but garishly tasteless clothes is ambling along an inner city street near lunch-time.  Suddenly, a bright figure appears before him; it’s a genie:–

Genie:  Congratulations, man, you’ve been selected at random to bring joy to another human being, and to yourself.  I grant you the power to give another deserving human being a great boon.  When you next meet a person you may grant him or her a great gift and, whatever you deem worthy to give you will receive in double measure.  In other words, should my meaning be insufficiently plain, if you give the next bloke you meet a million dollars you will receive two million; if you choose instead to provide him a furnished house you will receive two furnished houses; if you give the next cove you meet a Bugatti Veyron 16.4, you receive two!  Right, we’ll put this sticker on your lapel; there, you have the power to grant one generous boon!  Give wisely, o mortal.  Farewell.

The genie disappears, and John continues walking.  Soon he encounters two people who appear to have been quarrelling for some time.

Homeless Man:  No, I’m not begging because of my laziness; my family was defrauded by a shonky union executive, and we lost all my savings.  My young daughter died from eating a badly-prepared meal but, having lost all our savings, her mother and I couldn’t find a lawyer to sue the Rather Happy Crab restaurant chain and shortly afterwards, my wife, her mother, died in a mysterious accident.  I am, as my sign says, looking for work, and I’ll do anything within reason. You know, the same could just as easily happen to you.

Rich Chap:  Oh, I think not, Lazybones.  In addition to my vast inherited wealth, I happen to control 51% of Rather Happy Crab Holdings.  I’ll never be reduced to such smelly indigence as you seem to enjoy.

John:  Excuse me guys, but I need to give the first person I meet a great boon, but I’ve met both of you simultaneously.

Homeless Man: Well, with respect, I’m undergoing severe hardship, here, so I’d certainly appreciate a helping hand.

Rich Chap: Hang on, there, my greedy friend.  I too could always do with a little more.  My wife got a new diamond pendant the other day so now my girlfriend wants one too.

John:  This is tricky because, like Kaleidoscope Australia, the Human Rights Foundation, I believe in “zero discrimination”.  I can’t prefer one over the other.  That’d be wrong.

Rich Chap:  You what?

John:  Zero discrimination.  I don’t discriminate, and I certainly don’t discriminate against LGBTIQ—um, I’ve forgotten the other letters—anyway, I try my best not to discrimate—ever.

Homeless Man:  Wouldn’t trying your best thereby constitute discriminating between three or more choices of conduct?

Rich Chap:  More to the point, you ought not to discriminate between one smelly blob of human filth lazing on the footpath and one fragrant go-getter who just stopped to supply him munificently with convivial conversation (but no change, Beggar-boy, because I have nothing smaller on me than a fifty dollar note).

John:  You’re right, I shouldn’t discriminate at all.

Homeless Man: You can’t, for instance, be at all picky when offered a choice between a refreshing glass of 1982 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, a mug of cold vomit and a beaker of prussic acid?  Do you not discriminate between eating tasty, nutritious food and rancid swill?

Rich Chap:  More to the point, you couldn’t give me two good tickets to the Melbourne performance of “Wicked” tonight, could you?  I’m flying to Melbourne later this arvo to test my new jet, but one of my idle secretaries forgot to book some seats, and the wife loves that show.

John:  I honestly don’t know what to do, since I cannot discriminate.

Homeless Man:  Perhaps, if you were to wish for something we could share.  How big is this boon you mention?  Would it extend to ordering a banquet for all of us?

John:  Well, I don’t know really.  I could give you a car or some money, I seem to recall, but I don’t want to discriminate between passing thoughts and accurate memories because I believe in zero discrimination.

Rich Chap:  Don’t waste time thinking, just give each of us two tickets to tonight’s performance of “Wicked”.  Plus, I’m gay and so is my wife.  Don’t discriminate against us!

John:  All right, though I don’t know how—  Oh, look, I have four tickets in my hand.  There you go, two tickets to “Wicked” for you, and two for you.  Hey, wow!  I’ve got another eight tickets for me!  Weird.

Rich Chap:  Well done.  Thanks.  See you at the show, friends.  Gotta zip.

Homeless Man:  Well, I can’t get to Melbourne tonight and I doubt I could find anyone around here wanting to buy these tickets.  Could you, by any chance, exchange them for a dinner?

John:  No, I already have more that enough rather useless tickets and, you know, that does sound a lot like discrimination—whereas I believe in zero discrimination.  Enjoy your gift.  Bye.

Kaleidoscope Australia won’t discriminate against bad logos.

“Downfall” Video: Hitler & Tasmania’s Department of Education

WARNING:  the subtitles of this video feature very offensive language.

Valentine’s Day

Roses are rose…

Roses are rose, and violets violet,
hence their respective names.
We singles might say, on Valentine’s Day,
“Enough of childish games.”


Roses are red…

Roses are red, violets also are red,
daisies are red, and marigolds as well,
and so’s that living oak.
Either this whole world is burning like h—
or I’m having a stroke.

Roses are yellow…

Roses are yellow, purple, white too,
as well as red or rose,
but poor old violets are just the one hue;
it seems I’m one of those.

See also “Love Among the Roses”.

UPDATE I:  added “Roses are yellow”.

UPDATE II:  

Roses are dear…

Roses, choccies, pendants, expensive rings…
I must buy my putative girl such things,
messages advise, gratuitously;
but, in all these tips to buy girlish stuff
(I’ve observed in various vendors’ puff),
none suggests buying anything for me.

On Anti-Pedantry

The Toolbox
 
Whether cutting jew’ls,
wood, rugs or verse, good workers
must know all their tools’

customs; tongues have rules
too—which will guide the learnèd
as they order fools.*


A Test
 
If you have a mind
you can prove anti-pedants’
inconsistency

for I have designed
a quick test: misspell their names
deliberately

and you will soon find
some laws are good. Try spelling
“Stephen” with a v;†

he won’t be so kind,
I warrant, to those who would feel
that convention-free.

*  Douglas Bader: “Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”
†  these verses (in slightly different form) were originally posted as a comment, at Catallaxy Files, on a rant by Stephen Fry against grammatical pedantry.

UPDATE:  I added what is now the last verse.

UPDATE II:  I added this:

A Message

I, for one, delight
in seeing our wonderful
language used quite well;

yet we may enjoy
the ‘cool web’ of English and,
at the same time, tell

this Stephen Fry cove,
“Precision does have a place.
You can go to hell.” 

Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young at Sea

In a Senate committee, Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young insists that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection should stop using neuralyzers on illegal aliens to wipe their memories, and asks some hard-hitting questions:-

Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young:  I’ve been watching quite a few television programmes lately, just for purposes of research, mind, and it seems that we don’t even need to use old-fashioned ships any more because we can travel even into outer space using Transporter beams, and into other planets using a rediscovered technological apparatus, which the ancient Egyptian rulers used, called “Stargate”.  So, my first question is: why isn’t Big Ted from “Playschool” here today to answer questions when I’m sure I put him on my witness list; and why isn’t Squadron Leader, I mean Lance Corporal, of course, or, no, why isn’t Brigadier Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart here to tell us whether aliens really do pose a threat to our borders, and just how many Daleks are left in the universe (because I’m pretty sure I insisted that UNIT release him for this inquiry); and—

RAN personnel preparing to use neuralysers on unlawful aliens seeking illegal entry

UPDATE I:  to assist Sen. Hanson-Young, here’s a list of border-related entertainment she might have been trying to remember:

“Border Patrol” is a reality television series from New Zealand which features the work of New Zealand’s Customs, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and Immigration Service—the show has no connection with the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection;

“Border Security: Australia’s Front Line” is the Australian reality television series which features the work of officers of Australian Customs and Border Protection, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection;
“Border Watch” is an adventure module for the rôle-playing game Dungeons & Dragons—the game has no connection with the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection; The Border Watch is a newspaper based in Mount Gambier, South Australia—the newspaper has no connection with the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection;
“Coastwatch” is a reality television series from New Zealand which features the work of New Zealand’s Ministry of Fisheries, Maritime Police, Coastguard, Navy, Air Force and police dive squad—the show has no connection with the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection;
“Coastwatch Oz” is a reality television series from New South Wales which features the work of NSW’s Department of Primary Industries fisheries officers and Marine Area Command Police—the show has no connection with the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection;
“Patrol Boat” was an Australian television drama series—i.e. it was not quite real—which featured the activities of the crew of a Royal Australian Navy patrol boat patrolling Australia's coastline—the show (produced, in 1979 and 1983) had no connection with the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection; and
“Sea Patrol” was an Australian television drama series—i.e. it was not quite real—which ran from 2007 to 2011, set on board HMAS Hammersley, a fictional patrol boat of the Royal Australian Navy—the show had no connection with the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

UPDATE II (4 February):  Sen. Hanson-Young has complained to The Daily Telegraph:

I am writing to comment on the article printed in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, 3 February 2014.

To set the record straight, my line of questioning was in regard to the Channel 7 program ‘Border Security’ and the same channel’s new reality show ‘Coastwatch Oz’.  I was simply pointing out the fact that the government is promoting and publicising the activities of border security operations on the one hand while, on the other hand, refusing to answer questions about illegal operations it is undertaking on the high seas.

It was Mike Pezzullo, CEO of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, who raised the television program ‘Sea Patrol’, about which I made no reference.

While I know it’s unlikely that the Daily Telegraph columnist will check his facts with me in the future, I will continue to point out the dangerous and secretive nature of this government’s policies.

Sen. Hanson-Young had said in the Senate’s committee hearing, “We have a TV show publicising techniques you are using for border security at airports.  We have another TV show, of course, about coastguards.”  The show  “about coastguards”, which she now identifies as “Coastwatch Oz”, features NSW Department of Primary Industries fisheries officers and Marine Area Command Police without input from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.  Personnel of the Royal Australian Navy differ from NSW fisheries and police officers but, to be fair to the inaccurate senator, they all wear uniforms.

What the senator terms “illegal operations” on “the high seas” are operations which comply with Australian and international laws and they are, accordingly, perfectly legal; however, to be fair to the erroneous senator, the non-citizens wilfully trying to enter Australia in contravention of Australian and international laws (whom RAN personnel have been encountering and assisting professionally and humanely) are in fact involved in “illegal operations”.

UPDATE III (5 February):  Sen. Hanson-Young’s grasp of reality might be well represented by her choice of pictures:

her profile picture on Twitter

 her reality v. her fantasy (from the last election campaign)

Bagging the Bags Ban

I sent this evening the following letter to the Woolworths Customer Service Team by e-mail:

I thank you for your response to my complaint [lodged by telephone last week] wherein I asked, inter alia, why you can’t find a source of plastic bags to provide to customers at no additional charge which comply with Tasmanian legislation when other smaller retailers can manage to do so. 

I confess, I find your reply puzzling and, frankly, dishonest.  The legislation, the Plastic Shopping Bags Ban Act (2013)[*], does not “prohibit retailers from giving away lightweight shopping bags” as you write; it prohibits retailers from providing (whether for free or for some charge) plastic bags of less than 35µg thickness, but the Act does allow the provision of “a biodegradable bag” or “a bag of a type prescribed by regulations to not be a plastic shopping bag”.  Other retailers have procured bags, which comply with the legislation and which they provide at no added cost to their customers. 

You write, “‘Alternative shopping bags’ will be available to purchase and will cost the customer 15c per bag”; yes, I already knew this; in fact, I complained precisely because you are charging 15¢ for a bag which, surely, costs you nothing near that much.  Your profit margins, I hope, can’t be so minuscule that you cannot provide free bags to customers if smaller shops can do so. 

You then write, “plastics are a major pollutant in our environment and waste valuable resources”.  Do you really believe that?  What rubbish!  See “Life Cycle Assessment of Supermarket Carrier Bags” (February, 2011) from the UK’s Environment Agency, which found the potential of re-usable shopping bags to benefit the environment depends on how many times they are used before being discarded.

“Whatever type of bag is used, the key to reducing the impacts is to reuse it as many times as possible,” the report finds: “The paper, low-density polyethylene (LDPE), non-woven polypropylene and cotton bags should be reused at least three, four, 11 and 131 times respectively to ensure that they have lower global warming potential than conventional high-density polyethylene (HDPE) carrier bags that are not reused.”  Furthermore, the re-use “of conventional HDPE and other lightweight carrier bags for shopping and as bin liners is pivotal to their environmental performance, and re-use as bin liners produces greater benefits than recycling bags”; re-using a plastic bag just once puts it into the same environmental category as a cotton bag which is reused 173 times. 

If people re-use the bags you flog (at your fleecing price), as you advocate, they risk serious illness from cumulative bacterial contamination.  However, if they wash their bags they then use so much energy and water in that laundering process that they eliminate any environmental benefit which might arise from avoiding the use of HDPE bags; and disinfecting cloth bags would be even worse for the environment because any residual or superfluous disinfectant might harm or even destroy aquatic fauna when discarded. 

“The conventional HDPE bag,” the Environmental Agency’s report concludes, had the lowest environmental impacts of the lightweight bags in eight of the nine impact categories.” 

If, as you intimate, you really cared for the environment, you’d lobby to have this silly, ideologically skewed legislation repealed in order to reintroduce lightweight HDPE bags; and, whilst the Act remains in force, if you gave a toss for the convenience of your customers, you’d quickly locate a source of lightweight bags which you could provide to your customers at no extra cost.

* an Act “to prevent, so as to minimise environmental pollution, the provision by retailers of certain plastic bags, and for related purposes”.

UPDATE I (9 Jan.):  earlier, last week, a representative of the Woolworths supermarket in the Hobart CBD responded to my complaint, writing (inter alia):

It is now against the law for all retail outlets to supply non biodegradable bags to their customers (Woolworth’s is working on a bio degradable bag).

UPDATE II (9 Jan.):  a list of shops in Tasmania which helpfully provide lightweight shopping bags to customers for no extra charge:

9/11 Bottleshops;
EB Games;
JB Hi-Fi;
Just Jeans;
Mountain Creek Outdoors;
The Reject Shop;
Rivers;
Salamanca Fruit Market;
Subway;
Target;
Wursthaus;
Your Habitat.

(This list will be irregularly updated.)

UPDATE III (9 Jan.):  along with the decision by Woolworths not to provide helpful bags, comes a seemingly correlative lack of assistance at check-outs whereby check-out staff stand watching as poor customers who brought their own bags perforce pack their own items therein.  The representative of the Woolworths supermarket quoted above assured me that it is not his supermarket’s policy to be so unhelpful, but the uncooperative practice continues at some supermarkets.