Penn and Teller are comedy magicians, there is no logical reason to believe that they are experts in recycling. They are probably not experts in any of the subjects they cover in their 'B'llsh|t' series. I am sick to the back teeth of 'celebrities' pronouncing on subjects of which they know little. I want my science programmes to be fronted by scientists, especially when the subject is so important. I've heard a lot worse language and I'm no prude, but when people say 'f@ck' in every sentence to emphasise their point and when they attack people because of their name (argumentum ad hominem) to denounce their views then I think they lose it. Penn and Teller were rude and offensive about everyone who supported recycling and belittled good people for holding honest views, as you do. They withheld figures that didn't suit their argument and made gross distortions to make their point. Their magic tricks are very clever, their science is not.
Matt you accept that Penn and Teller lied over their figures on the number of trees (3 times as many), but expect me to accept the logic of their position. How can their position be logical when they manipulate figures so blatantly? There are not 3 times more trees in the USA today than in 1920, there are more by all accounts, although the difference between densely packed conifers in plantations, as opposed to widely spaced broadleaved trees in natural forests, is not seen as an environmental plus and reduces habitat for certain species. In the USA certain types of tree are endangered or exist in reduced numbers as conifer farms, which also cover much of Scotland and the north of England, increase. The logic is flawed - our countryside still sustains farming, but oil seed rape is not the same as free range sheep. We have lost nearly all of our wetlands and limestone grassland in my lifetime, but there is plenty of chemically farmed biscuit wheat. To compare potatoes, which crop annually, with trees that crop in 15-30 years is not logical. Wild potatoes are virtually extinct in any event and new types have been introduced to produce a certain type of consistency; there is a specific potato that was created in my lifetime to produce reconstituted 'fries'. Simplistic comparisons do not advance the logic of the case.
I archived into store all of my material on recycling targets, value for money, profitable sides of the industry (clear glass, paper/cardboard, certain metals etc) after I lost my seat. I'll see what I can find later, but I'm busy at the moment on other projects. In any event paper was recycled successfully before the EU targets arrived on the scene - my younger brother used to collect and sell old newspapers when he was a teenager as there was a market. Traditional paper was made from recycled clothing late in the last century and you can still buy 'laid' paper - that's why we had rag and bone men when I was a child. The profits made are part of the overall contracts that councils sign and offset the less profitable areas - some used plastics are too voluminous and are only, IIRC, worth about £8 per ton (the figure I was given in 2000 at a conference on waste management) as opposed to £200 per ton when processed into plastic chips - obviously the costs will have changed, but it is the percentage difference that is interesting.
The thread started as an insult and abusive language is in the title, unless you genuinely believe that people who disagree with your views are 'envirofascists'. You have called me a fascist and other names in the past when I have disagreed with your world view; that's why I see you as aggressive. I was not slandering you (not another thread where people don't care about the use of English), but making a point in a heavily ironic style based on your previously unwarranted aggression towards me and others. Your posting style is aggressive, even if in private you are not, and I am not the only victim of your treatment. I tried to PM you before you were banned by Alex to ask you to tone down your style, it was done in the spirit of friendship, but all I got was a vituperative response. You seem to think that all your past insults of me and others should be forgotten and each thread is stand alone. If we want to play he said, she said then I would point out that you have made unwarranted attacks on me and others over several months and now pretend to be the wounded party - to that extent you are, IMHO, a fraud. You attack those who disagree with you and then seek to blame them when they respond - Clippo's harmless banter with others has been reported by you as an 'insult' and you attack the mods for not responding to your fascist attempt to suppress free speech and debate on this forum. You will only be satisfied when everybody who disagrees with your unsubstantiated view of the environment is banned. You started the name calling, I responded in frustration with your unyielding position. I posted the alternate view provided by the council and you still see the guy, who couldn't be bothered to respond to council letters and couldn't be bothered to attend court, as some scion of the anti-environmentalist movement. The idea that deliberately overfilling your bin is the act of some principled defender of the freedoms of the British people is risible. If he was making a point why didn't he invite the press to see him overfill his bin as an act of defiance?
Enforcement officers carrying out the instructions of the elected representatives, who themselves have statutory obligations, are not envirofascists and would not consider themselves to be such. Your problem is that you have decided the environmental legislation, much of which was presaged in manifesto promises, is 'bad' law and those who enforce it are 'fascists'. You use the word 'fascist' without really having, IMHO, understood what is meant by 'fascist' or indeed 'authoritarian' (we discussed this last time you called me a fascist). I'm neither fascist nor authoritarian and, looking back over my views which you can only guess at, I don't think I ever was. You could look at the totality of my posts and see in many respects I am very libertarian, but I accept that we have to change the system by persuasion and debate. I disagree with many laws and with many situations we find ourselves in, but our society no longer pays any attention to principled stands and the media ignores much symbolic protest unless it is taken to extremes (F4J). If we are to reduce the amount of legislation, which will take years to untangle, we have to select the most absurd regulations and target them first. We have to use consultation processes, many of which I believe to be flawed, to our advantage. If we get into positions of authority then we have to use them to achieve whatever we can. I was sacked from a NHS PCT for trying to stop closure of community hospitals and for voting against a government policy, but we did make national news on the decision to open a mobile ophthalmic treatment centre and I did get the 'secret' closure of community hospitals into the open. The media cover these things and pass on and I have lost tens of thousands of pounds for my 'principled' stand.
Non-executive was unlawfully sacked
I accept that my teenage past can always be thrown at me, even though neither I nor any of the people I mixed with broke any laws (apart from Bob Relf, who I met once, who thought he was making a principled stand against bad law). Nobody I knew went around attacking people or abusing people in the street, but concentrated on leafletting and fighting elections to little or no avail. In a party with, at the time, a large ex-service contingent 'law and order' was a key policy and people who broke the law were actively discouraged. There are a lot of myths about the NF put around by the 'left' in general and Searchlight was full of lies and distortions. I was actually expelled from the NF after the NP split - my long-term girlfriend at the time was sister of the local NP organiser and people thought I was a 'spy' because I wouldn't drop my friendship or cancel my fiancee. There are some very strange people about, although to be fair they exist in all parties. I did learn a lot about street politics and I soon discovered that if you haven't marshalled your facts you will lose arguments very quickly.