Chaotic Britain?

'Rip-Off Britain' EDITORIAL

Thursday, 1st March 2001
Paul M
Editor
Rip-Off Britain

Over the past few days it seems that we live in a 'Chaotic Britain'.

First we had the news that foot & mouth disease has struck our shores for the first time since November 1967. The prior outbreak was in December 1923. In both instances thousands of animals had to be destroyed. Only recently swine fever was rampant, and last century we've had (have?) BSE, listeria, salmonella poisoning and a raft of other human diseases such as AIDS, Legionnaires Disease, etc,. The list seems endless.

For today's outbreak of foot & mouth it's very easy to blame farmers, the Government, the EU for closing abattoirs, food producers, food and animal feed importers, or even the consumer. Could even have been an infected corned beef sandwich thrown over a fence to an unsuspecting pig. But are any these really to blame? Who was to blame for the two previous outbreaks of foot & mouth last century? Some say it's the current food chain and the drive for cheap food by consumers. Conversely, some might blame the supermarkets in their drive for profit. Some have even blamed that foot & mouth was brought here purposefully by a radical group bent on ending animal farming. A bit far fetched, but not too unlikely to be dismissed.

One thing is clear - Britain seems to get more than her fair share of 'disasters'. Yet another fatal train crash just yesterday illustrates we live in 'Chaotic Britain'. So why is this?

Frankly, I believe we've got just too many people on a small island. 60 million people tearing around trying to make ends meet on a deteriorated rail & overcrowded road infrastructure seems insane. We've got the highest crime rate in the Western World, and farming has become intensive & highly competitive in the UK (mostly because our European neighbours export more produce to us than we do to them), and our fisheries in the North Sea are on the verge of collapse.

Now you might say that what have the above examples got to do with a Chaotic or even a Rip-Off Britain - but they are directly related to our over-populated island, and planet. Too many people taking too much from the planet to satisfy their own personal & corporate greed. We've managed to plunder our Earth in the past 100 years at 10,000 times the pace than in the past 5,000 years!

Funny though, nature has a strange way of 'culling' the population. Disease, war, disaster and famine are perhaps natures way of saying 'STOP' or 'SLOWDOWN'. You have to think about countries like India or China where disasters are regular occurrences and where the population of the Earth is greatest. Six billion people on a small planet revolving around a rather insignificant star is perhaps just too many. Of course, nature took action 'big time' 65 million years ago when a small asteroid hit the Earth in what is today, the Gulf of Mexico. It wiped out the dinosaurs and 95% of the species on the Earth. If that hadn't occurred homo sapiens might never have evolved. Perhaps we're due for another big impact very soon!!

What do you think about Chaotic Britain and our over-populated island/planet?
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The Editor

Reference Links

Specific information about Foot & Mouth Disease

The World's Greatest Disasters

Asteroid Doomsday Countdown Clock

The World Population Clock

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