| Please register to receive the benefits of our network-wide features. |
Register (free) |
Log In
|
| Please register to receive the benefits of our network-wide features. |
Register (free) |
Log In
|
Institute of Ideas
London, England
Oct 27th, 2007
[A video version of this presentation is available at Fora.tv]
Due to brief profanity, this program may not be appropriate for work or family listening.
A panel of experts comprised of Thomas Deichmann, Editor-in-Chief of the German magazine Novo, Julie Hill, Associate of Green Alliance, author and blogger Julia Hailes, and spiked magazine columnist Rob Lyons hold a debate on the importance of recycling household waste.
Julie and Julia argue in favor of recycling, calling on every household to acknowledge blame for the menace we've caused as a human race by wasting the precious and limited resources of our planet. Manufacturing a wedding ring, for instance, involves resources that are acquired by spending an enormous amount of energy digging up the Earth and mining and refining tons of crude material. Recycling is an easy household solution that we can adopt as responsible citizens to guarantee a better future for our children and later generations.
Thomas and Rob present equally clever and compelling arguments against recycling. Recycling, in their view, is a nuisance propagated by political lobbies with an ulterior agenda buried underneath. An end-user, or consumer, doesn't need to waste the one but most precious resource, his time, to an end that doesn't produce any gains at all. The economies of scale perceived by the recycling advocates are a myth. Economies are achieved only in certain circumstances where recycling of certain specific materials is done in bulk. A household member recycling two empty cans of yogurt doesn't produce savings. Instead, the whole process costs an absurdly large amount in money and bother. Depletion of resources is a crisis that has nothing to do with recycling of waste. As individuals of a society, we are not to hold ourselves and our children as reprehensible for a global problem and subject ourselves to this needless tyranny everyday.
The debate is followed up by strong remarks from a live audience.
Thomas Deichmann is founder and since 1992 Editor in Chief of the bi-monthly German magazine Novo, published in Frankfurt. Since 1993 he has worked as a freelance journalist and researcher for numerous quality papers across Europe, including Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Focus, Die Zeit, Financial Times Deutschland, Die Welt, Brand eins, Suddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, Die Tageszeitung, Ernaehrungsdienst (all Germany), Der Standard (Austria), Profil (Austria), Weltwoche (Switzerland), De Groene Amsterdammer (Netherlands), Trouw (Netherlands), De Morgen (Belgium), Helsingborgs Dagblad (Sweden), spiked (UK).
During the 90s, Deichmann’s journalism covered international relations and the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Since 1999 he has focused his research and writing on science topics, and modern biotechnology in particular. His investigative journalism and his ‘enlightenment’ approach repeatedly cause international and national wide debates. He has appeared on radio and TV repeatedly. He has lectured at universities and journalism schools such as the Henri Nannen Schule (Berlin), Schule für Publizistik (Cologne) and Technische Universität Berlin on reporting and journalistic standards.
He studied Civil Engineering at Darmstadt University and was awarded his diploma in 1989, spending some years working at Darmstadt University and as a freelance engineer.
Julie Hill is former Director of, and now an Associate of, Green Alliance – one of the UK’s foremost environmental policy organisations. Her areas of expertise are biotechnology, waste and resources policy, and sustainable buildings. She has recently been Deputy Chair of the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC), a member of the Government’s GM Science Review Panel, and is currently a member of the Government’s Commission on Environmental Markets and Performance.
Julie is a non-executive director of the Eden Project in Cornwall; a member of the Environmental Advisory Board for Shanks plc, a large waste company; a member of the Government’s Waste and Resources Research Advisory Group; and a member of the Advisory Committee to the Innogen Centre at Edinburgh University. She was awarded an MBE in 2001. She has authored and co-authored a number of publications on business and the environment, biotechnology and waste policy, including A Zero Waste UK (Green Alliance/IPPR, November 2006).
Julia Hailes MBE is author of The New Green Consumer Guide. She works with several different panels, advising major corporations such as Proctor and Gamble on environmental issues. She is also a blogger for the Daily Telegraph.She began her career at the end of 1986 at Earthlife, and then helped to establish organisations such as SustainAbility, going on to organise Green Consumer Week. She co-founded and is a trustee of the Haller Foundation. She was the vice-chair of the ACCPE (the Advisory Committee on Consumer Products), and served as a District Councillor in South Somerset 1999-2003, and was until last year a non-executive director of the Jupiter Global Green Investment Trust. Julia was awarded the MBE in 1999.
Rob Lyons is a writer for the online publication spiked. Topics of interest include science and health issues, particularly the panic about obesity and the way food has been treated as a problem in recent years.
Resources
This free podcast is from our The Best of Fora.tv series.
Play