Tragic trawl of plastic
QUESTION Did any scientists predict, years ago, the plastic pollution crisis?
MANY see plastic pollution as comparable in scale, threat and challenge to climate change, yet it was only on December 6, 2017, that the UN acknowledged the crisis and adopted a (non-binding) resolution calling for an end to plastic entering the sea.
The problem seems to have crept up on us. A significant reason for this is the psychological status that was conferred on plastic. From the Fifties onwards, plastic was framed as a benign, helpful, modern convenience, both cheap and disposable.
Consequently, catastrophic decisions were made, particularly in the fishing industry when there was a movement away from biodegradable hemp netting in favour of cheap, durable plastics.
There were warning signs. In April 1969, scientist Karl Kenyon published a paper showing that 74% of albatrosses in a breeding colony in Hawaii had plastic in their stomachs. At about the same time, researchers discovered plastic in the gizzards and digestive tracts of petrels in New Zealand and Canada and puffins in the North Atlantic. Another warning came from the explorer Thor Heyerdahl. The scientist made a series of famous voyages to demonstrate the possibility of contact between widely separated ancient people, notably the Ra II expedition of 1970, when he sailed from the west coast of Africa to Barbados in a papyrus reed boat, the Kon-Tiki.
After completing his journey, he reported that parts of the ocean, hundreds of miles from land, had resembled ‘something like a city sewer’, filled with ‘plastic containers, nylon bags, empty bottles’ and endless drifting lumps of oil.
Heyerdahl later addressed the UN and the US Senate, arguing: ‘If we don’t do something seriously very quickly, within ten years there will be a disaster and within 20, catastrophe.’ Laws were passed to limit oil pollution, but not plastics.
It was only in the late Nineties, when the sailor Charles Moore reported a ‘plastic soup’ of floating debris the size of France, Spain and Portugal combined floating in the Pacific Ocean, that it began to attract significant public attention. An article published by the Centre for International Environmental Law, Plastic Industry Awareness Of The Ocean Plastics Problem, made the sensational claim that fossil fuel and plastics manufacturers became ‘familiar with general plastic waste issues no later than the Seventies’ and held a ‘number of workshops and conferences actively discussing the issue and how to deal with it’.
However, rather than solving the problem, the report says that the plastics manufacturers instead decided to ‘oppose sustainable solutions’ and ‘fought regulation for decades’. Dr Ken Warren, Glasgow.
QUESTION A recently televised film, Man At The Carlton Tower (1961), included a young policeman character being addressed by his superintendent as Sergeant Pepper. Was that the inspiration for The Beatles’ song/album?
IT’S an enticing thought, but this is no more than coincidence.
The origin of the Sergeant Pepper name is well established. The title was a play on words based on the salt and pepper packets supplied with an airline meal.
In 1966 the Beatles took a threemonth break from the band. Paul McCartney spent much of the time travelling in the company of The Beatles’ road manager and personal assistant, Mal Evans. The idea for Sgt Pepper came during their return flight from Nairobi, Kenya, to London on November 19, 1966. Unable to sleep on the overnight journey, McCartney toyed with the idea of creating a new identity for The Beatles. In his biography, Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, he said: ‘We were having our meal and they had those little packets marked S and P. Mal said, “What’s that mean? Oh, salt and pepper . . .” We had a joke about that. So I said, “Sergeant Pepper,” just to vary it, “Sergeant Pepper, salt and pepper,” just playing with the words.’
Man At The Carlton Tower was a crime story, part of a series called The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre. Sgt Pepper was played by Geoffrey Frederick, a handsome British actor who had small parts in numerous British TV series. Katie Turner, Wolverhampton.
QUESTION In 1800s Britain, a crime that could result in being transported to Australia was impersonating an Egyptian. Why was this such a serious offence?
EGYPTIAN was the name originally given to, and adopted by, the gypsies or Romany people.
When the first Romany people arrived in Britain 500 years ago, the people there were at a loss to explain where these dark-skinned travellers had come from – eventually deciding they resembled the people of Egypt.
The word ‘Egyptian’ gradually became corrupted to gypsy, though up to the 18th century they were interchangeable.
Samuel Rid, in The Art Of Juggling in 1586, identified the 1520s as the time when gypsies (Egyptians) first came to British shores. He also wrote of the phenomenon of vagrants pretending to be Egyptians.
At first appearance, the gypsies were welcomed as pilgrims. Indeed, ‘the gipsies were allowed to hunt, they had the right of fraternal affairs and in the case of a crime committed against a nongipsy they were allowed a jury composed of one half gipsies and the other half non-gipsies.’
However, this state of affairs lasted for a short time.
As Britain moved from a feudal, rural society to a capitalist, citybased one, the Romany lifestyle became considered a threat. They were accused of dishonesty in horse-trading, begging, theft, fortune-telling and forgery. The Romany lost their status of exotic travelling folk and laws appeared on the statute books for vagrancy. Thus anyone committing vagrancy – impersonating the lifestyle of an Egyptian (gypsy) – was at risk of serious punishment. Geoff Hardacre, Cardiff.
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