To the Editor;
How does humankind correct its collective addiction to disposability when – regardless of scuba divers’ reports of immense tangled plastic messes (not to mention plastic bags found at some of the ocean’s deepest points) – so much of it is not immediately observable, i.e. out of sight, out of mind, thus misperceived as no threat to us?
It doesn’t surprise me, as general human mentality collectively allows us to, amongst other forms of blatant pollution, throw non-biodegradables down a dark chute like we’re safely dispensing it into a black-hole singularity to be crushed into nothing.
And then there’s the astonishing short-sighted entitled selfishness. I observed this not long ago when a Global TV news reporter randomly asked a young urbanite wearing sunglasses what he thought of government restrictions on disposable plastic straws. “It’s like we’re living in a nanny state, always telling me what I can’t do,” he recklessly retorted.
And I can imagine the feeling being mutual in most of the southern hemisphere.
Frank Sterle Jr.
White Rock, B.C.