It is a central plank of federast propoganda that the European Union is the only way to stop conflagrations like WWI and WWII from happening again. I have always regarded such pronouncements as specious self-delusion. Indeed, certain features of life in wartime Europe are beginning to re-appear, such as austerity, rationing and empty shelves:
Gardeners were banned from buying dozens of pesticides from yesterday under new European rules. The 80 gardening products, mostly lawn treatments, have been withdrawn from the shelves. They can be used until the end of December.
They include many sold by major retailers including B&Q, Asda and Do It All, and are being banned alongside 135 agricultural products.
Thus we are saved from the cataclysmic horror of law treatments. Household cleaning products are probably next.
Nor is this the end but merely the beginning for what we are seeing is the EU’s ‘precautionary principle’ in action. As a result, thousands of chemicals used everyday, domestically and commercially, now have to be subjected to an exhaustive and expensive testing procedure to ensure that they post not the even the merest smidgeon of a hint of a suggestion of a risk to health. This is despite that face that, in most cases, these chemical products have been used for years, even decades, without anyone growing three heads as a consequence.
For many, particularly smaller scale, producers the cost of compliance means bankruptcy so they simply withdraw the products from sale. Result: a gradual emptying of shelves.
And who, exactly, is behind it? As if we couldn’t guess:
Friends of the Earth welcomed the move but raised doubts as to whether the outlawed pesticides would be disposed of properly. The environmental pressure group also claimed some products were not covered by the ban despite being proven to damage human health.
Yes, the enviro-mentalists. Europe’s ‘jihadis’; they may be self-righteous creeps with faces one can never can tired of punching but they have managed to secure themselves a svengali-like grip on the minds of Europe’s Cardinals.
By this time next year, Samizata articles will be written on papyrus scrolls and distributed to our readers by mule-train.
Papyrus scrolls? No way; think of the deaths of all those nice plants, we couldn’t possibly have that legacy hanging over our heads.
“The grass is brown on both sides of the fence” and will soon be browner since the mules will be required to wear diapers.
Mega-millionaire Sen Corzine (D-NJ) wants to ban chloride/chlorine.
I’m not giving up my Soft-Scrub w/chlorine and my Clorox.
No way.
WSJ has done a few editorials on this.
A few years ago, I was discussing the problems of eradicating a particularly irritating bug with the man who is, beyond question, the world’s leading academic expert on this particular pest. In his opinion (and there is none more highly regarded) the only chemical worth bothering with is a certain organophosphate: there will now be a short intermission while members of Greenpeace and Fiends of the Earth leave the room, fainting and reaching for their bottles of Volvic.
At the time, like most non-specialists, I had absorbed at least some of the eco-nutcases’ party line: organophosphate = derived from Nazi nerve gas technology = about as lethal as you can get.
Not so, opined the professor. Indeed, he used to ask his students which chemical they would recommend to a near-blind, elderly relative to mix-up and use with safety to dispose of garden aphids. The answer was, you’ve guessed it, this particular organophosphate.
A year later it vanished from the shelves of British garden centres. Why? Because its manufacturer (and I asked them) had decided that the opposition to its use from soi disant ‘Greens’ and the looming paranoia from the EU, not to mention the phenomenal cost of getting it ‘approved’ (assuming they could) could not possibly be recovered from sales.
And this is how the eco-lobby works. Not by science (the world’s leading authority says this particular chemical is safe), but by spreading half-truths, evasions and downright lies.
Ask any gardener. You aren’t even allowed to advocate throwing used washing-up water onto your roses to kill aphids these days. Used washing-up water isn’t ‘approved’ you see.
And no. I didn’t make that up.
Yeah, we aren’t immune from such madness here. Diazanon, a very effective bug killer that doesn’t hurt the grass, has been removed from the shelves.
Changing the subject a bit, I actually view the EU as a pretty good cause for a future world war. I think there will be some point when certain nations in the EU finally decide it’s time to hit the road and succeed. I see this happening probably 20 to 30 years down the road. I think a redo of U.S. Civil War (albeit with totally different motivations) would be on tap and the U.S. & Russia would have a hard time staying out of it. Depending on China & India’s political disposition at the time, an Asia war of opportunity could shortly follow. This is wildly speculative obviously, but given the EU’s likely consitutionally built in entaglement and it’s general hostility towards the individual and nationalities, I think it’s not out of the realm of possibility. And unlike true dictatorships, they won’t have the will or the means keep ethnic rivalries buried by by force. Anyway, like I said, it’s wild ass speculation, but one that generally worries me about the future.
There is an opportunity to tie together several recurrent Samizdata themes here, but I’ll just note the relationship between an education system churning out ‘graduates’ who have little or no understanding of science and how the world works in general.
These are the consumers of the enviro-babble nonsense that masquerades as science. Things have degenerated to the point that those of us who have even a quite limited understanding of science, are unable to communicate with these people.
Personally I would like to put all of them in their own hut in a malarial mosquito infested swamp, after having explained to them that DDT, unfortunately now banned would have protected from an otherwise almost certain and particularly horrible death from malaria.
uhuh. Your union will prevent war between the states just like ours did. 1860-1865.
Why can’t we have a “precautionary principle” for all new government regulations?
Sorry, but I suspect that mules will be banned also, being an unnatural mating and besides which, they have this terrible tendency to emit gasses which affect the atmosphere. Can’t have that.
All sarcasm intended, of course.
Russ – You wrote: “I think there will be some point when certain nations in the EU finally decide it’s time to hit the road and succeed.”
Technically, I think you meant “hit the road and SECEDE,” but it works just fine either way. In fact, I think I like your version better. I also agree that I think the EU probably increases the likelihood of a major war in the long run.
I gaze in my crystal ball and see the EU in the future. It will be a combination of this:
Danish enthrallment with wind power.
French phobia of anything American
German green paranoia of anything chemical
Sweedish attempts to live on hydro only
Brussles burearcracy
Viewed from the US midwest, it’s going to be an interesting decade.
Now if we could just separate California from the mainland and tow it to Europe, we’d be fine.
The end result of the enviromentalist’s ambitions will culminate in a world where they shall be squatting in their own shit,rubbing two sticks together to cook the half rotten dead animal they have managed to scavenge.No thanks.If they wish to live such a lifestyle then feel free.Try to force that lifestyle on me then you’ve got a fight on your hands.
This brings to mind an anecdote from my youth. I was a technician in a DoD (Navy) research facility in the late ’60s. Two visiting scientists from England were shown an apparatus we used for measuring fluid flow around propellers, which was filled with plumbing and valves. Integral to the mess was a type of valve that was compact, cheap, off the shelf, and absolutely reliable. After taking it apart to demonstrate how it worked, one scientist looked over at his colleague and said, “See! You can actually BUY things like this in America!” Globilization has changed that since, but maybe we’re seeing the precursor of a return to those times.