It might seem unnecessary to advise people to respect our natural world, but it saddens me to learn that we have wandered far so from our earthy roots. We have lost touch with the planet, like a caged panda who eats nothing but Dairylea Lunchables and can?t remember how to get an erection any more. Consequently, the people of Jersey are confused, wanting to enjoy the outdoors but apparently unable to work out that the beach was not created to function as a gigantic dog toilet.
It saddens me to tell this to my people: Mother Nature is not all-powerful, and she lacks the ability to clean up behind your pets, children and smouldering, filthy piles of disposable barbecues. The spirits of the deep cannot digest Evian bottles and there will come a time soon enough when the amount of farm chemicals in our water will give rise to a generation of cretinous, stunted freaks. If we don?t want to be living in a future that resembles Beneath The Planet of the Apes, we must change our ways. Either that, or simply avoid St Mary at weekends.
Tree huggers
The people of Jersey really do want to care for the environment, they?re just a little confused as to how to go about it. Whilst it is noble to consume organic produce, the environmental benefit of hand-picked blueberries is somewhat mitigated if they are flown to the supermarket from Kenya, driven two or three miles home in the back of a gigantic Land Rover and then stored in a fridge large enough to preserve the dead body of a woolly mammoth. Instead, we should consider enjoying produce that is grown in the i=Island, benefiting both the local economy and farmland which won?t then be concreted over and turned into another mountain of thin-walled luxury flats.
As for our open spaces, it would be better for all if it were possible for people to enjoy them without depositing a nature trail of food wrappers, cigarette butts and steaming piles of dog excrement. I regularly commune with the forest spirits, and I can tell you that neither they nor the Public Services Department will collect these items, despite the many symbolic offerings of tiny, knotted bags of dog poo that pet owners have thoughtfully hung from trees and bushes throughout our countryside.
We could also stand to do a lot better with recycling, as currently the only items that are regularly re-used are telephone directories and the opinions of States members. It could be that Islanders simply assume that our new incinerator is magic, costing as it did the equivalent of the Apollo Space Programme and resembling a cross between a Swiss airport and an iMac designed for Godzilla. Sadly there is no steel teepee of enviro-magic at La Collette, and all our extra tax money still could not afford biodegradable robots that sift tin cans and cardboard from Jersey?s vast piles of disposable nappies and all the packaging from Iceland ready meals.
Of course, it is true that some Jersey folk have a passionate wish to live as one with our planet. These people aspire to become closer to nature, a desire expressed by a tofu-rich diet, the avoidance of a hairbrush and the ability to spend the summer months living in a camper van in Le Braye car park. We all could learn from their wisdom, especially when it comes to discovering exactly how many yoghurt pots one needs to recycle to offset the carbon footprint of diesel-swallowing tie-dye minibuses, not to mention numerous long-haul flights to visit organic chinchilla rescue centres in the South American rainforest.
The Parish of Atlantis
Let us not forget that our Island has a special relationship to the forces of Mother Nature. Many readers will be familiar with the debate over the effects of man-made climate change, a discussion which has on one side the overwhelming majority of world scientists and on the other some people who still believe the Earth is flat, the CEOs of oil companies and several local politicians.
Now, far be it for me to disagree with the calibre of intellectual titan who manages to get elected to Jersey?s chamber of earthly wonders, but I do wonder if we might be tempting fate by removing all references to climate change from the Island Plan, being as we live on an overpopulated, drought-prone rock barely metres above sea level.
Perhaps we should just trust our intelligent overlords to fix the problem in the same way they?ve dealt with everything else – by hiring consultants from the mainland. We probably have little reason to worry. Just look at how well our Island already deals with floods, storms and fog – even if the doom-mongers are correct we can just reclaim some more land near St Helier. Who?ll miss St Ouen?s bay and most of Grouville when they?ve got a few more acres of beautiful waterfront to live on?
We?ll be fine for food as long as we can keep importing magic farm powders to feed the remaining land, because rising sea levels just means more water for them to run off into. Much like the debate around climate change, our leaders tell us that nobody has managed to prove any conclusive link between ill-health and topsoil loaded with more chemicals than Amy Winehouse, so let?s continue to enjoy the mysterious, apparently random carpet of sea lettuce that grows larger
every summer.
Now that I think about it, I think I?m actually looking forward to a wet future. Stuff nature – I?ve always wanted to paddle a canoe through Gorey village, and it?ll be much easier to find a property with a decent sea view. Fire up the Land Rover; lets hang up some poo bags and see if we can edge ourselves a bit closer to environmental apocalypse. We?ll live on sea lettuce like an island full of the children of Kevin Costner
in Waterworld, although hopefully with
better hair.
