Nanny is very concerned about the environment these days; she loves to lecture us about global warming, the benefits of recycling and the environmental impact of heavy industry.That, I guess, is why she had a rain forest destroyed in the Amazon recently in order to provide the wood for a refit of the fixtures and fitting in Westminster.
Anyhoo, Nanny has turned her attention to the environmental impact of war. She has decided that weapons actually pose a serious health and safety risk, as such she wants to minimise that risk.
Somewhat of a contradiction you would have thought?
Apparently not, according to Nanny's friends in the MOD and BAE Systems (one of the world's largest arms manufacturers).
The latter are designing "green" munitions and lead free bullets.
The MOD (Ministry of Defence) has proposed quieter warheads, to reduce noise pollution, and grenades that produce less smoke.
Dr Debbie Allen, director of corporate social responsibility at BAE systems, said:
"Weapons are going to be used and when they are,
we try to make them as safe for the user as possible,
to limit the collateral damage and to impact as little as possible on the environment."
Needless to say, this green policy has caused some people to take a sharp intake of breath. Symon Hill of Campaign Against Arms Trade said:
"This is laughable.
BAE is determined to try to make itself look ethical,
but they make weapons to kill people and
it's utterly ridiculous to suggest they are environmentally friendly."
FYI Britain has dropped more than 900 bombs in Iraq, and the United States dropped 1,500 cluster bombs.
Nonetheless, BAE are championing bullets with lower lead content because:
"lead used in ammunition can harm the environment and pose a risk to people."
Am I the only one who thinks that the above could be construed as being a contradiction in terms?
Funny old world isn't it?
I fear that the next logical step is to have health warnings printed on every bullet, cluster bomb and WMD..."May cause death if used properly."
ReplyDeleteI can also see that anyone being hit by one of said 'ethical' munitions is going to be overjoyed that their death hasn't harmed the environment in any way and the little fluffy animals haven't been scared by the big loud shells.
This dovetails quite nicely with today's story of the former Infantryman with the Argylls who is sueing the MOD due to loss of hearing from firing weapons.
ReplyDeleteTurns out, right, anti tank weapons and machine guns are very noisy indeed.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/news/tm_objectid=17839954%26method=full%26siteid=66633-name_page.html
f.f.fortescue and sir stewart wallace, they're ten times noisier when they're pointing at you!
ReplyDeleteOpen other end.
ReplyDeleteThis product may contain nuts.
If Nanny's so concerned about the environment, perhaps she might care to explain why she is so eager to replace Trident with a new generation of nuclear weapons?
ReplyDelete"Open other end.
ReplyDeleteThis product may contain nuts."
Nanny and her followers ARE nuts!
I have to wonder if this really is a private joke that escaped into the public domain and now has to be perpetuated as someting real.
ReplyDeleteI noted in the original story that the spokething was keen to point out that they apparently stopped using Depleted Uranium in munitions a few years ago. Presumably the price went up too much for them (or their poor customers) due to demand for DU in hospital equipment and sailing boat keels.
However the overall concept does fit well with a story I heard about the Health and Safety Executive a few years ago. It goes something like ...
Chaps (Bomb Disposal sort of role) on a training exercise are out in a battle situation dealing with munitions and things unexploded accompanied by and H&SE chap.
As part of this they need armoured vehicles and to be able to get in and out of the things quickly. Each crew member has their own ingress and egress hole in many cases, especially in tanks.
H&SE oberves them rushing to the vehicle and clambering up the structure to drop into their allotted positions and decides that the climbing is dangerous and requires ladders.
The crew asks for suggestions about how they might store the ladders, where they might store the ladders, what to do if their ladder is damaged in battle, how to make the deployment and retraction of the ladders as fast as would be required for battle conditions in a dangerous situation (the whole point of operating in an armoured vehicle) and so on.
Unsurprisingly H&SE has no answers.
The exercise continued, so I was told, with less H&SE interruptions.
There's a comedy film script in this somewhere.
We have just gotten into the 'No lead shot on waterfowl' idiocy over here in NZ.
ReplyDeleteResult- more birds fly off to die later. Steel shot is bloody hopeless!
I tried an experiment on rabbits, alternating lead & steel shot.Lead killed them outright, steel did not.
Now I hear that over in the US, where steel has been mandatory for a while, that it is killing the trees...