Rubbish! The Oratorical Politics of the Environment
Rubbish! (2005) Richard Girling Rubbish! is a tirade against the Blair Government but also by extension any British Government since all governments are essentially the same crew whatever the party. Environment policy is seen here through the eyes of a senior specialist journalist whose text ostensibly majors on 'rubbish' but who also covers the degradation of land and water resources, the collusion between government and business at the expense of everything from food security to clean air, and waste itself (especially hazardous waste). There is anger at the incompetence of policy-makers at every level - but largely at those at the top. One chapter is a genuine eye-opener, about the scale of the traffic of Western waste into the developed world. A picture emerges of a pre-credit crunch global economy that trafficked sex slaves and skivvies in one direction and the detritus of growth in the other. It is a shame that the baby of a theory of imperialist exploitation h...