Beware of suffocation
There’s a fuss in Britain and North America over plastic shopping bags. Compared to all the critical local and world issues it’s just silly. And it’s also an example of individual consumer “rights” being defended to the nth degree, trumping common goods and common sense. The news – stories are pervasive — is about efforts in England and Scotland to tax and reduce the plastic shopping bags that clog landfills and harm wildlife. This isn’t at all new: governments in many other places have tried this with bans or taxes. And most everywhere the opposition has been ferocious; this time it’s focused