Well Worth Airing

Mere scientists have once again been indulging their fetish for facts, with the usual miserable results: a research team has announced that, contrary to the optimistic hopes of all sensible non-scaremongers, plastic pollution is very likely no more beneficial to marine bacteria than it is to larger organisms. Plastic waste releases chemicals which interfere with the growth of the commonest photosynthetic bacteria, which among other little conveniences produces ten per cent of the atmosphere's oxygen. Though hardly front-page news, the researchers' conclusions are important in their way because plastic pollution, aside from the comparatively trivial matter of its global magnitude and growing environmental impact, also causes financial damage which might not be adequately offset by a modest increase in the market price of breathable air. Accordingly, it is possible that even the jabbering homunculus Michael Gove, who serves Global Britain in place of a minister for the environment, may be driven to contemplate strong measures to protect British fish, commencing perhaps with a law incentivising shirkers to earn their food bank privileges by inhaling less deeply.