Two articles that illustrate very different topics but a common problem. The first deals with pesticide regulation, the second with garbage recycling. What unifies them is the blind application of axiomatic constructs and the authoritative imposition of regulations.
Miller looks at some of the more pernicious activity of the UN and the results of its regulatory decisions wherein useful products are prohibited without provision of suitable alternatives and/or sufficient scientific rationale.
Lyons looks at the latest case of recycling enforcement and takes the opportunity to question the utility and validity of garbage recycling.
Both essays tackle issues that are well-established components of environmentalist dogma: all pesticides are bad, waste is bad and that authoritarian actions are both justified and essential to the removal of either scourge. What the essays do is question the thinking behind the dogma and suggest that common sense is not the same as political correctness, mass advocacy nor regulatory fiat. Indeed, the only problem with common sense might be that it is not all that common at all.
