Posted on 08/30/2008 12:33:44 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
'Environmental volunteers' will be encouraged to spy on their neighbours
Councils are recruiting residents to report anyone who drops litter, fails to recycle their rubbish properly, or who allows their dog to foul the streets.
By Lucy Cockcroft
Last Updated: 8:24AM BST 30 Aug 2008
'Environmental volunteers' are being recruited to spy on neighbours to combat issues involving recycling and waste Photo: Getty Images
Advertisements looking for people to sign up for the unpaid "environmental volunteer" jobs have been posted across the country in recent months.
Critics said the scheme is encouraging a Big Brother society where friends and neighbours will be encouraged to "snoop" on one another.
The recruitment drive follows news that the Home Office is granting police powers to council staff and private security guards, allowing then to hand out fines for low-scale offences and ask for personal details.
Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "Snooping on your neighbours to report recycling infringements sounds like something straight out of the East German Stasi's copybook.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
If the ‘Environmental volunteers’ turn in a Muslim violator, will they get their throats cut?
ping
The UK goes Cuban.
That ought to build a nice sense of community...
Idiots.
I gotta recall where I read this....that a “solution” to energy consumption would be to culturally demonize it. One way I remember is to have a device on your home allowing snoops to see your consumption - say a green light for saving the earth, yellow for avg and red to let thugs know to trash your home.
I would urge anyone interested in UK domestic law and policy to look up the concept of ‘anarcho-tyranny.’
It is pretty much the only way to describe modern domestic law and policy in Great Britain that doesn’t include the word insanity.
Just like Al Gore buying carbon credits to offset the excessive use of electricity to maintain his lighted swimming pool.
Encouraging a Big Brother Society? I have news for them, they are there and have been there for some time. I would be surprised if Brits could take a whiz out of sight of CCTV.
Are We Ready to Track Carbon Footprints? (NYT)
"applying the lessons of social psychology and behavioral economics to everything from health care to climate maintenance. The authors of “Nudge,” Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago, agree with economists who’d like to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by imposing carbon taxes or a cap-and-trade system, but they think people need extra guidance.
“Getting the prices right will not create the right behavior if people do not associate their behavior with the relevant costs,” says Dr. Thaler, a professor of behavioral science and economics. “When I turn the thermostat down on my A-C, I only vaguely know how much that costs me. If the thermostat were programmed to tell you immediately how much you are spending, the effect would be much more powerful.”
It would be still more powerful, he and Mr. Sunstein suggest, if you knew how your energy consumption compared with the social norm. A study in California showed that when the monthly electric bill listed the average consumption in the neighborhood, the people in above-average households significantly decreased their consumption.
-SNIP-
Mr. Sunstein and Dr. Thaler suggest applying those principles with something more sophisticated than smiley faces. A glowing ball called the Ambient Orb, programmed to change colors as the price of electricity increases at peak periods, has been given to some utility customers in California, who promptly reduced their usage by 40 percent when the ball glowed red in peak periods.
Another gadget, the Wattson, which changes colors depending upon how much electricity a house is using, collects data that can be displayed on a Web site. Clive Thompson, a columnist for Wired, has suggested that people start displaying the Wattson data on their Facebook pages "
Enviornmental law trumps humanity.
In the near future they will they institute the death penalty for littering.
The new morality absent God.
Check out the phrase ‘Common Purpose’ in the UK.
Not many people, even in the UK, know about the organization but that’s what is driving many of these policies.
I am all for hammering hard people who drop litter and allow dog fouling, but this is a bad way to do so.
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