I was rather horrified earlier today to see the photograph that the BBC used to illustrate their [clears throat] “narrative-free” coverage of the news that the government has allowed Equinor to drill for oil at the Rosebank Field. This showed some protesters on the beach, apparently at Aberdeen (how times have changed). The horrifying thing was of course the level of ignorance on display.

I decided to annotate the photograph a little, giving the results you see before you.

The point being of course that if the outraged young folk in the photo were deprived of everything directly derived from crude oil, they would be standing naked, and clutching not their banners, but the bits of themselves they preferred the photographer not to capture for posterity. What’s that? They are wearing swimsuits under their wetsuits? Well, those are made of polyester so they vanished too.

The only labelled substance not directly derived from crude oil is of course glass fibre.

ASTERISK: Surfboards have been known to be made from ocean trash, balsawood, algae or mushrooms. However, I very much doubt that the ones shown are made of anything pretending to be sustainable.

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“We will eventually run out of oil, but we will never run out of stupid.”

Jit, 27.ix.2023

[You may quote me on that.]