Macron's recycled slogan from Trump 'Make planet earth great again!'
Published on: Sunday, August 20, 2017
By Kan Yaw ChongIN his presidential campaigns, US President Donald Trump famously pushed for this slogan: "Make American Great Again". His French counterpart, President Emmanuel Macron, jabs: "Make Planet Earth Great Again" after Trump announced on June 1 that he's pulling America out of the sweeping Paris Accord on Climate Change committed to by 194 countries at the end of 2015.
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Macron's jab is both serious and hilarious because the quick-witted young President had invented a way to recycle a frosty political slogan to offset Trump's damage! Guess who won the battle of slogans? Macron – because his mantra has appeal and application at every nook and corner of the the earth. For example, make a trip to unsung Libaran Island about an hour's boat ride from Sandakan, backpacker tourism veteran Alex Yee had built a cosy and airy information booth out of more than 3,000 recycled plastic bottles picked up from a once filthy, trash-choked Libaran beach.This is definitely one small step towards "Make Planet Earth Great Again" from largely an individual effort in Sabah.
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Great again locally speakingHow does "Make Planet Earth Great Again" look like in a local scene like Libaran Island?
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To be great again implies it was once great, for example, trash-free pristine beaches which once lapped around the big island where sea turtles nested in abundance in due seasons. However, the advent of plastics and explosive consumerism of modernisation vanquished the great natural environment to a midget of its former glory.A mountain of plastics, debris and flotsam from civilised mainland invaded, overwhelmed and covered virtually every inch of the beaches, making it impossible for turtles to even find a way up to lay eggs.But a handful of people intervened, beat the trash invasion and the turtles returned to make the beaches of Libaran great again for nesting turtles. But who triggered it all? An unusual island policeman landowner who reported to the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) in 2011 that islanders and dogs were scavenging turtle eggs from his portion of land. SWD apparently did not act immediately until the policeman persisted.The local recycling saga that makes beaches great again To cut the story short, during the hey days of former Director Datuk Laurentius Ambu, he signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2013 with a willing partner, Alex Yee, to set up a turtle hatchery named Walai Penyu to stop turtle eggs going to the dogs and do the opposite – breed them to fill the sea again.But a hatchery was pointless if a trash-infested beach continued to obstruct turtle landings. Even with a MoU, SWD 's role was technical. In this age of unfettered rubbish, beach heath management is decisive. That burden of proof fell squarely on Yee. In little more than a year, the beaches transformed, became great again because of an assured beach cleaning operation manned by paid islanders financed by sponsors and Yee himself, and sea turtles returned in pleasing numbers.Since then, tens of thousands of artificially hatched baby turtles had been released to sea. Much of the rubbish picked up from the beach were plastic water bottles – thousands of them. What to do with them? Recycle them. How Yee concocted building an unconventional information booth with plastic bottles is not clear.Macron's softening impact on Trump Of course, recycling to mitigate against environmental damage has been on the lips of environmentalists for decades, so much so that it has become a cliché.But Macron's recycled slogan "Make Planet Earth Great Again" has done a great deal to soften the blow from the President of a super power who pulled out of the Paris Accord because he reportedly believed climate change is a hoax.He was once reported to have said climate change was a 'hoax invented by the Chinese' to make US manufacturing uncompetitive.Other times it sounds like this was his private belief that even his former top aides like Sean Spicer would tell reporters he didn't quite know exactly what Trump thinks, so "ask him", Spicer would say.Then we would read things like "the debate isn't about whether climate change is occurring or not", so does it imply an oblique acknowledgement that it is occurring?Benefit of the doubt to TrumpSo it may well be that Trump deliberately avoids a hard and fast stand to ease his move to leave what he has called a "very unfair deal" to the US. By unfair, Trump actually slammed "Washington for entering into an agreement that disadvantages US to the exclusive advantages of other countries".He cited "lost jobs, lower wages, shutting down of factories, greatly diminished economic production that would cost 2.7 million jobs by 2025, half a million lost jobs in manufacturing, including auto jobs, decimation of US industries".Citing specifics, he invoked a study that by 2040, production in the US paper industry would be down by 12 per cent, cement 23 per cent, iron and steel 38 per cent, employment in coal mining down 80 per cent and 3 trillion in lost GDP and 6.5 million in lost industrial jobs.In other words – not the stuff to "make America great again", and according to him, not America first.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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