Day 292 - 01 Nov 96 - Page 15


     
     1        packaging, but CFCs as blowing agents were banned by the US
     2        congress as an aerosol propellant in 1978.  They said that
     3        McDonald's was not aware of the CFC ozone depletion as an
     4        issue until the mid 80s.  Following world wide concern over
     5        CFCs McDonald's phased out use of them, and slowly -- well,
     6        often -- replacing them with HCFCs which, we would say, are
     7        equally damaging to the ozone layer.
     8
     9        We are talking about one of the most serious environmental
    10        global problems that the human species has ever faced,
    11        which is the diminishing of the ozone level and the
    12        resultant hundreds of millions of skin cancers that are
    13        likely as a direct result.  That is an ongoing result; that
    14        damage will be done in the coming decades, whether the
    15        ozone layer recovers or not, in terms of the continuing
    16        damage, and also the resultant disease caused by that
    17        damage.
    18
    19   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   You were going to deal at some time, with
    20        the anxiety I have expressed from time to time, as to the
    21        case, interesting though it may be, a matter of concern
    22        though it may be, of persuading me that it is relevant to a
    23        defamatory meaning in this leaflet.  I know Mr. Rampton
    24        picked up the gauntlet about it and McDonald's have picked
    25        up the gauntlet about it, but I expressed the same concern
    26        to him.  If the bit about rainforest, for instance, which
    27        is really the lead into this, you say, includes a comment
    28        about wrecking the planet coming more or less at the end of
    29        it, nevertheless, at the moment -- and I say this so you
    30        have a chance to persuade me otherwise -- it seems to me,
    31        however, that this is geared to destruction of the
    32        rainforest, or destruction of forest, paper and environment/index.html">litter
    33        comes in the same section.  I see the possible relevance of
    34        Polystyrene packaging to the environment/index.html">litter problem, even though
    35        the leaflet refers to paper as environment/index.html">litter.  It may well be that
    36        Mr. Rampton accepts that the mention of environment/index.html">litter brings in
    37        any kind of environment/index.html">litter, so you can have your Polystyrene as
    38        environment/index.html">litter even though it is not paper.
    39
    40        You can have it in, therefore, as an environmental
    41        consideration, let us say as environment/index.html">litter and as disposal
    42        problems, but how do you get it in as a problem so far as
    43        the ozone layer or skin cancer, which you have just
    44        mentioned, is concerned?   At the moment, it does not look
    45        to me as if either of those environmental points of damage,
    46        if I can describe them in that way, are referred to
    47        directly or even indirectly in the leaflet.
    48
    49   MR. MORRIS:   Well...
    50
    51   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You remember what I said about the test
    52        I applied in part in relation to the BSE question, save in
    53        so far as it might involve cruelty to animals, so far as
    54        nutrition or food poisoning is concerned and the processing
    55        of paper?
    56
    57   MR. MORRIS:   Yes.
    58
    59   MR JUSTICE BELL:  So at the moment you do need to persuade me
    60        that that part of Polystyrene is relevant to any charge

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