Unconquered Peaks

The production and delivery of food to consumers brings with it numerous, complex sustainability issues; from giant meat produces, which emit tonnes of CO2 every day, through to the logistics behind the transportation and distribution of food. To ensure alignment with the Paris Agreement goals of ‘pursuing efforts to limit global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees’[1], the carbon footprint associated with the movement of food needs to be reduced.

Here at Wimbledon High, some of us share views on politics, ethics, and morality and, let’s be honest, are not exactly renowned for our collective ability to keep quiet on them. So, I feel fairly confident in saying that a lot of us have similar thoughts on ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. For example, there is a large group who are, politically, slightly left leaning. I cannot exclude myself from this group of people, nor do I wish to. However, most of my political views hugely reshaped themselves since I downloaded the popular social media app TikTok, and I’m sure that many of you have also been heavily influenced by social media; be it, like me, TikTok, or your friends reposting posts on Instagram, or Twitter.

A defining feature of all authoritarian governments and ideologies, censorship is hardly a new phenomenon. Just take a cursory glance at history, and you will find countless examples of people imposing censorship as a means of thought control, often with devastating consequences. It comes as no surprise that freedom of expression is often seen as the hallmark of a civilised society – and for good reason. The suppression of dissenting opinion invariably paves the way for further abuses of human rights, and betrays the values of democracy.