I think that it’s a bit of a false equivalent to say that since we can’t convince people to use reusable bags, we can’t get Jeff Bezos to reduce his.
They’re different problem sets. Industrial pollution (or pollution from people with access to industry levels of capital) is something that can be addressed with legislation. It’s also something with fairly broad, populist appeal. And it’s something that, if addressed might make meaningful and lasting impact.
The “people need to take personal responsibility for recycling” narrative has been largely funded by oil companies and polluting industries as a cover to avoid people realizing that those things make up such a tiny fraction of the overall problem. They work to turn people against each other so that were too busy fighting to address the much bigger environmental issues.
Also, I love straws. If I don’t have one the drink gets in my moustache.
It isn’t a different problem set though, just a different flavor of the same issue: over-consumption and overexploitation. It is also something that can be addressed through legislation, as the article this discussion originated from is an article about how legislating bag bans is effective.
People do need to take responsibility. That’s the whole issue. People at the bottom do not take responsibility, they do not push for people above them to take responsibility, and they will actively curtail measures to improve things because ‘it’s the big guys we need to worry about.’ No, we all need to make efforts. And in the example of bags, I am asking you to make a trivial change to your lifestyle, that you would all but forget about once you had made the change.
Let me try to use a different example. Cigarette butts on the ground are fucking gross right? Major ecological concern as well. Nobody should be throwing cigarette butts on the ground, I think we can all agree. You throw a cigarette butt on the ground? No big deal, coal plants are worse. Same energy.
You kept at this way longer and put far more energy into it than it was probably worth. Imagine if instead of bitching about bag bans to anyone online we just, like, looked up from our phone and paid a tiny bit of attention to bringing a bag to the store. Then we wouldn’t have to spend all this time justifying our lack of care.
I appreciate the examples you gave and I hope someone benefits from them. The simple fact is that the person you’ve been going back and forth with will not.
Haha, I’ve had years of practice failing to persuade my father in similar ways for forty years now. I know it changes nothing, but the other option is to not try. I appreciate the support.
I think the issue is that we each have our own internal line of “acceptable participation in the upkeep of the world around us,” and they’re different.
So, like, if there’s a line graph here, it has the following points:
1: not throwing cigarette butts on the ground
2: not using disposable bags
3: eating food out of trash cans.
I’ve said, existing between points 1 and 2 is my personal level of “acceptable participation,” and you have said it’s between 2 and 3. Many people exist above point 3, and many exist below point 1.
And someone above point three might approach you and say, “why are you letting perfectly good food go to waste,” and hit you with all the stats and figures about how food waste is destroying the earth. And it would be such a tiny change for you to, instead of making or ordering food, just find some in a nearby trashcan. It’s all over the place, and super accessible. And it’s really dangerous. Freshly thrown away food is pretty much always potable.
But you have chosen that your personal level of “acceptable participation” doesn’t require that of you. Should the “above point 3” people judge you for not making that tiny lifestyle change?
And honestly, perhaps they should? You are living below what they have determined is the “minimal acceptable level of social responsibility.” You aren’t doing your part to help combat a real environmental problem.
But a majority of people have chosen not to eat out of trash cans. Just as a majority of people don’t bring reusable bags into the grocery store. And the only difference between those things is where your personal line of “acceptable participation” is.
And yes, there is a “generally societally agreed upon level of participation” which would say that throwing your cigarette butts on the ground is unacceptable. But you know why I know that’s the generally agreed upon standard? Because only a minority of people do it. The general societal standard for disposable bags is on the “use them” side.
And sure, would it be beneficial to put in work to shift the Overton window on that issue, sure. Campaign for it. Push the cause. (Which I recognize is kind of what you’re doing here). Who knows, maybe I’ll pick up some bags and forget them in my car next time I hit the store, only to get mad the stores paper bags don’t have handles.
But I think there’s a big difference between advocating for a shift in the societal expectation, and investing emotional energy into despairing over the condition of your fellow man. You can recognize that, just because someone is on the other side of an issue than you, doesn’t mean they’re “bad” or deserve derision. None of us, yourself included, are doing all the “little” things we could be doing to make the world a better place. There’s always a higher level of societal participation. But I think my concern here is that your mentality is, “people who chose differently than me are bad,” not, “how can I best advocate to help encourage people to improve.”
You keep bringing up the eating out of the trash can thing. My counter to that is, we throw too much away. That’s another issue we should be working on. I used to live near the Portland Fred Meyer with the famous photo of cops guarding a dumpster because it was filled with unspoiled food during covid.
It isn’t about whether or not I am willing to eat food out of a dumpster (do donuts count?) it’s that we as a society need to all work towards addressing how much food is wasted. There are a multitude of ways in which this can be addressed both on an individual level and on a societal level.
But if you keep wantonly wasting food of your own, because ‘fuck it, have you heard about the time armed police barricaded a dumpster?’ then I’m going to (hopefully politely) spend apparently a full 24 hours pushing the issue of maybe don’t do that.
Again, it’s the same energy as with the bags. It is a trivial step to take. It is easier than continually coming up with reasons to tell a stranger on the internet that you just don’t want to.
And that’s fine. Like you said, we have different ideas of what the line is. We all justify our actions. I do it as well. And we as a species are going to justify ourselves into completing the sixth mass extinction of this planet.
To be fair, it’s probably only been, like, an hour. Just spaced out over 24hrs, lol.
But I think we’re talking past each other a bit. The point of me bringing up eating food out of the trash (and sure, donuts count) wasn’t to chastise you for not doing it. I’m not trying to call you a hypocrite or something.
My point was more about charity and empathy. It was about viewing the decisions that people wo are “worse than you” (my words not yours) not as people to be looked down upon, but as people to be encouraged.
I think it’s tied up in the brinkmanship of your last statement. Will climate issues be a major problem that we’ll have to grapple with in the coming century? Absolutely. But allowing that to lead to misanthropy is unhealthy.
I feel you on the misanthropy, and it’s always been a fine line I’ve had an eye on haha. Or as I like to say, my entire life I’ve tried not be a nihilist and after many years of hard work I can finally say that I’m an absurdist.
I’ve got a degree in ecology and evolution, I think about this stuff way too much. I think many of the adaptations that allowed us to get to where we are now are also what will bring about our end. The super organism that is humanity cannot change itself fast enough to recognize our collective power. Or as some have put it, we cannot properly conceptualize exponential growth.
The fact that using reusable bags, again not life altering but insanely simple, is too big of an ask says everything you need to know about our hope of making real change for the future. Actual sacrifice is coming, and we aren’t going to have a choice. If this is too far, then we are well and truly fucked.
As soon as that real change comes, people are going to look to a strongman who can turn it all around. He’s gonna tell them what they are doing isn’t that bad and it’s the mean old scientists that are making life difficult. That and the freeloaders. And those people are going to eat it up. And all of the little environmental improvements that now seem like no big deal but were fought over for years are going to be removed. Asbestos of all things may be deregulated. Sound familiar?
Now for the democrats. Zohran Mamdani is, I would assume, going to have a bag ban as part of his platform if NYC doesn’t do it already. I’m sure Eric Adams will hammer him over it at some point as well. And I am equally sure that there is at least one liberal in that city that is going to say ‘you know what, fuck that, I like my bags, especially those one’s with the handles.’ Will it make a difference? Maybe not, but it still sucks knowing that’s how it is and that’s how it’s gonna be.
Sorry if that went off the rails haha, and I don’t think anything bad about you. But I’m not exaggerating when I say this is why I think we are doomed. I’ll still be using my bag though, which by the way is a fucking rad petrified forest national park one that I’ve used for almost four years now.
Fair on all counts. I don’t disagree with you that the situation is bad.
I do think it’s somewhat hard to feel it for a lot of people. Partly, as you said, exponential growth is hard for most people to grasp. I also think a lot of older people who have followed climate science over the years are a little jaded too, as climate science has, rightly or not, beat the drum of “imminent global destruction within the next decade” for the past 7+ decades now, and I think people have gotten a bit of a “boy cried wolf” mentality about it.
But one would have to be blind to not see that things are getting noticeably worse, and as you say, exponential growth is a mofo. The jar is half full with one second to midnight, as they say.
But understood on all counts, and definitely no hard feelings on my end either. I tend to see the good in people, even those that make decisions I wouldn’t. I think it probably leads to a happier life, but then again, how much of that is choice vs disposition?
And seriously, all that said. I simply cannot stress enough how much better the bags with handles are. And if the earth burns to a crisp because of them, well, was that not a sacrifice worth making?
I think that it’s a bit of a false equivalent to say that since we can’t convince people to use reusable bags, we can’t get Jeff Bezos to reduce his.
They’re different problem sets. Industrial pollution (or pollution from people with access to industry levels of capital) is something that can be addressed with legislation. It’s also something with fairly broad, populist appeal. And it’s something that, if addressed might make meaningful and lasting impact.
The “people need to take personal responsibility for recycling” narrative has been largely funded by oil companies and polluting industries as a cover to avoid people realizing that those things make up such a tiny fraction of the overall problem. They work to turn people against each other so that were too busy fighting to address the much bigger environmental issues.
Also, I love straws. If I don’t have one the drink gets in my moustache.
It isn’t a different problem set though, just a different flavor of the same issue: over-consumption and overexploitation. It is also something that can be addressed through legislation, as the article this discussion originated from is an article about how legislating bag bans is effective.
People do need to take responsibility. That’s the whole issue. People at the bottom do not take responsibility, they do not push for people above them to take responsibility, and they will actively curtail measures to improve things because ‘it’s the big guys we need to worry about.’ No, we all need to make efforts. And in the example of bags, I am asking you to make a trivial change to your lifestyle, that you would all but forget about once you had made the change.
Let me try to use a different example. Cigarette butts on the ground are fucking gross right? Major ecological concern as well. Nobody should be throwing cigarette butts on the ground, I think we can all agree. You throw a cigarette butt on the ground? No big deal, coal plants are worse. Same energy.
You kept at this way longer and put far more energy into it than it was probably worth. Imagine if instead of bitching about bag bans to anyone online we just, like, looked up from our phone and paid a tiny bit of attention to bringing a bag to the store. Then we wouldn’t have to spend all this time justifying our lack of care.
I appreciate the examples you gave and I hope someone benefits from them. The simple fact is that the person you’ve been going back and forth with will not.
Haha, I’ve had years of practice failing to persuade my father in similar ways for forty years now. I know it changes nothing, but the other option is to not try. I appreciate the support.
I think the issue is that we each have our own internal line of “acceptable participation in the upkeep of the world around us,” and they’re different.
So, like, if there’s a line graph here, it has the following points: 1: not throwing cigarette butts on the ground 2: not using disposable bags 3: eating food out of trash cans.
I’ve said, existing between points 1 and 2 is my personal level of “acceptable participation,” and you have said it’s between 2 and 3. Many people exist above point 3, and many exist below point 1.
And someone above point three might approach you and say, “why are you letting perfectly good food go to waste,” and hit you with all the stats and figures about how food waste is destroying the earth. And it would be such a tiny change for you to, instead of making or ordering food, just find some in a nearby trashcan. It’s all over the place, and super accessible. And it’s really dangerous. Freshly thrown away food is pretty much always potable.
But you have chosen that your personal level of “acceptable participation” doesn’t require that of you. Should the “above point 3” people judge you for not making that tiny lifestyle change?
And honestly, perhaps they should? You are living below what they have determined is the “minimal acceptable level of social responsibility.” You aren’t doing your part to help combat a real environmental problem.
But a majority of people have chosen not to eat out of trash cans. Just as a majority of people don’t bring reusable bags into the grocery store. And the only difference between those things is where your personal line of “acceptable participation” is.
And yes, there is a “generally societally agreed upon level of participation” which would say that throwing your cigarette butts on the ground is unacceptable. But you know why I know that’s the generally agreed upon standard? Because only a minority of people do it. The general societal standard for disposable bags is on the “use them” side.
And sure, would it be beneficial to put in work to shift the Overton window on that issue, sure. Campaign for it. Push the cause. (Which I recognize is kind of what you’re doing here). Who knows, maybe I’ll pick up some bags and forget them in my car next time I hit the store, only to get mad the stores paper bags don’t have handles.
But I think there’s a big difference between advocating for a shift in the societal expectation, and investing emotional energy into despairing over the condition of your fellow man. You can recognize that, just because someone is on the other side of an issue than you, doesn’t mean they’re “bad” or deserve derision. None of us, yourself included, are doing all the “little” things we could be doing to make the world a better place. There’s always a higher level of societal participation. But I think my concern here is that your mentality is, “people who chose differently than me are bad,” not, “how can I best advocate to help encourage people to improve.”
You keep bringing up the eating out of the trash can thing. My counter to that is, we throw too much away. That’s another issue we should be working on. I used to live near the Portland Fred Meyer with the famous photo of cops guarding a dumpster because it was filled with unspoiled food during covid.
It isn’t about whether or not I am willing to eat food out of a dumpster (do donuts count?) it’s that we as a society need to all work towards addressing how much food is wasted. There are a multitude of ways in which this can be addressed both on an individual level and on a societal level.
But if you keep wantonly wasting food of your own, because ‘fuck it, have you heard about the time armed police barricaded a dumpster?’ then I’m going to (hopefully politely) spend apparently a full 24 hours pushing the issue of maybe don’t do that.
Again, it’s the same energy as with the bags. It is a trivial step to take. It is easier than continually coming up with reasons to tell a stranger on the internet that you just don’t want to.
And that’s fine. Like you said, we have different ideas of what the line is. We all justify our actions. I do it as well. And we as a species are going to justify ourselves into completing the sixth mass extinction of this planet.
To be fair, it’s probably only been, like, an hour. Just spaced out over 24hrs, lol.
But I think we’re talking past each other a bit. The point of me bringing up eating food out of the trash (and sure, donuts count) wasn’t to chastise you for not doing it. I’m not trying to call you a hypocrite or something.
My point was more about charity and empathy. It was about viewing the decisions that people wo are “worse than you” (my words not yours) not as people to be looked down upon, but as people to be encouraged.
I think it’s tied up in the brinkmanship of your last statement. Will climate issues be a major problem that we’ll have to grapple with in the coming century? Absolutely. But allowing that to lead to misanthropy is unhealthy.
I feel you on the misanthropy, and it’s always been a fine line I’ve had an eye on haha. Or as I like to say, my entire life I’ve tried not be a nihilist and after many years of hard work I can finally say that I’m an absurdist.
I’ve got a degree in ecology and evolution, I think about this stuff way too much. I think many of the adaptations that allowed us to get to where we are now are also what will bring about our end. The super organism that is humanity cannot change itself fast enough to recognize our collective power. Or as some have put it, we cannot properly conceptualize exponential growth.
The fact that using reusable bags, again not life altering but insanely simple, is too big of an ask says everything you need to know about our hope of making real change for the future. Actual sacrifice is coming, and we aren’t going to have a choice. If this is too far, then we are well and truly fucked.
As soon as that real change comes, people are going to look to a strongman who can turn it all around. He’s gonna tell them what they are doing isn’t that bad and it’s the mean old scientists that are making life difficult. That and the freeloaders. And those people are going to eat it up. And all of the little environmental improvements that now seem like no big deal but were fought over for years are going to be removed. Asbestos of all things may be deregulated. Sound familiar?
Now for the democrats. Zohran Mamdani is, I would assume, going to have a bag ban as part of his platform if NYC doesn’t do it already. I’m sure Eric Adams will hammer him over it at some point as well. And I am equally sure that there is at least one liberal in that city that is going to say ‘you know what, fuck that, I like my bags, especially those one’s with the handles.’ Will it make a difference? Maybe not, but it still sucks knowing that’s how it is and that’s how it’s gonna be.
Sorry if that went off the rails haha, and I don’t think anything bad about you. But I’m not exaggerating when I say this is why I think we are doomed. I’ll still be using my bag though, which by the way is a fucking rad petrified forest national park one that I’ve used for almost four years now.
Fair on all counts. I don’t disagree with you that the situation is bad.
I do think it’s somewhat hard to feel it for a lot of people. Partly, as you said, exponential growth is hard for most people to grasp. I also think a lot of older people who have followed climate science over the years are a little jaded too, as climate science has, rightly or not, beat the drum of “imminent global destruction within the next decade” for the past 7+ decades now, and I think people have gotten a bit of a “boy cried wolf” mentality about it.
But one would have to be blind to not see that things are getting noticeably worse, and as you say, exponential growth is a mofo. The jar is half full with one second to midnight, as they say.
But understood on all counts, and definitely no hard feelings on my end either. I tend to see the good in people, even those that make decisions I wouldn’t. I think it probably leads to a happier life, but then again, how much of that is choice vs disposition?
And seriously, all that said. I simply cannot stress enough how much better the bags with handles are. And if the earth burns to a crisp because of them, well, was that not a sacrifice worth making?