I mean, letās be honest, thatās how the system works. Apart from essential goods, most demand is entirely artificial and generated either by advertising (luxury goods), or, in this case, more covertly by manipulating the public opinion and, if necessary, bribing a few public officials to pass a law that makes your product mandatory.
Pasta straws seem like the obvious solution, it takes at least 5 minutes to soften in BOILING water, itās gonna last at least that long in a chilled beverage, and then if you throw it in the forest thatās literally just food
image description: a luxurious inside view of a private jet, in which another jet is flying inside.
the text above it reads, āTaylor swift yendo al baƱo de su jet.ā
lit: Taylor swift going to her jetās bathroom.
I donāt know if all these recent jet memes are people just joking around or are you people actually convinced private jets are the problem?
Taylor swift, and every single billionaire alive could be flying 24/7/365 OR NOT and it would make absolutely no difference to fighting climate change.
The main polluters are industry and farming.
All this other shit around are just distractions keeping you from actually going after the people that are causing our crisis.
I donāt know if itās astroturfing or what, but it seems like itās deliberate manipulation to keep people inactive.
You memeing on Tylor or using wood straws, or recycling your soda can does fuck all. A single paper plant will dump out so much co2 and pollution that will negate the effort of millions.
Well, none of that matters anyways when China now emits almost twice as much CO2 as the US and is basically single-handedly not just absorbing all the rest of the worldās reduction efforts, but increasing the global output enormously.
While thatās efficient by comparison, the atmosphere doesnāt really give us a break for per-capita adjustments. Yes, the US is more irresponsible per capita and they need to fix that. However China gets more bang-for-the-buck in per-capita improvements when it comes to the actual environmental impact.
Depends on whether we are talking about where to optimize for best impact, or whether we are talking about fairness of blame.
the data you shared only shows half the picture. if you take into account cumulative emissions, the US isnāt doing any good. itās responsible fit a quarter of emissions to date.
Past emissions are just assigning blame, future emissions are all that matters. USA emissions have peaked, China is growing exponentially. Thatās a problem.
Thatās cumulative as in āfrom the beginning of timeā (as far as we have record allowing us to estimate). It merely proves that the US has had a head start in all this because they industrialized at a large scale far earlier than China. But as you can see, Chinaās curve is literally steeper than anyone elseās, having already almost caught up to the EU in a mere 50 years.
Taylor Swift is looking to be a supporter of the Democratic Party in US, so the Republicans are running targeted attacks on her to reduce credibility as the election is coming up.
Itās nothing new but just be aware that people posting these memes may just be bots/paid marketers essentially.
I recently visited China, to meet my wifeās extended family.
Let me tell you, the sheer amount of single-use plastics that are consumed by any individual throughout a regular day in a metropolitan environment, is absolutely and mind-numbingly depressing.
Given that there are 1.3b people there, and that no matter how much we in the US/AU/EU reduce/reuse/recycle - we will never be able to truly offset that sheer amount of plastic pollution produced.
Now Iām not saying this to be a doomer, but more-so to say that individuals canāt enact sufficient change to save this planet, we need Government and corporate incentives to shift towards sustainable alternatives, and punitive policies to disincentivise plastic production globally.
the reduction is plastic waste generation in China is far more than that of US^1^.
so, what I mean to say is that more people ā more pollution. but I do agree that the problem is to be tackled with active participation of the government, which wonāt be there because of muh economy.
[1]: By 2016, Chinaās overall plastic waste production had fallen to 21.60 million tons, a reduction of nearly 28 million tons (for comparison, U.S. production fell less than 4 tons during the same time period). Moreover, despite being one of the largest overall producers of plastic waste, Chinaās per capita production of plastic waste was one of the lowest in the world in 2016 at 15.6 kilograms a year per person.
I did the ambulance thing for a bit. CPR calls, the back of the ambulance, despite being covered in fluids, looked like a recycling center. And none of it gets recycled, obviously, all just gets red bagged or containered. Everything is individually wrapped, and for obvious reasons, but Iād have days where I could match my familyās plastic use for the week or more in 12 hours.
Though in that particular scenario, while it feels wasteful, for an average person is exceedingly rare. The only paramedic supply Iāve had used on me in my lifetime was when my car got rear ended badly and they gave me a blanket because I just conversationally mentioned it was kind of cold while they were checking in with me. Going for a dental cleaning or a physical thereāll be some single use plastics to be sure, but again, only like 3 times a year usually.
The majority of Chinese residents donāt live in metro zones, work office jobs, and eat fast food, though.
Also, very common to find reusable metal straws (and cups and utensils) outside the US. Korea and Japan both overwhelmingly favor washable utensils, as do cities south of the US border (I stopped seeing disposables once I got outside Mexico City proper and I never saw them in Jamaica or Cozemel outside the airport/seaport). There are zero disposables in Havana. The very idea is alien to them.
Lots of places in the US wonāt recycle the supposedly ārecyclableā plastics, it ends up in a landfill regardless of what you do. I remember all the educational initiatives about the importance of recycling when I was a kid. Turns out it was all just propaganda to make us feel responsible for problems caused by corporations.
i really do not understand where this idea that plastic has something to do with the climate came from, how do people imagine that to work?
No, the point of not using plastic is to not have plastics blowing around on the street for 50 years before itās degraded into microplastics that instead enter our bodies.
Some materials have higher carbon emissions than others, in terms of refinement, processing, and transportation. The third point is location dependant, but creating and shaping different materials will have different contributions to global warming.
Edit: There are also concerns with the productās end of lifespan. How long it takes to biodegrades, how easily recyclable it is, and how much the available disposal methods will effect the environment. Plastic is not great on several of these accounts. Recycling plastic water bottles isnāt very efficient either, compared to glass bottles for instance.
Sure it does, but we should ask why she became the meme and not any of the other billionaires, who are overwhelmingly white men.
Itās like when I pointed out to my kid that the Karen meme is pretty sexist, they pointed out that thereās also Ken. And I asked them, in all the meme compilations they watch, how many Kens are there for every ten Karens? They said, āmaybe 2 or 3.ā I pointed out that that imbalance is the problem, and they were like, āoooohh yeah.ā
A 10 year old gets this when itās explained to them simply. Anyone who pretends they donāt get this is covering for something they donāt want to admit.
I didnāt make that meme myself but I debated changing it to something Taylor Swift related for a moment, but then I thought that horse was pretty much dead already so I just left it as it is. Sheās certainly not the only one doing this sort of stuff.
My dog does this, too. I come in carrying every bag, to avoid the dreaded second trip, and she pulls me down further, by sticking her nose in each bag, one-by-one to see if anything good is inside.
Honestly, itās very frustrating because I rely on YouTube as a Creator and avid Commentator and I absolutely wonāt give out the credentials used to post things to another party.
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