The plastic straw boycott is not meant to fix the problem, that’s been acknowledged [0]. It’s to help drive a message and teach awareness. The hope being that people shift behaviors that impact other areas.
Everything helps at this point. Because something helps less shouldn’t mean we bash it. Collectively we should do more.
I don't think it's true that "everything helps." I think many of these grandstanding initiatives are received with open mockery and I think they serve to undermine the credibility of the larger environmental effort.
Recently we have had some rather large political shifts which move the needle considerably further away from our ecological goals. If you look at what people are saying within these political circles you will see derisive phrases like "virtue signaling," referring to exactly this sort of thing.
When you "send a message" you take work which might be perceived as mutually beneficial and you turn it into a fight. You should expect the response to be the inverse: People will begin to intentionally destroy the environment to send you a message in return. This has been part of Trump's schtick over the last year. This is why there is a culture around "rolling coal." This is actually happening.
This is extremely bad policy and it hurts the environment.
It's actually worse than just "virtue signaling". It sends a political hat-trick of bad to the right side of the political spectrum: It curtails real freedom, lectures condescendingly, and proportionally doesn't actually help.
It reminds me of some of the extreme positions the NRA has taken. Like talking about arming all teachers in response to school shootings. Nobody thinks that's a good idea, whatever you think about gun rights.
I'm realizing that positions like that, or this straw thing... the ideas are successful with groups because they're impractical and dumb. It's about exhibiting group fealty. I'm so devoted, I'll say things that any non-member thinks are ridiculous. It's like burning the boats behind you when you land on shore.
I don't think arming teachers is a good idea but I do know people that literally do. And Betsy DeVos has apparently been floating the idea of using federal funding to purchase those guns. [1]
On the flip side, I've seen an op-ed in NYT or Washington Post (I don't recall) calling for the repeal of the second amendment - and I can't imagine how incredibly stupid the person making that must be. It will never happen and yet it plays exactly into the "Obama wants to take our guns"-type arguments. Of course, that author isn't actually stupid, they just aren't motivated by gun control legislation but rather by getting themselves attention.
It was in the NYT and it was by Justice John Paul Stevens [1]. I don't think it's stupid and certainly doesn't seem like a ploy for attention.
Repealing the second amendment does not mean banning firearms altogether. Writing a new amendment with better scope might be an option, or relying on congress to enact sensible limits might also be an option. But I do agree with you that such an amendment would be received as "[the left] wants to take our guns." That's the challenge of politics: you have to meet that criticism head-on and be clear about what sort of policies would get changed. This is no different from debating critics of socialized medicine who quickly throw up their hands and say "Death Panels!"
You're probably right given who it was that it wasn't a call for attention. However, the more respectable, more established someone is, the worse it makes this. It's hard to brush off the claims that the left wants to take away their guns when it's not just a bizarre fringe. I do think this is qualitatively different from arguing for socialized medicine - in this analogy that would be equivalent to talking about increased mandatory background checks, increasing the ability of police to seize guns, etc. The analog of arguing for repealing the second amendment would be to actually propose making things called "death panels."
I know that the slightest thing gets misconstrued by the other side (regardless of what side) but you don't have to serve it to them on a silver platter!
>> Nobody thinks that's a good idea, whatever you think about gun rights.
I am a gun rights supporter, very extreme one as I believe all gun laws on the books today are clearly violations of the pain reading of the 2nd amendment, any federal gun laws would require the passage of a constitutional amendment.
I also support the idea that any teacher that has the desire to be armed for their own defense and the defense of others should be allowed to be under the law. No teacher should be forced to carry as a condition of their job however no teacher should be prevented from it by law either.
That is the "extreme" NRA position you believe no one thinks is a good idea, but in fact is widely supported in libertarian circles, as well as actual gun rights circles.
If you believe "no one" supports it then I would question if you exist in a echo chamber
I don't want to debate the actual particulars here but it's peculiar that you use the word 'extreme' to describe your point of view and then suggest that the parent's use of the word 'extreme' is unfounded. Your post appears to contradict itself.
> I am a gun rights supporter, very extreme one ...
> That is the "extreme" NRA position you believe no one thinks is a good idea ...
You have to tailor the message to the audience. In my family/original community (before moving out west), I was considered 'moderate' at best on firearms. For this crowd and the West Coast in general, I (like GP) am considered 'extreme'. Case in point - I don't think it's a terrible idea to arm the teachers _who want to arm themselves_. Forcing teachers who don't want to carry to do so is incredibly short-sighted and dangerous. However, there's a non-trivial number of teachers (generally far away from the Left Coast political enclaves) that very much would like to carry, but are hamstrung by federal law. Those are the ones I believe we should allow to carry, IF the desire is there. Just my $0.02.
The NRA positions itself as a civil rights organization, but is really a trade group. The NRA has been pushing these extreme positions with their conservative politician pals because guns were an old man thing that was dying in the 90s. Now it’s one of the three legs of the conservative stool (taxes, abortion, guns)
If you read an old copy of the American Rifleman (nra magazine), it was a very different agenda, mostly focused on hunting and skills. Problem is that hunting is a dying sport... and the gun industry could not and cannot survive in its old form.
Enter the rise of fringe politics and talk radio, where 24/7 paranoia has convinced a generation that they need to stockpile guns. The fact that people who are otherwise intelligent are advocating arming teachers and pushing concealed carry shows how effective this type of marketing is.
People like me left the NRA because they focused too much on hunting.
We want them to focus less on hunting and more on civil rights, I am not a hunter. I do not own guns for hunting. I want an organization that will stand of for my right to own a gun, not to hunt
I respect where you’re coming from, but your position is sowing the seeds to destroy the rights that you care deeply about.
Eventually, some group of people will decide to take up armed insurrection, and that will be the (tragic) end to the issue. The urban population doesn’t get any of the culture around guns at all, and their vision of freedom and independence just doesn’t line up with yours.
Their vision of freedom and independence is not freedom or independence
"Urban" aka liberal culture openly advocates surrendering all liberties for security and safety. Surrendering all libertarians to achieve "social justice". etc
From free speech, to the ability to engage is commerce the "urban" culture believes everything should be regulated, controlled, and approved by a central authority
>>Eventually, some group of people will decide to take up armed insurrection,
Unlikely, the most likely scenario is that the "urban" culture will attempt to use people with guns they employ to violently seize the guns from people they do not employ.
I understand that my view on the constitution is extreme, I admit that, even in gun right circles my position on the constitutionality of gun laws are viewed as extreme as most gun rights advocates believe under the current legal foundation the government does have the authority to regulate things like Automatic weapons where I believe they lack this constitutional authority. That is the extreme position.
However The position the NRA has on teachers and self defense is not in fact an extreme one at all in gun rights circles
It feels like you’re strongly supporting his closing point: the ideas are successful with groups because they're impractical and dumb. It's about exhibiting group fealty. I'm so devoted, I'll say things that any non-member thinks are ridiculous. It's like burning the boats behind you when you land on shore.
For the 99.9% who don’t define themselves through group membership as whatever version of libertarian you are, and out ideology far above practicality it’s nuts. What you’re saying however does strongly proclaim your membership in that group, sort of like a communist carrying around a little red book. The fact that it turns off everyone else is a bonus proving your devotion.
>>What you’re saying however does strongly proclaim your membership in that group,
I did not really proclaim my membership in either group I mention, I stated what the opinions of people in those groups are
This was done not "define myself through group membership" but to refute the position that "no one" or very few people support such a position.
HN has a echo problem, most people on this site lean in a single political direction, and share a singular political view, that of the Silicon Valley left..
The point of my comment was that the entire nation does not in fact share they view and to believe "no one" shares the "extreme views" of the NRA highlights nicely that echo chamber
HN has a echo problem, most people on this site lean in a single political direction, and share a singular political view, that of the Silicon Valley left.
I’m neither in SV, nor am I enough of dove to be “Left” in any reasonable measure. I object to the American characterization of politics as a binary “L/R” formulation. I’m hawkish on defense, anti-communist, anti-fascist, pro-gun, pro gun control, pro universal healthcare, I’m for calling people whatever pronoun they prefer and against being told to stop using gendered pronouns in general. I’m pro-Israel, but I’m not Islamophobic. Im pro-immigration, but not for 100% freedom of movement, and honestly I don’t entirely know what the balance should be. I accept that there are a lot of problems I don’t have good answers to.
I’m not part of anyone’s echo chamber, because sooner or later one of my views sees me excommunicated from either of the rigid American political poles. You seem to be arguing that such poles don’t exist, America has two parties with any power and has for decades and decades. Both parties are to the Right of most of Europe, even today, and both parties are incredibly similar to an outside view unless you talk about guns or abortion.
In my limited experience here, the most dominant ideologies seem to be some bastardized version of libertarianism, and whatever you call the desire to get rich and retire early. Left and Right don’t seem to enter into it as much as the desire for personal advancement, and a general sense that people here are so smart that given the right conditions they can solve anything, even if they don’t understand the problem.
I find myself sort of in that camp. I think rolling coal is stupid, but when I saw people wanting to ban straws, I just had to roll my eyes. I think the larger goals of environmental protection lose some credibility when obviously inconsequential stuff like that becomes the message of the day.
It seems to me there’s a lot of trash on it. The trash is many different things. Each causes its own problems. There’s Shovels, balls, dod poop bags, Pizza boxes, carryout bags, trash bags, napkins, paper plates, cups, lids, and yes, there’s lids with straws, and individual straws. But there’s a lot more of everthing else.
Fixing the trash problem by choosing one item to vilify each year is going be glacially slow.
Wouldn't it make more sense to address the trash problem?
Not one straw, my point is that straws on beaches do not come from landfills. They come from illegal dumping operations and cruise ships and maybe tourists who litter at the beach. Most people do not need to change they way they dispose of straws. This is a problem caused by a minority and no matter how few straws the rest of us use it will not address the problem even a little bit.
This is wrong. Plastics can and do escape landfills. Also it doesn't seem to be the case that all, or even most, single-use plastics are properly disposed of and make it to landfills.
as I recall, normal disposal regularly involves shipping it out to landfills or other countries - essentially a large “not in my back yard” supply chain.
Once there, it worms itself back into the environment, part of which is the ocean.
To address your first point -- I am sure it is the case that idiot bubble people on the internet who don't believe in climate change will use phrases like "virtue signalling". What is not supported is the claim that they would otherwise go along with environmental initiatives, if only the right ones were chosen. It may simply be the case that the class of people you are talking about are always going to drag their heels and oppose everything, and they simply choose the manner of how they'll yell about it based on what they're responding to.
Coal rollers aren't people who are responding to "nonsense laws" (in this case, apparently, ten-year regulatory plans to marginally improve emissions standards and fuel efficiency) -- they're just people who have been convinced climate change is a liberal hoax to destroy their way of life, lashing out angrily. They get no benefit other than a performative one by "rolling coal". Burning costly fuel to trigger the libs is the very definition of virtue signalling, except somehow worse because the virtue being signalled is a cruel and evil one.
In general arguments like "virtue signalling" are a process argument. The words say "You can't possibly mean what you're saying", but the intent beneath them are "I don't agree with what you're saying, so you can't possibly mean what you're saying". They're not a reaction to the mode of argument being presented against them, they are the default mode of argument to show contempt.
Ditto for the exact same group of people bemoaning "identity politics" while having twitter bios that read "Conservatarian #TradLife Proud to be who I am #MAGA The only thing right of me is the wall" or whatever.
It may be the case that straw bans are, specifically, as a matter of policy, counterproductive. I don't think all laws which prescribe policy or all messages which lecture are, but it may be the case that straw bans are. I don't have a strong feeling either way. But when it comes to 4chan weirdos whose literal slogan is "Fuck their feelings", no, I'm not going to spend time making sure they don't feel as though I'm belittling them.
Just because someone has legitimate criticism on a small (and particularly stupid) portion of an environmental movement (who, let's face it, aren't known for their members' intelligence to begin with) does not mean they're extremists of the other camp.
I am sick and tired of this attitude that people keep having. There are a great many environmental standpoints, and there are idiotic morons on either side. But what sometimes looks like the entire environmental movement has adopted this "with us or with the devil" attitude. And of course, these organisations push things like travel, with their videos images and activities which are hugely damaging to the climate.
Note the shoes ... note the glasses ... note the cellphones ... the T-shirts that are obviously created just for that one event and will probably be thrown out immediately ... note the freaking beverages ... all damaging to the environment. If your criticism against others is that they're hypocrites, you might want to look in the mirror a bit.
In fact, let's just describe a bit of reality here. There are 1000 people worldwide who have any decent knowledge of climate models. 1000 (and even that seems pretty high). That means that on either side of the debate, all but 1000 of them are BULLSHITTING. Incidentally, statistically, that means that there are far more environmentalists who don't know anything about what they're saying than denialists. So if that's really going to be your standard for stupid and unfair ... well that's just not going to reflect well on your side.
> Burning costly fuel to trigger the libs is the very definition of virtue signalling, except somehow worse because the virtue being signalled is a cruel and evil one.
Maybe ... just maybe ... they're just doing the same as the people they're protesting. You know, as a protest.
Imagine that.
And ... "cruel and evil" ? Hardly.
You're no longer allowed to use the words "cruel" or "evil", they are value judgements and mostly reflect a clear lack of tolerance on your part.
Do you think we can really avoid making the environment a moral issue? Science has never been enough to pursuade people. That approach is not working. It is political and moral in exactly the same way as other contentious issues and that means that people will argue about it. I want people to virtue signal about the environment. That is better than indifference.
> Do you think we can really avoid making the environment a moral issue?
No, and I don't see where the GP claims that. It's inherently moral.
We can avoid making the stability of our civilization a divisible issue. It takes some real work to push people against this, and stuff like forbidding people from using harmless stuff they are used to is part of that work.
I've never heard of this phenomenon and find it interesting as someone who does advocate for such policies from time to time. I'd love to read some reasearch on the topic if you have any? (Genuinely interested not trolling).
For those who want to skip the Youtube video, it's troglodytes removing their diesel truck emissions controls in order to spout large amounts of particulates in order to appear as if their vehicle is coal fired.
I don't think the poster was claiming Trump invented this phenomenon, but it is undeniably more visible because of recent political events. Being pro-environment has been a political stance for decades, so there's no longer away of not making it political.
Maybe you're not spending any time outside of San Francisco and the other major cities. There is a whole other half of America that feels very differently about all this. There's even many people in the big cities who feel this way, but they stay quiet out of fear.
Yep, "the silent majority" that created The Tea Party and lead to Trump in the White House?
I'm reminded of the "save the trees" campaign of my youth that lead to the removal of paper bags from supermarkets (with massive marketing to convince the public plastic was just as good as paper) and 20-some-odd years later created "the plastic bag crisis". Now local supermarkets are making a big thing out of getting rid of plastic in favor of paper or (preferably) reusable bags.
Yes, you can always invent self-serving narratives ("And that's why Trump was elected!") but that doesn't mean these self-serving narratives have any basis in reality. The right-wing reactionaries who get hopped up about California's straw bill are not actually reacting to anything. Anti-environmentalism is part of their core identity and if they weren't whining about one bill they'd be parroting conspiracy theories about Musk. The reactionary pose is just a pose, the sort of thing teenagers do -- it's not any kind of rational position supported by the facts or intelligent analysis.
> I'm reminded of the "save the trees" campaign of my youth that lead to the removal of paper bags from supermarkets (with massive marketing to convince the public plastic was just as good as paper)
You do understand that our understanding of the world evolves over time? That science progresses? Twenty years ago nobody really understood how dangerous plastics are and in the last twenty years plastic use has exploded. Now people are trying to do something about this. This is called progress. It's not an indication of some plot but rather the natural process of discovery and change that drives civilization forwards.
> Yes, you can always invent self-serving narratives...
Sure you can but that's not the argument posed -- saying "the silent majority" is a mere illusion totally discounts that most people aren't a member of radical {left,right} leaning groups who make a bunch of noise and get the headlines. This kind of reasoning is basically "you're either with us or against us" and serves no useful purpose in reasonable debates.
> Twenty years ago nobody really understood how dangerous plastics are...
All I’m saying is that there’s a lot of people who feel differently about this kind of stuff. And that you wouldn’t know it if your world is the major cities. I don’t understand your reaction here and elsewhere in this thread.
Nothing personal, but I find this kind of naive ideological sentiment to be one of the least endearing features of Hacker News. For whatever reason, a lot of technical people were sold on conservative ideas under the banner of libertarianism, and it permeates any sensible conversation you try to have.
The conservatives in the US are building concentration camps for children, yet people on this site want to lecture about how straw bans are "virtue signaling", or will cause toddlers to intentionally destroy things, or reduce freedom.
It's a straw. People are capable of getting over it. And to halt progress because some dude in a MAGA hat might make fun of straw bans or crying Indians is a terrible strategy.
Your liberty ends when your actions begin harming others. I'm not worried about a few trolls rolling coal. I'm worried about cynical libertarian rhetoric that gives political cover for destroying helpful regulations.
The people you describe are going to intentionally destroy the environment anyway. They aren't reachable by reason and we shouldn't factor them into any initiatives unless necessary and then we should simply assume they're part of the problem to be worked around or blocked.
To be honest, there is a virtue signalling aspect to all this, it's pretty obvious that companies exploit this to increase sales. In my very honest opinion, does anybody with a bit of sense really think the boardroom at $corp care about Gay Pride in any real and considerable way - other than to exploit customer's desire to show their virtue about it with flashy rainbow mugs?
I would be careful, since you quite quickly shot towards being bias, by disregarding any merit to the side that you very obviously disagree with. Just like how you said they deride, you just did exactly the same. How is the problem of devisiveness and the environment going to be solved like that?
You're missing the forest for the trees, you've bought the latest excuse given to reject environmental measures. These are the same people who look at the scientific evidence for climate change and actively deny it, and you're taking their reasoning against environmental legislation as if its being made in good faith.
Virtue signalling didn't cause anyone to oppose climate change and environmental legislation, it's post hoc reasoning that blames others for their existing apathy towards the environment.
Environmental activism shouldn't be held hostage at the whims of people who will find any excuse, no matter how flimsy, to oppose it.
I drink out of the same cup every time without the use of a straw - imagine that. If they stopped selling straws tomorrow it could be years before I would notice.
However, I know people who prefer to drink fizzy sugar drinks that come in one-use containers. If there was some instant ban on plastic straws then these folk would not get as far as mid morning before wondering 'where have all the straws gone'.
It is through this latter group of people that my awareness of the plastic problem has been raised. I have even seen a friend buy glass straws (delivered in a huge box by Amazon) so the problem is being taken seriously by these sugary-beverage folk. The consumerist ethic isn't going to change for these folk, there is no question in their minds that straws are vital (think of the children), it is just a matter of recycling plastic straws responsibly rather than flushing them out to sea (as if they ever did, living 50 miles from the coast).
Really there should be prizes for the most futile campaigns that demand the smallest of lifestyle adjustments. However, sometimes, e.g. through the plastic straws conversation, you do get a wider discussion going.
I don't lecture my fish eating, fizzy beverage drinking friends on things, I would prefer to save my breath. They don't want to know how many decades it has been since I last used a plastic straw. I would be there all day if the full tirade on their consumerist life was given. Nothing would be achieved in doing so, nobody would change their lifestyle choices.
However, I have detected lifestyle choice changes and a lower propensity to use plastic amongst my consumerist friends in recent months so maybe we do actually need these low-lifestyle-change campaigns because they do lead people to ask the questions that can lead to modified behaviour.
Everything helps at this point. Because something helps less shouldn’t mean we bash it. Collectively we should do more.
While I don't disagree with your sentiment, the article makes an important point:
Plastic straws are 0.03% of the Great Garbage Patch problem.
Plastic fishing nets are 46% of the GGP problem.
The people pushing the plastic straw bans aren't raising awareness of the big problem (lost and abandoned fishing nets), they're just spreading the notion that plastic is evil.
It's a lazy, self-indulgent kind of activism that is about making the person feel better, not solving a problem.
You want to "raise awareness" of the real problem? Start putting up posters in the seafood departments of supermarkets showing a fishing net stuffed with 20 tons of rotting sea life that's still killing fish 15 years after it floated away from its boat.
they're just spreading the notion that plastic is evil ... not solving a problem
Isn't there at least some possibility the former does help the bit with the problem? There's enough uninformed people out there. So while the straws itself aren't going to cut it, in general spreading awareness about plastic and waste in general might just get more people to be more careful.
Start putting up posters in the seafood departments of supermarkets showing a fishing net stuffed with 20 tons of rotting sea life that's still killing fish 15 years after it floated away from its boat
I'm not sure this would help more than other initiatives. Possibly, but still. In any case it is unfortunately quite non-realistic in this society.
The focus on straws would seem to reinforce the notion that the plastic we see is the problem, and the plastic we don't see isn't a problem, with the potential negative outcome that people declare mission accomplished after the straws are gone.
I don't know much about fishing nets, but cotton seems plentiful, is biodegradable, and there are plenty of poor cotton farmers in need of increased demand for their product.
If someone knows what fishing nets were made of before they were made of plastic, please chime in.
They must have been made out of natural fibers originally, but I would imagine a big problem with that would be that they would absorb water and become very heavy.
The communication problem is not solved by being exacting. How many people can tell you exactly what’s going on with an algorithm - and how many people will stop their work to listen ?
On the other hand, put picture of kittens or unusual scenarios...
The point being that algo correctness is relevant you are writing code, and communication effectiveness is what you care about when you deal with mass communication.
Interesting stat. Personal experience? Almost all plastic in the ocean comes from fishing vessels and dumping of garbage into rivers in Asia. It would be interesting to know where those straws come from.
All of this plastic discussion recently was due to China banning the importation of plastic from recycling systems in the West. People were made aware of how their plastic recycling was not really working out like they thought and actually was causing harm to other people. Banning plastic straws is like a little penance that we can do to get our psyches back in balance and close that small window that opened in our awareness onto the vast amount of consumption all of us do.
I know, for myself, that people focusing on silly thing to "raise awareness" of a bigger problem has in the past tricked me into thinking that the larger problem was overblown. Because of that and because our bandwidth for reaching people and people's patience with environmental messages is finite we really ought to concentrate on important topics rather than obsess over minutia.
I think this is a symptom of a drive towards "messaging", "narratives", and "stories" over logical analysis of verifiable facts in (allegedly) persuasive writing.
I wouldn't doubt that some behavioral modification experiments "found" that such "tactics" work to change peoples' beliefs and actions, but I think many have taken up the effort to try to optimize such experiments, despite unethical implementations (c.f. Facebook attempting to create negative emotions by manipulating timelines) and harmful ends (c.f. White House "science office" targeting specific individuals with behavioral modification emails soliciting them into taking on interest liability on a loan.
Unfortunately "narratives" and "messaging" and "stories" took on memetic qualities for quite awhile in a portion of the culture, so we may still have to deal with the consequences for a while yet.
>I think this is a symptom of a drive towards "messaging", "narratives", and "stories" over logical analysis of verifiable facts in (allegedly) persuasive writing.
Could this be a byproduct of the tools we use to communicate now? Social media is ideal for propagating bite sized, meme-like ideas and incentivizes a herd mentality. Older forms of communication may have been a better medium for long form articles and thought provoking discussion.
Narratives, messaging, and stories have always played a big part but has social media effectively squeezed out the substance and all we're getting is the fluff?
This is not true and is dangerous because some things (many things actually) hurt. The article calls out some (drawing attention away from fishing industry), but I think more people need to be aware of opportunity cost [0] because time is not infinite.
The idea of doing something is better than nothing is not an absolute rule and should not be followed when it results in campaigns like this one that have caused harm.
Many examples of stuff like Starbucks [1] replacing straws with more plastic.
Skipping a straw is a good activity with really minimal impact. Having a law to ban straws amplifies the effort for minimal impact and leads to other behaviors with worse impacts like increased wood use, etc. It also removes the ability for activities like restaurants simply using more recycling to offset their plastic use.
Everything helps, but some things help more than others. We have limited resources so we need to focus them where the impact will be largest.
I also think it's counterproductive to make a big deal out of something that really isn't a big deal. It will leave people feeling disillusioned when they find out they were lied to, and they will be less likely to listen to anything else. It also gives opponents something to point at and say "Look, these people are full of crap".
But while it might not be the most impactful way to change, it is easy.
Not many people will have their lives made worse when banning plastic straws, and those who do can get reusable straws.
It's an easy win, and shouting that there are things that can be done that are more impactful doesn't matter, this can help, and it's easy to do on a wide scale.
> It’s to help drive a message and teach awareness
I wish it was as easy. People then think "I went to Starbucks and didn't ask for a plastic straw my job is done. I saved the environment. No need to worry anymore". And they don't worry anymore.
Same with politicians "we passed a straw ordinance", our job is done. Pad that resume with another accomplishment.
It falls into the category of "busy work" and rituals. Like say municipalities, having people sort recycling into 5 different containers, then in the end dumping it all into one stream at the center or say just dumping it in the trash. But it's important to make people believe they're doing useful and important things, and this provides for that.
Those same people can't do anything about the dumping of plastic fishing nets, so what else CAN they worry about? Only those things which they can directly change, no matter how small. Today it's straws, perhaps next will be plastic water bottles. Little nudges.
People are encouraged to turn-off lamps in rooms they aren't using. That's pretty insignificant compared to the energy consumption of aluminium smelters, but it's something everyone can do.
I was just being a bit pessimistic about human nature saying that every "little bit helps" idea might not be a given and it could have a negative effect as well.
I hope I am wrong of course and people will be more engaged and care about the environment, but people's behavior is not intuitive and obvious sometimes.
>It’s to help drive a message and teach awareness.
If that's true then, and I'm only speaking for myself, it's had the exact opposite effect. It makes me feel like if we're squabbling over straws then the real issues must have been dealt with already. Factually, of course I know there are real environmental issues. But when straws become the talking point, it makes me feel like the environment should be dismissed as an issue.
1. Someone says “we must ban false straws to save the environment
2. A disinterested observer looks into it, and sees this is false
3. They turn against the messenger
In the best case of #3, they will merely think the messenger is stupid. In the worst case, they’ll start to become an anti-environmentalist and make the cognitive error that all environmental messages are lies.
Logically speaking, a poor argument in favour of something doesn’t mean that thing is false. But in terms of rhetorical persuasion, making a really bad argument is an excellent way to convince people of the opposite of an idea.
That’s being charitable. Often, it’s not a cognitive error, but rather spite and retaliation. Hanlon’s razor really doesn’t work well in these situations.
People know damn well what they’re up to, and will redouble their efforts at the suggestion that something might be taken off their plate.
True. Especially in later stages, when someone has joined a tribe. I think in earlier stages it really can be a cognitive error, which is the catalyst for later radicalization, spite, retaliation, etc
So, it’s a false message to save 24 thousand metric tons of plastic from the environment? That continuing to pollute and throw away single use plastics is actually the true message?
You‘re the one making a straw man argument. If you had read my comment at all charitably, you would have known I was referring to a larger problem than plastic straw waste. Obviously plastic straws create waste. [I dislike them personally and don’t use them]
The issue is, though, if people paint straws as a vital cause of such problems as ocean garbage patches, then that sort of messaging can turn people away. If people research and find that most ocean garbage comes from a few rivers, and fishing nets, then they won’t trust people who say ”don‘t use straws, it pollutes the oceans [in a significant way]“.
This thread, and many like it, demonstrate what I believe is the root problem in so many of society's problems today: undisciplined/shallow thinking, sub-optimal motivations (winning the argument), and poor communication.
The average person only has so much time to consider on environmental issues. Make them focus on plastic straws and they may well feel like they have done enough.
And those of us know knows how little those straws matters will simply mock the movement.
It’s stupid and serves no purpose other than to sell paper straws, which have recently started reappearing on he market.
Doing something meaningful like demanding accountability for fishing nets and pushing consumer product companies to reduce packaging would be a much more productive approach.
The problem is that it’s misleading. Our lifestyle in the western world is unsustainable with existing technology. We can’t fix the problem by “do[ing] more.” The gap between where we are and where we need to be is so large. To fix the problem through conservation we have to dramatically lower our standard of living. Not just “use paper straws,” “compost your trash,” and “buy an EV,” but “bike everywhere, get rid of your AC,” and “eat meat once a month if that.”
Plastic particles are now becoming as common and widespread as bacteria. If they really want to push the message on this then they would outlaw use of plastics in consumer packaging and thereby emphasize use of cardboard and paperboard products. The wood fibers used to make paper and cardboard are not harmful to animals, biodegrade quickly, and are far more environmentally renewable.
Not sure if you remember but a few decades ago the message was the opposite. Paper and cardboard packaging, grocery bags, etc. were environmentally damaging, plastic was seen as far friendlier (no trees cut down), and much more recyclable.
Still true - paper is bad from a resource usage point of view where plastic is a pollutant.
The problem is weighing up the macro and micro effects over short and long term time frames, and the only real solution is consume less.
Plastics use less resources to produce, but pose a problem in that they will always stay plastic. Paper, cotton, etc use too much water and are often combined with plastic anyway to make them more durable, hygenic and increase shelf life of the packaging.
There's one issue with reusable grocery bags no one seems to want to mention. You have to wash them! More water, detergent or worse spray them with potentially carcinogenic anti-bacterials.
A problem with directing people toward ineffective solutions is that it may "use up" people's limited willingness to be pro-social. Scott Alexander described a few studies on this phenomenon at Less Wrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/r8stxYL29NF9w53am/doing-your...
Briefly: people manipulated into buying environmentally friendly products shared less of their money in a Dictator Game, and were more likely to lie for financial gain. (Beware that this is from 2009, i.e. pre-replication crisis, so the studies might warrant careful checking.)
Alexander: "If this is true, then anything that makes people feel moral without actually doing good is no longer a harmless distraction. All those biases that lead people to give time and money and thought to causes that don't really merit them waste not only time and money, but an exhaustible supply of moral fiber"
Just the other day I went to throw a plastic straw away and as I opened up the bin was faced with a load of un-recyclable plastic film, wrappers for fruit and veg and plastic punnets etc. The straw was a tiny fraction of the problem.
At that point it really felt like the focus on plastic straws was just a token gesture. Some small gesture to make people feel good about themselves and the people in power while the main problem, the tons of other plastic we use, isn't close to getting fixed.
I view this like software performance optimization. First thing you do is profile the application.
Would anyone suggest spending a lot of effort to speed up the part of the program that is taking 0.03% of the time?
There definitely is environmental fatigue. I know someone that always unplugs her microwave when she leaves the house because she is concerned about phantom electricity usage. She feels like she is doing her part, but then ends up running the air conditioner all the time which uses way more.
Surprise surprise, corporations (in this case commercial fishing) are doing major damage to the environment, and even after realizing that straws make up only 0.03% of the oceans plastic waste, the attention is still (even in this comment thread) pointed at the consumer.
The free market will not save the environment, regulatory action will.
Yes, you are correct that "a majority of the push for more environmentally safe products [is] a result of the market demand", but as we read in the parent article, environmentally safe products are not making a significant difference. This is a bit of an assumption, because the article only speaks of straws, and I'm extrapolating that to _all_ consumer goods. The article then goes on to highlight what _would_ make a significant difference: fishing net cleanup.
What I'm saying is that the significant mess made by commercial fishing should be cleaned up by commercial fishing - or prevented in the first place by regulating the practice.
If we look a little further down the line at consumer behaviour again, I will make the anecdotal assumption that the vast majority of consumers does not care in the least about the packaging of their products (or the number of plastic straw it comes with), as they are too busy budgeting their lives.
Plastic straw isn't a problem. It's a movement to demonstrate how dependant we are on plastic, that even something trivial and mostly luxury & low impact item as a plastic straw is hard to get rid of. Whole point of stopping plastic straws is not to reduce plastic waste, because it's negligible comparing to, say, plastic bags, but to start a conversation and rise awareness of what materials are used where and how they are recycled.
Planet Money had excellent podcast with people who came up with whole "Ban Plastic Straw" idea.
Plastic Straws are irrelevant in the greater picture, and the global boycott has nothing to do with them - but the broader picture of responsible resource management. Reducing, Re-Using, Repurposing, Redirecting(compost, energy), and finally Recycling are habits which the straw ban is meant to strengthen.
No serious person thinks banning plastic straws, in and of itself, has any purpose.
Using surface samples and aerial surveys, the group determined that at least 46 percent of the plastic in the garbage patch by weight comes from a single product: fishing nets.
One more reason to stop eating seafood. It’s not like there’s going to be any left soon at current rates of overfishing anyway.
That's a step in the right direction for sure but why not just cut it out of your diet entirely? There's nothing in fish you can't get from plant sources and with current ocean pollution levels even line caught fish are going to have a lot of heavy metals and PCBs in them.
Hey people are talking about trash, so that's better than nothing... but the big message people should be taking home is PICK UP TRASH AND SHAME OTHERS FOR LITTERING. It doesn't matter if you didn't leave it there, if you don't pick it up it's probably going to end up in the ocean.
The vast majority of plastic in the ocean is washed out through rivers and storm drains.
Much of this comes from countries with poor waste management... but the US is still an embarrassingly large source despite being in the first world. There's no excuse. We can not take waste management for granted.
Every time this topic surfaces in my various feeds, I do a Ctrl+F/Cmd+F// for car/motor/driv/vehicle. To date, I've found no articles that mention plastic and excessive motor vehicle use (often single-occupancy) in the same article.
I don't really understand why no one ever seems to make that final step in logic. How many plastic straws-worth of oil do we waste on private motor vehicle mileage each year?
This topic is primarily about the accumulation of physical waste (ie. garbage), not about the oil usage. Of course, the oil usage is a valid problem that needs to be solved, but that's not why people are caring about the straws.
I see the article highlighting the community's continual misplacing of priorities. This doesn't mean that I don't think plastic straws present any problems, but I believe most aren't thinking rationally about the cause of the problem (excessive consumption, etc).
I mean, you'd probably be better off just not going to the bar/restaurant in the first place. Plastic pollution is sort-of orthogonal to greenhouse gas emissions, and orders of magnitude easier to solve.
A straw is like what 0.01 lb CO2e (CO2 equivalent). The trip to the bar creates something like 1 lb of CO2e pollution PER MILE if you drove a car. The math is pretty simple but I think most people just don't like being told their lifestyle has an impact and they ought to make changes for the good of the planet. I'm not sure if a straw ban is an effective way to create meaningful discussion about reducing impact. In any case, efforts to enact it probably represent and opportunity cost which might be better utilized pushing for something like (at the city level, at least) electric car charging stations at all city owned parking garages. Here are some other, unsolicited, out-in-left-field, "fun" ideas I have for reducing climate change.
- Create a Strava-like reward system for people who bike to work. Make it cool and adventurous to bike to work every day, NO MATTER WHAT!
- Have cities pay employers to have employees work from home some days of the week. Preferably on a coordinated schedule so that highway volumes are reduced as well. This would reduce the need for highway infrastructure and reduce GHG emissions at the same time.
- Subtly encourage people to just buy fewer things and travel less. Maybe you could accomplish this by setting up more community events (potlucks, movies in the park, recreational sports, etc). People wouldn't feel the need to buy stuff or get away so much if they were busy having fun closer to home.
This is kind of fun: Other people should put their "fun" ideas for reducing impact here, I'd love to see them!
Banning plastic straws may not directly reduce the plastic waste problem itself, but it HAS had a very high profile with almost all major media outlets talking about it.
Anything that keeps reminding people that we are destroying our home with use-once plastic is a good thing in my opinion. Today it's plastic straws and shopping bags, tomorrow hopefully it will be larger use-once plastic items and from there we may actually start making an impact.
We should outlaw single use non recyclable plastic everywhere. If not across the US, at least in California. The idea that we just throw plastic into a landfill is simply stupid. Our descendants will look back on us and think we are on the level of apes to just throw stuff into landfills and believe it solves the problems.
At some point we will need a bacteria that can break down polypropylene/polyethylene chains. This will bring an end to plastics usefulness, but the alternative is going to be a continual buildup of inorganic molecules in the environment with unknown consequences.
That's not quite what I meant. It does seem clear that the plastic littered throughout the environment is a problem. The bit that isn't obvious to me is why the plastic in landfills is a problem.
The first step to picking a solution is understanding the problem, and I'm not there yet.
After reading the really good Donna Meadows essay on leverage points, perhaps we should have taxed straws when theyre purchased and used that as money to pay Fishermen to haul in unused / found nets.
Plastic straws are a problem indeed. They are hard to sort out, end up in the drains, crumble and contaminates the land everywhere. Can't get rid of them soon enough.
The plastic straw ban seems like an entirely unforced error on the part of liberals: disability-rights folks on the left are rightly upset that the removal of plastic straws makes life worse for people who physically need them in order to drink, environmentalist folks on the left who have actually looked at the data have concluded that a plastic straw ban is at best useless and at worst more harmful (e.g., Starbucks' new sippy-cup top uses more plastic than the old top + the old straw put together), and the right is having a field day with "You'll take my plastic straw from my cold, dead hands" jokes and calling liberals stupid - and they're not entirely wrong.
Is there something people in California can do to convince Gov. Brown not to sign the bill? (Do governors' offices typically listen to phone calls?)
Reusable plastic (or metal) straws are a thing, and those with disabilities can use them if needed, and so can everyone else if wanted. It only takes a handful of uses to be an overall reduction in plastic used and the stiffer harder plastic is safer for animals if it ends up near them.
And Starbucks claims the plastic used in their new lids is both safer for wildlife, and easier to recycle than the plastic used in straws.
I'm not saying that I think this is overall a good thing, I'm not in any kind of position to make that kind of conclusion, but you did leave those points out of your comment.
Reusable straws are different because they are very difficult to clean and they are rigid, meaning many disabled people cannot use them at all (someone with distrophy or distonia may end up biting down on a straw, so you don't want to have a metal or hard plastic straw between your teeth when you do that).
So the difference between reusable and ond use straws is that reusable straws are trotted out as a "just do this" solution for straw access by people who don't know what's going on, and one use plastic straws are things that are necessary for disabled folks to engage in everyday life.
No one is suggesting banning plastic straws - at most the person would just need to buy them at a supermarket instead of getting them with their drink.
A reusable straw would be like the ones you see in a sippy cup or one of those reusable strabucks cups you see. Made of a more durable plastic than the flimsy one use straws. Like reusable plastic cups vs solo cups
Considering that the American right in general wants to do absolutely nothing to help the planet or the living things on it (as demonstrated by the candidates that win elections), I think they've removed themselves from the conversation entirely.
>>e.g., Starbucks' new sippy-cup top uses more plastic than the old top + the old straw put together
This tells me you misunderstand the problem.
It’s not about the amount of plastic used, but rather the shape. Plastic straws are very conducive to getting stuck inside various cavities of wild animals, which eventually kills them.
The pro plastic Astro turf begins, study this article for the major markers of FUD.
First, ensure that the data is debatable. Then use it as a stepping stone to shift the focus to something logically more sound, while ignoring one of the core premises of the system.
But wait! this doesn’t really do anything to make plastics more appealing!
Correct, which is why the final step is to push the blame and responsibility to someone else and to other shores.
Keep using these talking points till you have a group of people who think it’s reasonable, and use them as a staging ground for the next level of FUD.
you may think that the article is reasonable - and it is! It just makes minor errors or shifts focus, fairly to other places.
But the fact is that per capita plastic consumption in the West is much higher than developing nations.
China was the one who was taking everyone’s trash in the first place, which is why it got worse.
Not to mention, Third world countries will DEFINITELY do worse on recycling, because of how hard it is to get passably right.
And this does nothing about the current rate of trash dumping, or production! It just pushes the problem out to tomorrow.
I’d give the author the benefit of doubt, but this is a business journal.
Everything helps at this point. Because something helps less shouldn’t mean we bash it. Collectively we should do more.
[0] https://www.vox.com/2018/6/25/17488336/starbucks-plastic-str...