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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Stuff like this annoys me even as an American. Their Florida example represents a large chunk (probably even a majority) of this country. People driving 5 ton pickup trucks to work and the grocery store. Hot humid climates cooled to frigid temperatures 24x7. Plastic wrapped in plastic wrapped in plastic. Dumping of sewage and pollutants into rivers and lakes on a daily basis. Plenty of states are now banning the inclusion of environmental science and talk about climate in school curriculums.

Meanwhile I live in a state where we are taxed to the teeth for energy use. Plastic straws are banned. We have to sort trash in 5 or 6 different ways. People refuse to acknowledge that their conservation efforts for a year are undone by some guy in Texas in five minutes, and would rather make their (and everyone else's) lives more inconvenient to score brownie points.

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> People refuse to acknowledge that their conservation efforts for a year are undone by some guy in Texas in five minutes

I don't think that's a good way to look at things. Some guy in Texas is polluting a lot more than you, ok, but would it be better if that guy keeps polluting and you pollute just as much? We can't get hung up on, 'well some person/company somewhere else is undoing my savings'. That kind of gets into tragedy of the commons thinking.

It is disheartening to see parts of the country going in the opposite direction than we should be going for sure. And well-meaning but not very useful policies can be a pain. But I try not to be disheartened at backward thinking in other locales, I try to look at the places making advances (for example, India is ahead of schedule in the shift to renewables) to be find some optimistic amidst the bleakness.

It's not "just as much" by any stretch. A more comparable scenario is – you pollute by 10 units, your neighbor pollutes by 1000 units, and people knock on your door and say, well the neighbor is hopeless, but to save the environment you need to stop showering every day and get your usage down to 5 units. Have you made a difference? Technically, sure. But ultimately (1) you have drastically reduced your own quality of life for no measurable gain and (2) the real problem (next door) stays unsolved.

The only way out of the tragedy of the commons is strict regulation, not "ignore the bad actors and do the right thing yourself".

Indeed. Individuals doing their bit is great. But structural problems (such as the undue influence of the fossil fuel lobby) need structural solutions (such as tax and legislation). A change of culture can also work, but that can take a long time.

I see a lot of local (blue state) reactionary stuff spurred by other (red) states absolutely horrifying behavior. We don't have their self-inflicted problems but suddenly we need to implement extreme solutions to our non-problems because the other guys have lost their minds.

The 5-ton pickup thing is a serious issue and comes with nasty political feedback loops for gas prices. Climate denial and pro-pollution (rolling coal on cyclists) is like a virtue and point of pride for those morons.

Successful long term propaganda + political, auto and meat industry advertising aiming to build identity around use of product lines work. Defunding schools and changing curriculums also works. Even on normal people.

I’m just personally frustrated by the disposable shopping bag ban, because every time I go to the store, I typically come back with a bunch of different food items in single-use, disposable plastic or glass packages. What is the point of banning bags, if I still buy mustard in a plastic squeeze bottle?

And stores will happily sell me a cheap HDPE plastic bag, which happens because from time to time I forget to bring my own bag, and then I buy an extra package of LDPE garbage bags because I don’t have grocery bags I can use for small garbage cans any more.

It just seems like this is not even a step forward, and there are big sources of plastic we just don’t even care to deal with because it involves too much money.

Plastic bags have a special place in our hearts because of their unique characteristics as litter.

With a small effort we cut our plastic use so low that sometimes on trash night I find the garbage can is still empty.

It's not that we don't buy single use plastic (good luck with potato chips), but we make an effort. Buying bulk and reusing plastic bags is key. If there's a glass option, buy that. And does the plastic garbage can need a plastic bag, really? Or can you use the same bag multiple times?

But it doesn't matter if I do it. Or even if 10% of the people do it. Won't save the world. Large scale bans are the only answer, and good luck with that.

> If there's a glass option, buy that.

Is that better? Or is it worse?

From estimates that I’ve seen, the glass bottle has 5x the carbon footprint of the corresponding plastic bottle. Glass can be recycled but it takes a lot of energy. Most products are not available in anything but single-use packaging.

I’m all for large-scale bans, but the large-scale bans should be designed to have a positive impact, one large enough to justify the cost in some sense. I am concerned that the ban on single-use plastic shopping bags has, perhaps, had a negative impact on the environment.

Good points... which devil to choose...?

The single use plastic bag bans are a drop in the bucket compared to overall plastic waste generation. In my view, plastic grocery bags have become a popular point of regulation because they are notorious for accumulating in public spaces, notably parking lots, parks, and other places that city leaders are pressured to keep clean. So long as plastic items end up in waste receptacles, it’s out of sight, out of mind.

> People refuse to acknowledge that their conservation efforts for a year are undone by some guy in Texas in five minutes

The conservation efforts of the majority of the world are undone when one nation accounts for 30% of the global CO2 emissions. No amount of paper straws or reusable coffee cups will undo the coal burning Shenhua Group does every year.

Don't think like that. Consider how much worse off we would be if no effort was made at all. The aim is to reduce our global footprint, not to balance it with the biggest polluter. If every single country kept on using resources like it was 1999 nothing would change. The fact that at least some measures are taken, and that these measures are getting adopted in many countries puts pressure on the laggards.

Especially horrifying since that 30% supports twice the number of people it would in the US. If they lived like Floridians it'd be closer to 50%.

Texas produces the most renewable energy of any state, so the world doesn't map as cleanly onto right and wrong as you assume.

Most in aggregate. They're 22nd for percentage of use coming from renewable which is less laudable considering the state is ginormous by landmass and has perhaps the best opportunity for generating renewable energy of any state given its location and said size.

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