Yeah, because driving back to your house to get a bag and then driving back is so much better for the environment than a using a few 0.1mm thin bags.
I agree these environmental laws are simply green washing. But if people think these generate too much resentment they're wholly unprepared for what the moment requires. Like not eating meat with every single meal every single day of the week. Not having two cars per family regardless of whether they're ICE or not. Eliminating short-haul flights and restricting international travel.
US consumers are used to overconsuming. Correcting for that will feel like a punishment to most. I don't see an alternative besides telling people to treat it like a world war. "Victory gardens" and all.
To be frank, I don't think we will avoid the worst of what's coming. Because a lot of it isn't in control of consumers but from business emissions.
e.g. wouldn't mind the ability to stop using my car tomorrow if I had reliable bus schedules that weren't separated by an hour per stop, but I have no faith that the transportation for my city will ever fix that in a timely matter. There's also negative inventive from stuff like ride-shares to want to fix that. WFH is another way to cut down on emissions to compute but instead companies are hunkering back down because they gotta justify their sunk cost on buildings.
That's 2 of some dozen problems that could prevent the worst but whose cards aren't completely in the hands of the person. It just feels so hopeless.
change in government comes from people. capable government looks at real societal problems and shapes the future of the state to address them. of course public transport is a huge one, especially in the US
Businesses ultimately only exist to provide to consumers. Even those that sell directly to businesses of governments wouldn’t exist without consumers.
Consumers are either going to have to jump now or fall later.
They do and do so extensively in some places.
I have been to Wallis and Futuna islands, two very small islands in the Pacific being French overseas territories where the transportation around each island is exclusively by car and locals drive around all the time. They would only walk to the nearest fale and drive at all other times. Petrol was expensive (that was around EUR 2.5 a litre approximately a decade ago) but the French government nearly entirely subsidises it due to the two islands' economies being too small to cover extra costs.
This line in particular is an extreme totalitarian view, good grief.
Bonus: way easier to get everything inside at home.