Law Stupid liberals with their plastic bans

[VivaRevolution]

I am not a supporter of carbon taxes, but if a politician stood up and said we need a plastic tax, that forces the proper recycling of plastic, I would support that.

We have garbage island floating in the ocean, dead whales washing up with 40 lbs of plastic inside of them.

Are you worried about the deficit we are leaving to the future?

What is the cost of cleaning trillions of pieces of plastic in the ocean?

What is the cost of dealing with this plastic in the future?

See, in the corporate world, this is known as externalizing your costs. Corporations make profit on using cheap plastic in their products, and then the public is forced to deal with the clean up.

I call that being a welfare rat, and this is why many call corporations the real welfare queens.

Discuss.......

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Where does the plastic come from? My understanding is that very little of the plastic in the Pacific comes from the US, Canada, or Australia, and almost all of it comes from China and other developing Asian economies, particularly Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand. That's not to say westernized countries should not take steps to reduce the introduction of garbage to the ocean. We should. But we should acknowledge that it isn't really Western corporations creating this problem as you seem to be suggesting.

 

[BEER]

If I'm not mistaken, the majority of plastic in the ocean comes from Asian fishing vessels in the form of netting.

 

[tonni]

Where does the plastic come from? My understanding is that very little of the plastic in the Pacific comes from the US, Canada, or Australia, and almost all of it comes from China and other developing Asian economies, particularly Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand. That's not to say westernized countries should not take steps to reduce the introduction of garbage to the ocean. We should. But we should acknowledge that it isn't really Western corporations creating this problem as you seem to be suggesting.

What about diapers? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/baby-diapers-ocean-plastic_n_5cb77ea7e4b096f7d2db869b

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Hawaii outlawed plastic bags and since I don't need to pick up dog shit I don't miss 'em. Easy enough to keep some cloth bags in the car and they have paper bags at the store. Plastic straws are next. People adapt.

 

[ferrisjso]

I am not a supporter of carbon taxes, but if a politician stood up and said we need a plastic tax, that forces the proper recycling of plastic, I would support that.

We have garbage island floating in the ocean, dead whales washing up with 40 lbs of plastic inside of them.

Are you worried about the deficit we are leaving to the future?

What is the cost of cleaning trillions of pieces of plastic in the ocean?

What is the cost of dealing with this plastic in the future?

See, in the corporate world, this is known as externalizing your costs. Corporations make profit on using cheap plastic in their products, and then the public is forced to deal with the clean up.

I call that being a welfare rat, and this is why many call corporations the real welfare queens.

Discuss.......

You know what's sad most people who see this threads title are going to assume you're being serious Corporations have largely succeeded in getting the public to hate the environment.

 

[ferrisjso]

Where does the plastic come from? My understanding is that very little of the plastic in the Pacific comes from the US, Canada, or Australia, and almost all of it comes from China and other developing Asian economies, particularly Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand. That's not to say westernized countries should not take steps to reduce the introduction of garbage to the ocean. We should. But we should acknowledge that it isn't really Western corporations creating this problem as you seem to be suggesting.

So we should destroy our environment to say fuck you to the Asian countries? Also Western corporations have a much larger impact than the people living in the countries they are based in. For better and worse we're in globalization.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

What about diapers? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/baby-diapers-ocean-plastic_n_5cb77ea7e4b096f7d2db869b

Briefly perusing the article it focuses on problems with plastic diaper disposal being a marine issue in India, Indonesia, and Africa, whereas it mentions plastic diaper disposal in the US and Europe as being a landfill space issue.

Now I'm not trying to blameshift here. The oceans affect all of us, so it's our problem too. But if we don't correctly identify the problem then we'll make a bunch of stupid laws that don't really address it, like banning plastic straws. Maybe the US and Belgium should partner up and spend a decade building modern landfills across southern and eastern Asia and in Africa. In my limited time in Africa one of the most striking impressions was how many piles of garbage I saw and how many were on fire.

 

[hillelslovak87]

I support plastic bags around the heads of 80% of the world population. Why? Because I actually care about our environment, and have real solutions.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

So we should destroy our environment to say fuck you to the Asian countries? Also Western corporations have a much larger impact than the people living in the countries they are based in. For better and worse we're in globalization.

Lol? Where exactly did I espouse anything like destroying our environment to say fuck you to anyone?

If you can't accurately diagnose the problem, you aren't likely to hit upon an effective solution. There are a half dozen Asian nations that have produced a small continent of floating garbage in the ocean. Any serious attempts to cut down on the introduction of new plastic waste need to start in China, et al. We can cut some, but we aren't adding much compared to the whole. We might do better on our end to focus on finding effective methods of plastic removal. That's a gargantuan yet necessary task.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

If I'm not mistaken, the majority of plastic in the ocean comes from Asian fishing vessels in the form of netting.

Are plastic nets simply cheaper to produce or are they also superior in other ways? Seems like discarded nets would be an especial danger to marine life.

 

[ferrisjso]

Lol? Where exactly did I espouse anything like destroying our environment to say fuck you to anyone?

If you can't accurately diagnose the problem, you aren't likely to hit upon an effective solution. There are a half dozen Asian nations that have produced a small continent of floating garbage in the ocean. Any serious attempts to cut down on the introduction of new plastic waste need to start in China, et al. We can cut some, but we aren't adding much compared to the whole. We might do better on our end to focus on finding effective methods of plastic removal. That's a gargantuan yet necessary task.

Asian countries are industrializing. They can't be held to the same standard. In carbon where they have to be held to the same standard given the nature of the problem, they've been more activist about fighting the problem within the confines of their situations than our post industrial nation who's better suited to the task has been.

But this isn't just limited to the oceans which like carbon is a situation where we all rise or fall together. The plastic we use that doesn't go into the oceans tends to hurt our environments, species and us.

And if plastic bags were good for the environment I'd still hate them with a burning passion.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Asian countries are industrializing. They can't be held to the same standard. In carbon where they have to be held to the same standard given the nature of the problem, they've been more activist about fighting the problem within the confines of their situations than our post industrial nation who's better suited to the task has been.

But this isn't just limited to the oceans which like carbon is a situation where we all rise or fall together. The plastic we use that doesn't go into the oceans tends to hurt our environments, species and us.

And if plastic bags were good for the environment I'd still hate them with a burning passion.

1. I'm skeptical that Asian nations have done a better job reducing carbon than the US or Europe. What's your source?
2. Asian nations, particularly China, can be held to a higher standard than they currently are. Shrugging our shoulders and allowing them to continue polluting at the rate they are is the worst sort of environmental defeatism. You don't solve such problems by only fighting them where it is convenient to fight it, you solve them by confronting the source of the problem.

 

[BarryDillon]

I support plastic bags around the heads of 80% of the world population. Why? Because I actually care about our environment, and have real solutions.

 

[hillelslovak87]

 

[ferrisjso]

1. I'm skeptical that Asian nations have done a better job reducing carbon than the US or Europe. What's your source?
2. Asian nations, particularly China, can be held to a higher standard than they currently are. Shrugging our shoulders and allowing them to continue polluting at the rate they are is the worst sort of environmental defeatism. You don't solve such problems by only fighting them where it is convenient to fight it, you solve them by confronting the source of the problem.

They agreed to the Paris Agreement. Nothing else is needed. But China is creative in trying to reach those goals for example not sure if this is true now but there was a time when they were planting a ton of trees as a way to compensate for the carbon they were inherently going to burn. On the other hand in the US we've had a congressman say that deforestation helped fight climate change(don't remember who, remember he was from Georgia).

Again after withdrawing from the Paris agreement, we aren't in a position to hold them to a higher standard cause now we're the problem and the ones who refuse to be held to a higher standard. Only with the election of that lunatic in Brazil have we been topped with our disregard for the environment. And if China is still burning more carbon we've basically ensured this will not be the case in the future(assuming China meets that commitment and we don't). Of course in the US many states are doing their part or even more but other states are pushing downstream and once the US states taking climate change seriously have more emissions to cut our emissions will stop dropping. That is why the Paris deal was so important and why all those governors swearing to meet it was so irelevant most of their states were going to meet those targets even exceeed them. The states that needed to be forced by the federal government are the ones that mattered which now burn considerably more of the US's carbon than their share of the population and GDP. The media of course ignored this because this is being negative.

I know India was experimenting with Thorium at some point. Haven't heard anyone talk about Thorium in quite some time though, think it might have been a late 2000's fad.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

They agreed to the Paris Agreement. Nothing else is needed. But China is creative in trying to reach those goals for example not sure if this is true now but there was a time when they were planting a ton of trees as a way to compensate for the carbon they were inherently going to burn. On the other hand in the US we've had a congressman say that deforestation helped fight climate change(don't remember who, remember he was from Georgia).

Again after withdrawing from the Paris agreement, we aren't in a position to hold them to a higher standard cause now we're the problem and the ones who refuse to be held to a higher standard. Only with the election of that lunatic in Brazil have we been topped with our disregard for the environment. And if China is still burning more carbon we've basically ensured this will not be the case in the future(assuming China meets that commitment and we don't). Of course in the US many states are doing their part or even more but other states are pushing downstream and once the US states taking climate change seriously have more emissions to cut our emissions will stop dropping. That is why the Paris deal was so important and why all those governors swearing to meet it was so irelevant most of their states were going to meet those targets even exceeed them. The states that needed to be forced by the federal government are the ones that mattered which now burn considerably more of the US's carbon than their share of the population and GDP. The media of course ignored this because this is being negative.

1. So no source? I think you need one to back up such a dubious claim.
2. The US has done a great job reducing carbon output since withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. We are definitely in a position to hold others to a higher standard, and no we are not the ones who are "the problem".
3. When you want people to succeed in a large scale endeavor, it often helps to maintain motivation by giving credit where it is due. The US deserves a ton of credit for reducing carbon emissions, but you seem to act like we haven't yet begun to cut carbon emissions, when of course we lead the world in emission cuts.

Your comments about Brazil and the Paris Agreement seem to indicate that like many environmentistas you confuse partisan politics with actual constructive action.

 

[BEER]

Are plastic nets simply cheaper to produce or are they also superior in other ways? Seems like discarded nets would be an especial danger to marine life.

I don't know off the top of my head. I just remember reading during the whole "straw ban" that commercial fishing was the single largest contributor to ocean plastic.

 

[ferrisjso]

1. So no source? I think you need one to back up such a dubious claim.
2. The US has done a great job reducing carbon output since withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. We are definitely in a position to hold others to a higher standard, and no we are not the ones who are "the problem".
3. When you want people to succeed in a large scale endeavor, it often helps to maintain motivation by giving credit where it is due. The US deserves a ton of credit for reducing carbon emissions, but you seem to act like we haven't yet begun to cut carbon emissions, when of course we lead the world in emission cuts.

Your comments about Brazil and the Paris Agreement seem to indicate that like many environmentistas you confuse partisan politics with actual constructive action.

1-That's very common knowledge.
2-I already explained why one could interpret that way and why that doesn't matter. You are just wrong we are the only country on earth we did not promise to reduce carbon emissions to the Paris standards which are tbh too conservative to solve the problem and will need to be over not under reached.
3-I actually just did give the credit where it was due, exactly where it was due. But this is an issue where net carbon needs to reach zero at some point, burning less carbon will not stop warming and the way our cuts have happened have been liberal states(mostly) states cutting while conservative states either do nothing or double down on fossil feuls. Obviously we will keep cutting emissions without the Paris agreement for awhile but there is a cap to how many emissions we can cut because only part of the country is cutting. If everyone doesn't meet the goals especially a major polluter(whether we are first, second or third is irrelevant)it doesn't stop warming, slows the rate of growth which we are past. We need to stop and we're already going to experience probably 1-5 to 2 degrees of warming best case even if we were all in. Then hope a technological fix comes sometime in the 21st century to reverse some of those fix. But yes we are the problem.

Well in the US conservatives have made it about partisan politics, it has no connection to liberal or conservative ideology and should not be a political discussion but in this country it is because fossil fuel interests(by their own admission now) have paid to hinder the countries response through political actors(some of whom by now probably genuinely believe their BS that's not the point). It is not political in almost every other country on earth. But yes Republicans are the only one or two of 400 plus major parties on this earth that are correct on this(sarcasm want to make that clear even though it should be). The other 399 plus(spitballing 200 countries many have more than one party, have no idea how many major parties are on earth) many of whom are far right wing don't agree. I trashed the Brazilian president for his desire to destroy the Amazon rainforest which would make the crisis unsolvable and believe instead of pushing real partisan regime change in Venezula the US would be better served acting in it's actual security interests and deposing that puto.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Where does the plastic come from? My understanding is that very little of the plastic in the Pacific comes from the US, Canada, or Australia, and almost all of it comes from China and other developing Asian economies, particularly Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand. That's not to say westernized countries should not take steps to reduce the introduction of garbage to the ocean. We should. But we should acknowledge that it isn't really Western corporations creating this problem as you seem to be suggesting.

So is that plastic coming from China and Malaysia, the same plastic we are sending to them?