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Saving a liter or two of water two times a day for every person doesn’t seem like a bad start. It’s takes very low effort and you don’t lose any functionality,

Saving a liter or two of water two times a day for every person doesn’t seem like a bad start. It’s takes very low effort and you don’t lose any functionality, the water is literally just pouring down the drain. Or am I missing some sort of sarcasm joke?

nradov 8y ago
Saving water at home is nice but it's literally a drop in the bucket compared to the water wasted by inefficient agricultural practices. It won't make a difference one way or the other.
- NullPrefix 8y ago
  >It won't make a difference one way or the other Goal is not to make a difference, it is to make you feel better for yourself.
  - gruez 8y ago
    And more importantly, distract everyone from the real perpetrators with special interests.
ryanwaggoner 8y ago
It's a very bad start because it effectively accomplishes nothing but waste the very limited bandwidth we have to convince the population to do anything. It also makes people feel like they're "doing their part", which isn't really true at all.
LeifCarrotson 8y ago
Many people feel an obligation to take care of the environment. If they make an effort to turn off the water when they're brushing their teeth and buy LED bulbs to replace their CFLs, maybe even upgrading their 2005 Corolla with a 2015 Prius, they'll feel like they've abundantly satisfied that obligation. If they're (hypothetically) a commercial driver, spending the day at work driving around in an 1980s diesel truck, or installing golf course sprinkler systems, they'd still feel that they're an environmentally responsible person. If the ad campaigns instead of suggesting toothbrushing habits informed the public of the disproportionate pollution caused by old trucks or vilified inefficient agricultural watering practices, that person might have a 100x more effective impact from their personal obligation if they advocate replacement of the truck or change agricultural practices. Also, consumers of these polluters might help encourage change by, say, preferring a waste disposal company that uses newer trucks or by changing consumption to eat peanuts grown with rainwater instead of desert-grown aquifer-fed California almonds.
- simongr3dal 8y ago
  You're framing this as if there can only ever be one initiative, and that saving water while brushing teeth was the wrong choice. Realistically there could be a new initiative like that 1-5 times a decade. Society rarely behaves in the most optimal way, and as I said saving water is very low effort, though it might also be low impact. The real faillure not following up with more and better initiatives. What if none of the available waste disposal companies are using newer trucks, are you supposed to call them every week like with congress people? And how is buying a bag of peanuts branded with some promise of ecological responsibility any different from saving water brushing their teeth? A single bag of peanuts from a different brand doesn't make any impact by it self and it only serves to make people feel like they've done their part adequately.
  - LeifCarrotson 8y ago
    Not at all; just that of the possible initiatives one of the least effective options was chosen. By analogy, if you were trying to help someone get out of debt, would you advocate they take unpaid time off work to walk along the roadside collecting cans for the deposit, or work overtime hours at $50/hr? There's limited energy and funds available for these initiatives; by advocating ineffective ones more harm than good is done.

nradov 8y ago

Saving water at home is nice but it's literally a drop in the bucket compared to the water wasted by inefficient agricultural practices. It won't make a difference one way or the other.

NullPrefix 8y ago
>It won't make a difference one way or the other Goal is not to make a difference, it is to make you feel better for yourself.
- gruez 8y ago
  And more importantly, distract everyone from the real perpetrators with special interests.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago

It's a very bad start because it effectively accomplishes nothing but waste the very limited bandwidth we have to convince the population to do anything. It also makes people feel like they're "doing their part", which isn't really true at all.

LeifCarrotson 8y ago

Many people feel an obligation to take care of the environment. If they make an effort to turn off the water when they're brushing their teeth and buy LED bulbs to replace their CFLs, maybe even upgrading their 2005 Corolla with a 2015 Prius, they'll feel like they've abundantly satisfied that obligation. If they're (hypothetically) a commercial driver, spending the day at work driving around in an 1980s diesel truck, or installing golf course sprinkler systems, they'd still feel that they're an environmentally responsible person. If the ad campaigns instead of suggesting toothbrushing habits informed the public of the disproportionate pollution caused by old trucks or vilified inefficient agricultural watering practices, that person might have a 100x more effective impact from their personal obligation if they advocate replacement of the truck or change agricultural practices. Also, consumers of these polluters might help encourage change by, say, preferring a waste disposal company that uses newer trucks or by changing consumption to eat peanuts grown with rainwater instead of desert-grown aquifer-fed California almonds.

simongr3dal 8y ago
You're framing this as if there can only ever be one initiative, and that saving water while brushing teeth was the wrong choice. Realistically there could be a new initiative like that 1-5 times a decade. Society rarely behaves in the most optimal way, and as I said saving water is very low effort, though it might also be low impact. The real faillure not following up with more and better initiatives. What if none of the available waste disposal companies are using newer trucks, are you supposed to call them every week like with congress people? And how is buying a bag of peanuts branded with some promise of ecological responsibility any different from saving water brushing their teeth? A single bag of peanuts from a different brand doesn't make any impact by it self and it only serves to make people feel like they've done their part adequately.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  Not at all; just that of the possible initiatives one of the least effective options was chosen. By analogy, if you were trying to help someone get out of debt, would you advocate they take unpaid time off work to walk along the roadside collecting cans for the deposit, or work overtime hours at $50/hr? There's limited energy and funds available for these initiatives; by advocating ineffective ones more harm than good is done.