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Unfortunately not at all. A lot of this comes from extensive travel and spending time in the third and second world. Many of the poorest billion simply do not
by anm89 7y ago
Unfortunately not at all.
A lot of this comes from extensive travel and spending time in the third and second world. Many of the poorest billion simply do not realize that it is against their interest not to, for example, dump chemicals and trash in water they drink from and bathe in. Or just simply that littering is a problem. To be clear I'm not faulting them, like everyone else they are mostly good people and if they had better access to information I have no doubt they'd act differently but there is a huge need to educate people that is not being met.
It's also just hard to imagine consumption of everyday objects at the global scale.
But it's really hard to feel like recycling one more bottle is going to save the world when you've seen dump trucks waiting in line to dump industrial waste in rivers. But this sort of thing is likely happening every day, repeatedly, in many places around the world.
I once drove through a section of highway in north western Peru that was just an open air landfill on both sides, maybe 5 feet tall on average, continously for an hour. It's just hard to imagine that stuff like this exists if you've never been exposed to it.
And that doesn't even match things I've seen only in documentaries like
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_ZttK3PuM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_ZttK3PuM
I believe that our problems are technically still fixable but that the coordination necessary is, if not totally infeasible, far beyond our current willpower to achieve.
The rich (and all but the poorest Americans are rich for this discussion) will basically be fine maybe minus inconveniences for the near future.
But I think things are going to get drastically worse for many people over the next 50 years.
- Skunkleton 7y ago> Many of the poorest billion simply do not realize that it is against their interest not to, for example, dump chemicals and trash in water they drink from and bathe in. Or just simply that littering is a problem. To be fair to the poorest billion, the richest billion also doesn't really get this either.
- netsharc 7y agoIndeed, how's the water in Michigan, and even "recycling" in the US means the trash gets shipped to Asia/Africa to be burned. It's "lack of information" or in this case being mislead by whoever promised them their recycling is contributing to being green...
- Skunkleton 7y agoI was so disappointed when I found out that this is how my recycling was being handled. I had this image in my head of my plastic waste being recirculated and reused that was so completely false. As I understand it, recycling is just the long road to the landfill.
- bubblewrap 7y agoI am currently reading a book on recycling that disputes that narrative (Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter). The main argument is that shipping a container of "recycling material" across the oceans costs real money (much more than a local landfill), that somebody paid. That somebody surely isn't paying for the junk just to burn it. What is true is that recycling methods can sometimes be cruel. The example is a guy recycling Christmas lights in China. At first all they did was burn the plastic away to get to the copper. Later, when demand for plastic in China was also rising, they invented methods to also recycle the plastic. Burning the plastic away was of course very dirty. And in other places (like Africa), dirty methods might be still more common.
- conductr 7y agoAnd on a per capita, probably pollutes a lot more (I have no data on this). We just can afford to keep it out of _our_ water.
- anm89 7y agoI'm conflicted about this. As an American we are voracious consumers and highly ineffecient about it but I've been repeatedly shocked in trips to Taiwan and Vietnam about how the consumption there seemed frequently even more wasteful than what I was used to back home, especially in terms of plastic packaged in plastic packaged in plastic Russian doll scenarios that seemed totally egregious but really common. On the other hand I think it's a little bit easier to notice when it's not your culture for some reason so maybe I'm biased.
- conductr 7y agoI think Taiwan would rank closer to the top billion than the bottom, so maybe supports my thought?
- anm89 7y agoThis is sadly true although I think many in the rich world know but are in denial or choose to be lazy. There are really people out there though who just have never been exposed to the idea that you shouldn't do this stuff.
- gremlinsinc 7y agoI doubt it's 'denial', it's more a calculation : if ($fakeDenial === $moreMoneyThanModifyingBehavior) { $changingCourse = null; }
- kazinator 7y agoWhatever the poorest billion are doing wrong is likely far outstripped by a few big corporations. Or the US military alone.
- primroot 7y agoWell said. And here's some reference https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/12/1/16718844/green-consumers-climate-change https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/12/1/1671884...
- primroot 7y agoAnd the ones that realize it too well tend to get killed in the name of progress. The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Juan Manuel Santos even joked in one of his videos that "the difference between terrorists and environmentalists is that, with terrorists, one can negotiate." This is the former president of Colombia, a country where hundreds of activists (including environmentalists) get murdered per year before the complicit inaction of their government and the smears of their corporate media. I am from a third world country and I have seen the poorest risks their lives in defense of the environment in ways the more educated do not even come close to considering. The rest are being "educated" on a day to day basis on the wonders of consumerism.