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>And anywhere is marginally better than nowhere. Nope, this is completely wrong. People want to help but they have limited bandwidth. When you give them somewa

>And anywhere is marginally better than nowhere. Nope, this is completely wrong. People want to help but they have limited bandwidth. When you give them someway they can feel like they are helping without meaningfully doing anything, you’ve reduced their attention/effort that will go into real solutions. Doing minuscule shit is absolutely harmful to the cause. This is one of those areas where a compromise is as bad as doing nothing with the additional downside of patting yourself on the back thinking you made progress.

dotancohen 4y ago
I know a woman who regularly drives almost an hour round trip to the recycling center for plastics, as our village does not have plastic recycling bins. She's certain that she is doing her part, and absolutely does not want to hear that recycling plastic emits more CO2 than creating new plastic, nevermind the fuel she's burned.
- earth_walker 4y ago
  Though driving an hour to recycle a few plastic bottles is obviously bonkers, I do want to point out that there are more reasons to recycle than just reducing CO2.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    Yes, but the immediate threat to humanity is atmospheric CO2. Not landfill space nor "running out of oil".
    - earth_walker 4y ago
      This isn't (just) about landfill space or resource availability. It's a shame that a couple of generations have been led to believe that the only real environmental disaster is climate change. It's certainly a big and pressing one, but it's like we've all but forgotten the many other issues that our lifestyle of ready massive consumption has caused. Some examples of other environmental impacts that 'reduce, reuse and recycle' helps with: the impact of mining and oilfield operations on the natural environment; heavy metals and other toxins in waterways from mining and badly managed landfills; microplastics in the ocean; acid rain from Nox/Sox emissions; many other forms of air pollution from the mining industry. Just to name a few.
    - DoingIsLearning 4y ago
      Technically it's more generally atmospheric 'green-house gases', of which CO2 is the one we produce massive amounts of. Methane and Nitrous Oxide also play a massive role. We produce less of those mostly through gas leaks and shipping/diesel fuel but they are a lot worse than CO2 if we think of it in terms of per kilo impact.

dotancohen 4y ago

I know a woman who regularly drives almost an hour round trip to the recycling center for plastics, as our village does not have plastic recycling bins. She's certain that she is doing her part, and absolutely does not want to hear that recycling plastic emits more CO2 than creating new plastic, nevermind the fuel she's burned.

earth_walker 4y ago
Though driving an hour to recycle a few plastic bottles is obviously bonkers, I do want to point out that there are more reasons to recycle than just reducing CO2.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  Yes, but the immediate threat to humanity is atmospheric CO2. Not landfill space nor "running out of oil".
  - earth_walker 4y ago
    This isn't (just) about landfill space or resource availability. It's a shame that a couple of generations have been led to believe that the only real environmental disaster is climate change. It's certainly a big and pressing one, but it's like we've all but forgotten the many other issues that our lifestyle of ready massive consumption has caused. Some examples of other environmental impacts that 'reduce, reuse and recycle' helps with: the impact of mining and oilfield operations on the natural environment; heavy metals and other toxins in waterways from mining and badly managed landfills; microplastics in the ocean; acid rain from Nox/Sox emissions; many other forms of air pollution from the mining industry. Just to name a few.
  - DoingIsLearning 4y ago
    Technically it's more generally atmospheric 'green-house gases', of which CO2 is the one we produce massive amounts of. Methane and Nitrous Oxide also play a massive role. We produce less of those mostly through gas leaks and shipping/diesel fuel but they are a lot worse than CO2 if we think of it in terms of per kilo impact.