Earth matters

[clubgop]

Motte-griffo is a shitty troll. At least make a hint at an effort before retreating to the "who, me" gag.

+1

[doc_loliday]

Common sense meat reform does not mean "Hell yes, we're coming for your hamburger."

[Speaker to Animals]

Take away meat and I will start eating liberals. Nobody is taking my gains.

[BjornP]

https://reason.com/2019/07/29/why-givin ... te-change/

These days I wonder if the work of scientists, and scholars generally, seem to have dropped in quality because they simply aren't as rigorous and spend enough time on making sure they got their facts and analysis straight, and they are eager to be published in both professional and regular media, or if it's primarily the media that misunderstands the conclusions in the reports and books of scientists and scholars...

I suppose it could also be both.

[Ph64]

I stopped at 7-11 for a coffee earlier while I was out and chatted with the guy at the register (I stop there 3-4 times a month maybe, sometimes more if I'm in the area), asked his thoughts on the new plastic bag ban...

He laughed and pointed around the store. I mean literally almost everything had plastic - fridges full of plastic bottles (soda & water bottles are 5¢ deposit here, but for some reason sports drink (Gatorade) aren't, lemonade and iced tea aren't, etc - figure that out). Get a frozen pizza from the freezer, inside the box it's wrapped in plastic. Bags full of candy - plastic bag full of individually plastic wrapped candy. Plastic lighters, plastic wrapped packs of smokes, plastic USB chargers, a vast array of stuff like peanut butter in plastic jars with plastic lids...

...which lots of people pay for with a piece of plastic in their wallet, in between staring into their plastic phones and then getting into their cars full of plastic, on oil-based tires, to drive on oil-based asphalt roads, to get home and relax in front of their plastic tv, maybe watch a movie from a plastic disc before squeezing paste out of a plastic tube onto a plastic brush to clean their teeth, and then climbing into bed to sleep on a plastic mattress with synthetic fiber (plastic) filled pillows...

But "we're going to get off oil completely in 12 years"... LOL, yeah, right.

And getting rid of plastic bags will "save the planet".....
Congratulations, you got rid of the one plastic thing I reused - as garbage bags for my small bedroom/bathroom garbage pails - while I have to toss out 20+ times the volume of plastic in unmarked (no recycling symbol) plastic lids, the plastic "anti-theft" stuff tools and such come encased in, etc.

Mindless that now the Chinese aren't taking our plastic so it probably just goes in a landfill or gets incinerated and pollutes anyways. But I bet our Dem state will be banning straws next to "save the planet".


Yeah, I'll believe politicians are serious when they're all arriving to the next "climate conference" in wooden sailboats. Until then let's be honest, it's all just virtue signalling.

[doc_loliday]

https://reason.com/2019/07/29/why-givin ... te-change/

These days I wonder if the work of scientists, and scholars generally, seem to have dropped in quality because they simply aren't as rigorous and spend enough time on making sure they got their facts and analysis straight, and they are eager to be published in both professional and regular media, or if it's primarily the media that misunderstands the conclusions in the reports and books of scientists and scholars...

I suppose it could also be both.

That's actually pretty charitable of you.

[doc_loliday]

I'm not sure about other states, but in California, after the plastic bag "ban" went in effect, grocery stores started selling plastic bags that are at least 5 times as thick as the ones they used to give away, but they cost 10 cents a piece. Now, everyone just walks out of the store with ultra mega heavy duty bags for their groceries, instead of bags that were so thin they were translucent. I'm not quite sure how this is helping.

[TheReal_ND]

I'm not sure about other states, but in California, after the plastic bag "ban" went in effect, grocery stores started selling plastic bags that are at least 5 times as thick as the ones they used to give away, but they cost 10 cents a piece. Now, everyone just walks out of the store with ultra mega heavy duty bags for their groceries, instead of bags that were so thin they were translucent. I'm not quite sure how this is helping.

I don't know but I actually quite liked those bags and would reuse the shit out of them. Years ago I noticed a lot of those little cheap plastic bags had floated up to the mountains and ruined the scenic view from the Amtrak all through California. When I was there recently I didn't see any plastic bags fluttering around. I kind of liked it. Then again it seems like people litter a lot less in general these days.

[Montegriffo]

Plastic bag sales in England’s ‘big seven’ supermarkets have dropped by 86% since the Government introduced its 5p plastic bag charge in 2015, helping to tackle the devastating impact of plastic waste on our environment.

New figures reveal customers of the country’s biggest supermarkets bought nearly a quarter fewer plastic bags last year compared to 2016/17 - a decrease of nearly 300 million bags.

This is equivalent to just 19 bags per person in England, compared to 140 bags since the government introduced a 5p charge in 2015 – a dramatic reduction of 86%.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plas ... -5p-charge
Those really thin bags were virtually useless, you were lucky to get them home before the handles broke and your shopping spilt on the floor. The thicker ones can be reused over and over.
Many of the other plastics you can find on the shelves such as bottles and tubs can be easily recycled. They also reduce transportation costs (fuel) because they are so much lighter than other alternatives such as glass. The problems come from unnecessary packaging. Your frozen pizza may need to be wrapped in cellophane to protect it and keep it clean but the box is only really there for advertising purposes. Slightly different for fresh produce as it can't be stacked without damage but frozen stuff is much hardier.


This ''we need to stop using oil'' is, of course, a strawman.
What we need to do is stop burning it.
Same with all the useful products which come from oil. There isn't a problem with making cars full of plastics so long as they are easily recyclable. Single-use plastics are the issue.
Likewise, tarmac is a very good use for oil. The carbon remains locked in the road and doesn't get into the atmosphere where it contributes to the green house effect. It isn't the roads that are a problem (despite what Fife may tell you) it's the filthy cars driving on them.

This simplistic ''you can't live without oil products'' argument is a false narrative made up by the oil companies. That article about the oil products in cars Mike posted was an oil company advert!
If you really think about it you might even come to the conclusion that simply burning it to provide energy is the most wasteful thing you could possibly do with such a useful non-sustainable resource like oil.

[Hastur]

Plastig bags are made from Ethane gas that comes of at the very top of the refining tower. Mostly from refining natural gas. They get the ethane out to prevent the gas from burning to hot. They used to burn of the ethane of at the top, remember the eternal lights on top of refining towers, until some smart guy figured out how to link the molecules into chains and make a great product instead.
They can’t stop making ethane. It’s a product of the refining process.
Few things burn as cleanly as ethane (or plastic bags). It leaves only heat, water vapor and some CO2.