• Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 months ago

    i really do not understand where this idea that plastic has something to do with the climate came from, how do people imagine that to work?

    No, the point of not using plastic is to not have plastics blowing around on the street for 50 years before it’s degraded into microplastics that instead enter our bodies.

  • lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 months ago

    let me add my contribution to this meme:

    image description: a luxurious inside view of a private jet, in which another jet is flying inside.
    the text above it reads, “Taylor swift yendo al baño de su jet.”
    lit: Taylor swift going to her jet’s bathroom.

  • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I don’t know if all these recent jet memes are people just joking around or are you people actually convinced private jets are the problem?

    Taylor swift, and every single billionaire alive could be flying 24/7/365 OR NOT and it would make absolutely no difference to fighting climate change.

    The main polluters are industry and farming.

    All this other shit around are just distractions keeping you from actually going after the people that are causing our crisis.

    I don’t know if it’s astroturfing or what, but it seems like it’s deliberate manipulation to keep people inactive.

    You memeing on Tylor or using wood straws, or recycling your soda can does fuck all. A single paper plant will dump out so much co2 and pollution that will negate the effort of millions.

    • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todayOP
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      5 months ago

      Well, none of that matters anyways when China now emits almost twice as much CO2 as the US and is basically single-handedly not just absorbing all the rest of the world’s reduction efforts, but increasing the global output enormously.

        • jj4211@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          While that’s efficient by comparison, the atmosphere doesn’t really give us a break for per-capita adjustments. Yes, the US is more irresponsible per capita and they need to fix that. However China gets more bang-for-the-buck in per-capita improvements when it comes to the actual environmental impact.

          Depends on whether we are talking about where to optimize for best impact, or whether we are talking about fairness of blame.

        • evranch@lemmy.ca
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          5 months ago

          Past emissions are just assigning blame, future emissions are all that matters. USA emissions have peaked, China is growing exponentially. That’s a problem.

        • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todayOP
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          5 months ago

          That’s cumulative as in “from the beginning of time” (as far as we have record allowing us to estimate). It merely proves that the US has had a head start in all this because they industrialized at a large scale far earlier than China. But as you can see, China’s curve is literally steeper than anyone else’s, having already almost caught up to the EU in a mere 50 years.

    • DingoBilly@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      A lot of it is political at end of day.

      Taylor Swift is looking to be a supporter of the Democratic Party in US, so the Republicans are running targeted attacks on her to reduce credibility as the election is coming up.

      It’s nothing new but just be aware that people posting these memes may just be bots/paid marketers essentially.

        • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todayOP
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          5 months ago

          I mean, let’s be honest, that’s how the system works. Apart from essential goods, most demand is entirely artificial and generated either by advertising (luxury goods), or, in this case, more covertly by manipulating the public opinion and, if necessary, bribing a few public officials to pass a law that makes your product mandatory.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 months ago

      Pasta straws seem like the obvious solution, it takes at least 5 minutes to soften in BOILING water, it’s gonna last at least that long in a chilled beverage, and then if you throw it in the forest that’s literally just food

  • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    I recently visited China, to meet my wife’s extended family.

    Let me tell you, the sheer amount of single-use plastics that are consumed by any individual throughout a regular day in a metropolitan environment, is absolutely and mind-numbingly depressing.

    Given that there are 1.3b people there, and that no matter how much we in the US/AU/EU reduce/reuse/recycle - we will never be able to truly offset that sheer amount of plastic pollution produced.

    Now I’m not saying this to be a doomer, but more-so to say that individuals can’t enact sufficient change to save this planet, we need Government and corporate incentives to shift towards sustainable alternatives, and punitive policies to disincentivise plastic production globally.

    • BabyVi@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Lots of places in the US won’t recycle the supposedly “recyclable” plastics, it ends up in a landfill regardless of what you do. I remember all the educational initiatives about the importance of recycling when I was a kid. Turns out it was all just propaganda to make us feel responsible for problems caused by corporations.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Given that there are 1.3b people there

      The majority of Chinese residents don’t live in metro zones, work office jobs, and eat fast food, though.

      Also, very common to find reusable metal straws (and cups and utensils) outside the US. Korea and Japan both overwhelmingly favor washable utensils, as do cities south of the US border (I stopped seeing disposables once I got outside Mexico City proper and I never saw them in Jamaica or Cozemel outside the airport/seaport). There are zero disposables in Havana. The very idea is alien to them.

    • Nudding@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Oh man that’s a drop in the bucket compared to medical/industrial/commercial plastic waste lol.

      • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I did the ambulance thing for a bit. CPR calls, the back of the ambulance, despite being covered in fluids, looked like a recycling center. And none of it gets recycled, obviously, all just gets red bagged or containered. Everything is individually wrapped, and for obvious reasons, but I’d have days where I could match my family’s plastic use for the week or more in 12 hours.

        • Nudding@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          One day doing, even just residential construction produces more plastic waste than an entire family of 4 for a month I would reckon.

        • jj4211@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Though in that particular scenario, while it feels wasteful, for an average person is exceedingly rare. The only paramedic supply I’ve had used on me in my lifetime was when my car got rear ended badly and they gave me a blanket because I just conversationally mentioned it was kind of cold while they were checking in with me. Going for a dental cleaning or a physical there’ll be some single use plastics to be sure, but again, only like 3 times a year usually.

    • lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 months ago

      plastic waste per capita: the US is at top(if we exclude small island nations)
      plastic waste in absolute terms: the US is not far behind China, with India at a distant third place.

      the reduction is plastic waste generation in China is far more than that of US1.

      so, what I mean to say is that more people ≠ more pollution. but I do agree that the problem is to be tackled with active participation of the government, which won’t be there because of muh economy.


      [1]: By 2016, China’s overall plastic waste production had fallen to 21.60 million tons, a reduction of nearly 28 million tons (for comparison, U.S. production fell less than 4 tons during the same time period). Moreover, despite being one of the largest overall producers of plastic waste, China’s per capita production of plastic waste was one of the lowest in the world in 2016 at 15.6 kilograms a year per person.

  • blady_blah@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The thing is billionaires will always use more resources than you. They will have more stuff. It’ll have more houses. They will have boats, private planes, huge mansions, and more money than they know what to do with. They will always use more resources than you. If your whole statement is we shouldn’t try to solve global warming because some people are rich, and we’re doomed to all die. And by the way, The billionaires will have a nice air-conditioned bunker while the rest of us die.

    I’m all for trying to solve wealth inequality, but it shouldn’t get in the way of solving a major environmental disaster.

    • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todayOP
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      5 months ago

      Well, I can’t help but notice it’s mostly those billionaires and the people who work for them who are telling us there’s a climate issue and WE need to solve it while they continue to fly everywhere on their private jets and buy more waterfront mansions they tell us will be underwater in 10 years.

      So IDK man… I’m certainly not a climate scientist but something doesn’t add up here.

      • blady_blah@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        More people than billionaires are telling you there’s a climate issue. Scientists are, normal people are, etc. It’s the biggest environmental issue of our lifetimes. And there are some celebrities that are also trying to use their popularity to promote the message to get the government to create a set of rules that will actually impact out much CO2 we’re putting into our atmosphere. The right-wing talking heads have found that it’s really effective to point at them and say “LOOK! They have big houses! They fly around in private jets! They use more resources that 100 of you normal folks, therefore we shouldn’t do anything.”

        The reality is that they’re using more resources than 100 of us normal folks, but there are 100k of us normal folks to each of them so we make a much more significant impact on the climate than they do. And yes, lets make the laws affect them also. But the “they’re flying around in jets” talking point is lame. They’re going to be flying around in jets no matter what. They’re going to have big houses no matter what. So lets make them have lots of solar panels on their big houses or make flying around in private jets more expensive. That’s just a reason to make the laws affect them also, it’s NOT a reason to do nothing and let the world burn.

        • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todayOP
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          5 months ago

          Sorry, but you’re putting the cart before the horse there. More people than billionaires are telling us there’s a climate issue BECAUSE celebrities are using their clout to promote this issue. And most of these people, including the celebrities, aren’t climate scientists either, they just parrot stuff they’ve heard from people they trust.

          • blady_blah@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            So you only heard about climate change when celebs like Taylor Swift started promoting it? The writing has been on the wall for decades (from scientists) and we’ve been hearing about it for that amount of time. If you think that the only reason you know about it is from celebs then apparently they were needed in order to reach you.

            • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todayOP
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              5 months ago

              Yes because Taylor Swift was the first celebrity to ever promote it.

              It’s certainly not like Al Gore once made an entire movie about it or anything.

    • qevlarr@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      If your whole statement is we shouldn’t try to solve global warming because some people are rich

      I don’t think that’s what they’re saying at all. Any solution to climate change is incomplete if it doesn’t also address inequality and overconsumption

      • byroon@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Not just incomplete. You probably need to start with inequality. 25% of global emissions are created by the richest 1%. 50% by the richest 10%

    • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todayOP
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      5 months ago

      I didn’t make that meme myself but I debated changing it to something Taylor Swift related for a moment, but then I thought that horse was pretty much dead already so I just left it as it is. She’s certainly not the only one doing this sort of stuff.

    • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 months ago

      Implicitly includes Taylor though, she’s not off the hook

      Just all the others are also on the hook now

    • HerrLewakaas@feddit.de
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      5 months ago

      I think once you unlocked all the luxuries that the world has to offer, the temptation gets the better of you eventually. I don’t condone it, but I also can’t say I wouldn’t live a bit more wasteful if I had all the money in the world

  • mochisuki@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Also fuck bamboo straws and other paper straws filled with PFAS. just use a normal straw or none at all

    • LordKitsuna@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Or you know, food grade stainless steel straws. No bad chemicals, doesn’t turn to mush (unless exposed to temperatures of 1,400 to 1,530 °C) and fully recyclable. Some people say they are hard to wash but ive never had a problem i just stick em vertical into the silverware holder of my dishwasher and it’s always gotten all the way through the straw clean.

      They are cheap to produce as well. Not plastic cheap maybe but businesses could easily replace plastic straws with them without going bankrupt or anything. Easy model is just have em as an optional extra so once people already have 8 they can just use their own lol

      • DJDarren@thelemmy.club
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        5 months ago

        temperatures of 1,400 to 1,530 °C

        Well, that rules out drinking McDonald’s coffee with one then.

      • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
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        5 months ago

        What’s the day to day with a metal straw like?
        At home it’s simple but going to the mall with a metal straw in my pocket sounds uncomfortable

        • LordKitsuna@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I usually just keep them in the center console of my car the ones I bought came with a little nice bamboo bag thing to keep them in. So I only keep them in my pocket when I know I’m going to use them and I haven’t found them to be particularly annoying in the pocket personally could always just hang the bag off a belt loop if it really bothered me though

    • bobbytables@feddit.de
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      5 months ago

      I was recently served a long macaroni as a straw in a restaurant. It was honestly amazing how well it worked! At no point it was mushy and there’s nothing in it that I wouldn’t eat with my pasta dish anyway.

      • ColdFenix@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 months ago

        They are good for some drinks but not great for others in my experience. They do get soggy after a few hours and start to dissolve a bit into the drink so if you use them at home and refill a few times over an evening they aren’t great. They also react with some fizzy drinks and cause them to bubble over.

    • bstix@feddit.dk
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      5 months ago

      Maybe beverages could be served in containers that don’t require a straw. I wouldn’t mind being served a can or a bottle instead a cardboard cup.

      • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 months ago

        The main issue is drinks with ice. But maybe we could add a retainer on top of the glass to hold the ice so we can sip directly from the cup.

        • somethingsnappy@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          My teeth make pretty good retainers. It seems like a weird nostalgia thing. There must be far more pop consumed in a bottle than in a fast food cup, and I’ve never seen anyone put a straw in a bottle (except on tv).

          • jaybone@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            They used to do straws in glass bottles, back when glass bottles for soda were a big thing. Maybe it’s a sanitary thing?

          • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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            5 months ago

            The cold is a bit too much on my teeth unfortunately.

            Weirdly, in south eat Asia they often give you straws in bottles. I don’t know why.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Despite very limited usage, metal straws have caused major injuries including fatalities. Turns out having a metal stick pointed at all sorts of sensitive soft tissue is a risk.

        Meanwhile, if using your own straw with a restaurants disposable cup, hardly helps since the cup is still being waste. If using it with reusable cups, it won’t save you from any sanitation issues, since the drink is right in contact with the container. It may be useful for sanitation reasons with a can, but again, the can is disposable. Even if you recycle it, the coating on the inside and the paint on the outside probably are about as much as the plastic straw you spared.

          • jj4211@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Either is a risk if actively walking. Straw is more likely to be used on the move. I get self conscious about even carrying forks or knives on stairs.

              • jj4211@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Well, no, just I’m personally apprehensive. I can’t find a story about someone getting killed while using a fork, I can find that about metal straws. I’d personally favor just drinking straight from a cup with my mouth, or a reusable flexible straw if the beverage were something like a milkshake.

      • Fisch@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        We have those at home too and they’re the only straws I use. They just feel premium in a way.