It's that easy! : memes

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I don't think it's a secret that despite the overabundance of public messaging that "we" (the public) need to do x to "save the planet" or whatever, it's not working because it's entirely predicated on the idea that it's individuals doing the majority of the damage, which isn't the case.

Recycling is a particular scam. The idea of recycling basically gave everyone the green light to buy and use as many products that were "recyclable" as they wanted and could afford. The businesses making those products, in no small part started using "recyclable" plastics for nearly everything. People were satisfied that it was recyclable, with the three arrows in the package and that was it. All the while, recycling alone likely doubled the number of waste collection trucks on the road (increasing the amount of fuel needed) doubled the number of trucks needed to do collections of waste, and, as many have since pointed out, was largely not helpful, considering that plastics are basically impossible to recycle effectively at scale, into any product that anyone can use. Only a very small amount of plastic was ever able to be effectively recycled, and the vast majority was basically just landfill with extra steps.

So we polluted a fuckton more on an idea that it would save the planet, an instead, we just killed it more with trucks and oil.

This isn't a new story, and it's never been your fault. The last frame in this comic is what should have been done all along, but we were sold some bullshit lie so an asshole we've never met can buy another yacht.

And there's still legions of people engaging in wasteful practices and supporting companies that want you to throw out their products as soon as they release a "newer/better" version of the same. I'm looking at you, Apple. Sure, you've stepped back on this a little bit in the past few years, but remember when you intentionally slowed down millions of phones because they were 2+ years old, and for no other reason? I do.

Net Zero carbon emissions (or any other pollutant) shouldn't be the goal. It should be the minimum fucking standard.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The company I work for insists on almost every damn bit of stock arriving in delivery to be wrapped in a plastic bag. I've complained to management, they just laugh. Apparently I can't have any contact details for head office (not surprising since I'm not even allowed to contact HR directly and have to talk to them via a store manager). That's like 1000+ items coming in twice a week where almost all of it is individually wrapped in a bag.

Not only is it a pointless waste of plastic, but it doubles how long it takes to clear the stock as I have to take everything out of the bag (which is sealed both ends a lot of the time) instead of just putting it straight onto the shelves. I'm almost tempted to set up a twitter account so I can @ them. Almost, but not quite.

My previous employer did the same thing, but at least we had a way to talk to head office and a bunch of us complained so they did remove most of the plastic and started to use a band of paper to hold stock together, or a paper wrapper to protect delicate stuff. They went bust though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Net Zero carbon emissions (or any other pollutant) shouldn’t be the goal. It should be the minimum fucking standard.

Exactly. The part about recycling that you wrote makes me realize that fossil fuel industry has been more than an addiction for most of the masses with politicians (Think about Gerhard Schroeder in Germany with his Russian oil connections) and companies making the decisions in favor of destroying the planet. And those fossil fuel companies knew about the effects for decades. Just like tobacco companies were allowed to go for profits. Making profits and caring about shareholders has been worshiped for way too long.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

80s: corporations send hundreds of tonnes of trash to landfills while people are told to reduce the trash they generate

90s: corporations make everything plastic and disposable while people are told to recycle

00s: corporations cover the atmosphere in greenhouse gasses while people are told to reduce their carbon footprint.

10s: corporations buy politicians while people are told to vote.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

90s: corporations make everything plastic and disposable while people are told to recycle

It's worse than that: the plastics industry tells us to recycle -- even going so far as to plagiarize the recycling symbol into the resin identification codes -- despite knowing from the beginning that recycling plastic was mostly never going to be a viable thing. They did this purely to shift blame to consumers because the only way their business model worked was to not be held accountable for their waste.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I'm fond of saying that recycling is almost exclusively bad for the planet. It's true and people don't like hearing it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Reduce, reuse, recycle. In that order.

If you don't need to, don't produce something. Chocolates don't need to be all individually wrapped inside of yet another wrapper. Transport should be mostly by public and active transport (though we also need better city planning to help enable this), and private motor vehicles can, at this point, mostly be converted to the less-polluting EVs. That kind of thing.

If it's been produced, rather than throwing it away, find ways to reuse it. Coke should be taking in glass bottles, washing them, and putting more coke back in it, rather than producing new bottles all the time.

If something has been produced and cannot be reused, we should try to find ways to recycle it. You're right that recycling is bad, but that's mainly true of plastics. Glass and paper are far more easy to recycle, if collected effectively. Which is also why the move from glass and paper products to plastic is such an environmental disaster, brought on because companies don't want to spend the larger cost of producing those products, or collecting them in to effectively recycle the glass.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

This is absolutely right. It's reductive of me to say that recycling is bad for the environment; intentionally reductive.

People generally have a very hard time absorbing the fact that plastic recycling is a scam, so it's hard to start nuanced to actually get the point across.

But you definitely nailed it. I would argue that if it was reduce, reuse, revolt, the environment would be in a much better place.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The rhetoric causing people to put their guard down is what’s bad, or actually recycling is a bad thing?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Recycling was actively brought forward as a solution by the oil companies to push the blame of plastic use onto consumers.

So while recycling rare metals is always valuable, plastic is definitely not. Almost all plastic gets buried in landfills, and the only way to make this not happen is to not make products with plastics.

By creating and marketing plastic recycling as a solution that the consumers must take onto themselves, it allowed them to rake in profits by moving everything to cheap plastic alternatives.

We are now literally made of microplastics as a result.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Right. So the former.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Sort of. It's less a guard down thing as a fraudulent hoax thing.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (4 children)

This is Lemmy; we can put that slightly more extreme version right here!

(I don't think it really is NSFW, but I'll put it behind a spoiler tag to honor your opinion.)

NSFW

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: Violent threats

porky-scared-flipped gui-better porky-point

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I don't think it really is NSFW

Not that I find it in any way objectionable myself, but I'd say that in a very literal sense it's not safe for work. At least if you work for a corporation or similar type of soulless entity 😉

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

🙂 👍

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I haven't yet been convinced that giving up meat can help. Specifically, I haven't seen the question of what happens to the grazing land.

If it is left to burn, the carbon it contains cycles grass ➡️ fire ➡️ CO2, particles ➡️ grass, etc

If it's left to rot it's grass ➡️ methane, CO2 ➡️ grass

If it is rewilded the carbon cycles grass ➡️ meat, methane ➡️ predators, etc

If left as it is it's the same, but with us in place of the predators.

I really feel like there is no way of preventing the carbon emissions of grasslands, but at least if they're making meat for us we can work on engineering a way out of the methane release, and people are working on that

And at worst it's not fossil carbon, it's renewable, the carbon emitted is captured again when the grass regrows

There's carbon in the farm equipment, but that's the same in all farming

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Grass fed cattle and corn fed cattle have very different impacts on the environment. "Meatless Mondays" to me says "eat less meat" which in turn means more money for "Grass-Fed Steak Fridays".

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

The term is greenwashing, and it worked

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

How about: regulate the 10 largest companies and we can save the Earth?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

If by "regulate" you mean "forcibly dissolve them and charge their CEOs with crimes against humanity and nature", then I agree

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

How about: regulate the 10 largest companies and we can save the Earth?

Good plan. Don't see that happen. Yesterday I briefly imagined that a small group of billionaires left the burning planet Earth in their spaceship. And angry politicians were surprisingly not allowed in that ship. And the masses were sad for the politicians while the melting earth was transforming into dust and ashes.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

And in the 1970s it was, "we all need to tighten our belts and conserve resources."

Guess which part of society didn't follow that advice at all?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

20s: "Allow these criminal billionaires to escape to space and we may be able to start a new feudal colony on another planet"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Trick the billionaires into going to space, then blow the ship up in orbit?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Or just convince one billionaire that they are actually good at designing spacecrafts and should bring their friends along for a joy ride.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Ah, the Oceangate maneuver

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It's because the explanation in the last panel should have happend before the 80s

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Could have happened as soon as the 1950s when they first began seeing substantial proof of how harmful fossil fuels are.

But of course, the ones with all the money got to decide what the public gets to know. Just like it's been ever since 🤬

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

It was explained in the seventies. Then the oil crisis started and it was "save the economy" time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

20's: "Don't look up."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (6 children)

overcome capitalism

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