EternalSpline wrote:
zarck sounds like you are from a very progressive area. It's tough because with your area it sounds like they handle waste much better then they do in the US, for the most part.
I hope people don't use them here, but I think your right about the banning of things being a bad answer too.
So I am at a loss, I was so onboard with the first post.
In some ways, it's progressive, and in some ways not so much. Lots of smugness taking the focus of the important points.
Like recently we had a lime mine banned (Lime is essential in making concrete). Just went to show that the manufacturing plant in Sweden was very progressive and pretty much had a negative carbon print (Made the world cleaner by manufacturing due to advanced filtering and whatnot). So instead we would have to import concrete from a dirty plant, which makes the world filthier. (And some people think they did a great thing, just doesn't realize that we're on the same planet)
Another stupid thing is that we closed down nuclear reactors and pretty much stopped the research. Result? We had to burn crude oil to keep up with the energy need. As well as import coal energy with emergency funds at some point prior. And also have a long time storage of nuclear waste that with the correct research and upgrades could have been reprocessed again for more energy, and the new waste would need a shorter time to neutralize.
So many politics and lies that really hurt the greater good.
I have full understanding for you taking that point, I had it too before my mind took it a step further. Easy solutions are appealing.
We had an increased tax for plastic bags at stores, both the kind that you put your groceries in and the thin PE? bags for produces. With the motivations that they end up in oceans (although the system here is pretty closed so I doubt any bags really left the country prior to this). Sadly this also affected "plastic" bags made of bio-degradable materials in the same way. So in comes paper bags with a larger carbon print.
What I think is the worst with all this is that there are so many people that thrive to do good things. The result could have been tremendous, but instead, the energy is wasted on something trivial. But get me right, at some point when the big issues have been resolved, the trivial things will be the new big thing. Although I do think a lot of stuff will resolve itself down the line if the big stuff is in order (Do think that if we shared the fundamentals it would propagate). And if the focus of the people wanting to do good was pointed at it, it would soon be done.
I'll end this wall of text with a metaphor. The trivial things are like pruning the tops of a tree with rotten roots. The tree can still be saved by pruning the rotten roots, perhaps you need to prune some shoots as well for recovery. But without addressing the main problem the tree will still die.