I agree with all you've said. Sadly though, plastic is here to stay until it suffocates us. No way you can put that genie back in the bottle. As demonstrated by how humans behaved during the peak of the pandemic, too many peeps just don't care (western world) & others are just too poor to be able to care (developing countries). I avoid plastic wherever I can, but a glance down any aisle at a supermarket will illustrate just how futile my (& your) efforts are.
My approach (to many things) is to do what I feel is the right thing to do (in this case, consume less, avoid plastic wherever I can, speak out etc) because I'd rather "go down" doing the right thing. I'd rather live as I feel we are meant to be living. I'd rather not be causing myself moral injury in the meantime.
Agreed and same. I just no longer stress about everything that is happening to the planet and all the other poor creatures on it. I used to get myself tied in knots over it all. Watching a person ask for a plastic bag for the loaf of bread they're buying from Bakers Delight, as I glance at their shopping trolley filled with half filled plastic bags. I still despair momentarily when I see it happen. I know I can rest easy at night knowing I've done all that I can in regard to the 5 Rs I just don't kid myself it's going to make a difference any more.
Isn't this what the fossil fuel corporations want us to think? That we're doomed and there's no point trying to stop this?
Personally, I don't subscribe to this belief. People trying in the face of overwhelming opposition and banding together is how big stuff does actually change. Once upon a time people thought women would never have been able to vote, now look at us go!
What if a bunch of people saw all that plastic in the supermarket aisle you mentioned, and decided to go to a bulk food store instead with their own containers, or buy second hand, or at a farmers market? Or even better, didn't buy the thing in the first place. There'll be less need for plastic production if consumers don't buy it.
It's true what you say, many people don't care because they're too busy figuring out how to pay bills and scrolling on socials etc. We don't have to get everyone to care, we never will. But we can get enough of us to care and that's how change happens. We can make decisions about our own buying patterns and then encourage our family, friends, communities, school, workplaces to do the same. I don't think anyone is talking about eliminating plastic entirely and pretending like it never happened (genie in the bottle analogy), I agree, that'll probably never happen. But it's a rampant, disgusting problem which is destroying and polluting our home, our lives and our bodies, and the only thing that will mean there's no hope in changing any of this is if we believe there's no hope.
I hope you don't mind me jumping in here with my two cents, discussions within this community is one of my favourite aspects of Sarah's substack. It might seem naive but I like to believe that places like this and conversations like this are how we foster hope in each other as a first step to slowly but surely bringing about change.
I understand where you are coming from, and once upon a time I probably would have said the same. However, the reality is, not enough people care enough to be able to influence the change needed. Just think about when they took free plastic bags out of supermarkets, you'd think people were sacrificing a limb for the change! Then look at how people kicked & screamed across the world over covid restrictions, that pretty much illustrates how the response to reducing plastic & reducing carbon emissions is going, some people are really diligent & cooperate, others bitch & moan and do whatever they want to. I avoid all unnecessary plastic but I have resigned myself to the fact my choices are making very little difference. Humans will be endangered soon and we deserve to be, no other species could trash the planet like we have. I'm a realist, plastic is here to stay, humans maybe not.✌
Totally. And the media didn't help by banging on about it: if only they talked about the mass deaths from plastic pollution in animals and marine life instead! There's always going to be a certain amount of people who will be totally useless in bringing about change because they just don't care and I need to find a way to accept that. And yes, you're choices alone don't make much difference, but when we combine all the efforts of the growing amount of people who do give a shit, then I have hope that it's not too late.
As an Australian, that stat around single plastic use is devastating. As is the rest of your post. Overwhelming really. Thank you for keeping us informed, what a task ahead with some many powerful organisations and bodies doing the opposite 😢
Maybe what the media should be doing is getting to the nitty gritty of the convo. Like how we've normalised the mindless ingestion of all those pesky hormone disrupters in plastics. How they're impacting testosterone levels & fertility. Maybe even contributing to sexual confusion. Breast & prostate cancers. Pancreatic, bowel & lung cancers. Mental & emotional disorders. Crossing the blood/brain barrier to make up .5% of our so-called brains. The list is endless. Meanwhile, in my neighbourhood, people who live in 5 bedroom/5 bathroom houses, on hot treeless blocks, built right out to their lifeless boundaries, nuked twice yearly with insecticides (more petrochemicals!), ginormous carbon footprints, stratospheric energy & water consumption, their recycling bins filled to the brim, are collecting plastic bread clasps for a charity that recycles them into something or other no one needs. Give. Me. Strength.
Thank you Sarah and FFS FFI! They get away with murder over and over again. When the facts are laid out like this I’m aghast that humans can behave this way. I’m shocked, but I’m not stupid, this is not ‘new’.
This time my thoughts got stuck on murder and getting away with it.
Below is a revised version of Canadian researcher Robert Hare’s 1970s checklist of the characteristics of Psychopathy. (psychologytoday.com) I looked through it thinking of the big FF players, their marketing decision makers and also governments that keep smoothing the way for them, accepting money, accepting murder.
Sigh. ‘Consume Less’ is the most powerful (non) action of them all, and probably the most difficult for humans (of this era) who have evolved to love the comfort of doing/buying, in the name of sustainability (or not). I sometimes think change can only come under extended duress, à la covid/black swan events (hopefully not one so extreme that it makes the plastic problem seem insignificant!). This is the cynic in me (right now, at 9.20pm), and I’m so hopeful underneath.. but it’s hard to make out what the solution could look like.
And to think you were going to delete this post! This is a great one! And it is so so crucial to get this information out there.
I could feel my anxiety ramping up reading this. We're only barely starting to get into the swing of renewable energy and fossil fuel companies are already moving onto their next money maker. Also - these corporations don't exist without people. To think that thousands of people all around the world are going to work for these companies and making this all happen!
Maybe the top tier ones who are on super high salaries are drunk on the kool-aid or they just want to get rich quick, buy a bunker and think they'll live happily ever after. Screw the earth and the rest of us - just look out for themselves.
But what about the lower paid receptionists / data entry type people. Even if they are still highly paid for their roles compared to other industries and even if there is internal company propaganda about how they're carbon neutral etc, wouldn't they pick up information in the outside world about what's really going on? I'd love to hear an interview with a fossil fuel employee about what the company culture is like. Imagine if someone staged a mass resignation and walk out?! Sure, the company could just throw enough money around and recruit new people eventually but it would be a bit of a bother. My guess is that the employees probably think that it can't be stopped, nothing can change and so they might as well make good money in the process.
I don't want to seem like I'm hating on employees, some of them are probably good people but we tend to think/ talk of corporations as though they're entities in their own right - the corporations who do this are nothing without the many people who run them / work for them.
I find all this so overwhelming. I started seeing an Integrative GP, as well as some other functional medicine/alternative practitioners, because my health has just continued to decline over the years. Every day something new seems to pop up that is causing my body stress- viruses, mould, parasites, fungi, VOCs, chemicals- and I'm put on more and more expensive protocols to try and rid my body of these things, because I'm currently too sick to work. I really battle with the fact that I am a rich white person who is pouring everything into saving their own life, because I can, and yet I am likely fighting a losing battle. As you've said so many times Sarah, it is easier to put the onus back on us than to actually acknowledge what the real problem is. I understand intellectually that I am just a cog in a big machine and that I am just another victim of the planet fighting back. Yet my survival instinct kicks in so hard and I find it really hard to accept my fragile humanity most days.
Thank you for the information. So much around us is made of plastic. We re-use as much as we can and also if we need something we try to make it before buying it. My grandparents and great grandparents never threw anything useful away. Then when they needed something they made it out of the old things that didn’t work anymore. They kept old clothing to make new clothes out of for someone else. They were very good at using everything 2nd 3rd and fourth time!
I think I have been in the George Carlin camp for a very long time. The planet will be here long after we have gone. I don’t think we deserve to be here.
If the planet were a hotel and we trashed the room the way we trash the planet, we would be thrown out. I think the planet will throw us out.
This is a collective whole of humanity we.
I try to do the right thing but the majority of people I know are too busy to do anything and/or too overwhelmed by what to do so do nothing.
I’d be interested to know more about the ranges within the greed-to-guilt spectrum (of massive FF companies) too. Money’s the motivator overall. Can’t be good for the mental health of some
Omg :( :( I thought I was informed on this topic but it’s so much worse than I realised.
I'm sorry! It's all pretty predictable...question is, will we tolerate it?
I agree with all you've said. Sadly though, plastic is here to stay until it suffocates us. No way you can put that genie back in the bottle. As demonstrated by how humans behaved during the peak of the pandemic, too many peeps just don't care (western world) & others are just too poor to be able to care (developing countries). I avoid plastic wherever I can, but a glance down any aisle at a supermarket will illustrate just how futile my (& your) efforts are.
My approach (to many things) is to do what I feel is the right thing to do (in this case, consume less, avoid plastic wherever I can, speak out etc) because I'd rather "go down" doing the right thing. I'd rather live as I feel we are meant to be living. I'd rather not be causing myself moral injury in the meantime.
Agreed and same. I just no longer stress about everything that is happening to the planet and all the other poor creatures on it. I used to get myself tied in knots over it all. Watching a person ask for a plastic bag for the loaf of bread they're buying from Bakers Delight, as I glance at their shopping trolley filled with half filled plastic bags. I still despair momentarily when I see it happen. I know I can rest easy at night knowing I've done all that I can in regard to the 5 Rs I just don't kid myself it's going to make a difference any more.
Isn't this what the fossil fuel corporations want us to think? That we're doomed and there's no point trying to stop this?
Personally, I don't subscribe to this belief. People trying in the face of overwhelming opposition and banding together is how big stuff does actually change. Once upon a time people thought women would never have been able to vote, now look at us go!
What if a bunch of people saw all that plastic in the supermarket aisle you mentioned, and decided to go to a bulk food store instead with their own containers, or buy second hand, or at a farmers market? Or even better, didn't buy the thing in the first place. There'll be less need for plastic production if consumers don't buy it.
It's true what you say, many people don't care because they're too busy figuring out how to pay bills and scrolling on socials etc. We don't have to get everyone to care, we never will. But we can get enough of us to care and that's how change happens. We can make decisions about our own buying patterns and then encourage our family, friends, communities, school, workplaces to do the same. I don't think anyone is talking about eliminating plastic entirely and pretending like it never happened (genie in the bottle analogy), I agree, that'll probably never happen. But it's a rampant, disgusting problem which is destroying and polluting our home, our lives and our bodies, and the only thing that will mean there's no hope in changing any of this is if we believe there's no hope.
I hope you don't mind me jumping in here with my two cents, discussions within this community is one of my favourite aspects of Sarah's substack. It might seem naive but I like to believe that places like this and conversations like this are how we foster hope in each other as a first step to slowly but surely bringing about change.
I understand where you are coming from, and once upon a time I probably would have said the same. However, the reality is, not enough people care enough to be able to influence the change needed. Just think about when they took free plastic bags out of supermarkets, you'd think people were sacrificing a limb for the change! Then look at how people kicked & screamed across the world over covid restrictions, that pretty much illustrates how the response to reducing plastic & reducing carbon emissions is going, some people are really diligent & cooperate, others bitch & moan and do whatever they want to. I avoid all unnecessary plastic but I have resigned myself to the fact my choices are making very little difference. Humans will be endangered soon and we deserve to be, no other species could trash the planet like we have. I'm a realist, plastic is here to stay, humans maybe not.✌
Totally. And the media didn't help by banging on about it: if only they talked about the mass deaths from plastic pollution in animals and marine life instead! There's always going to be a certain amount of people who will be totally useless in bringing about change because they just don't care and I need to find a way to accept that. And yes, you're choices alone don't make much difference, but when we combine all the efforts of the growing amount of people who do give a shit, then I have hope that it's not too late.
As an Australian, that stat around single plastic use is devastating. As is the rest of your post. Overwhelming really. Thank you for keeping us informed, what a task ahead with some many powerful organisations and bodies doing the opposite 😢
Public pressure does work...around the edges. How we switch to consuming less, en masse...I don't know. We just start, I guess.
Maybe what the media should be doing is getting to the nitty gritty of the convo. Like how we've normalised the mindless ingestion of all those pesky hormone disrupters in plastics. How they're impacting testosterone levels & fertility. Maybe even contributing to sexual confusion. Breast & prostate cancers. Pancreatic, bowel & lung cancers. Mental & emotional disorders. Crossing the blood/brain barrier to make up .5% of our so-called brains. The list is endless. Meanwhile, in my neighbourhood, people who live in 5 bedroom/5 bathroom houses, on hot treeless blocks, built right out to their lifeless boundaries, nuked twice yearly with insecticides (more petrochemicals!), ginormous carbon footprints, stratospheric energy & water consumption, their recycling bins filled to the brim, are collecting plastic bread clasps for a charity that recycles them into something or other no one needs. Give. Me. Strength.
The media won't get down to nitty gritty - it's too much for them, for all of us.
I think we do, indeed, forcus on giving each other strength!
Thank you Sarah and FFS FFI! They get away with murder over and over again. When the facts are laid out like this I’m aghast that humans can behave this way. I’m shocked, but I’m not stupid, this is not ‘new’.
This time my thoughts got stuck on murder and getting away with it.
Below is a revised version of Canadian researcher Robert Hare’s 1970s checklist of the characteristics of Psychopathy. (psychologytoday.com) I looked through it thinking of the big FF players, their marketing decision makers and also governments that keep smoothing the way for them, accepting money, accepting murder.
Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
Pathological lying
Conning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Shallow affect (i.e., reduced emotional responses)
Callous/lack of empathy
Parasitic lifestyle
Poor behavioral controls
Promiscuous sexual behavior
Early behavioral problems
Lack of realistic, long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Failure to accept responsibility for one's own actions
Many short-term marital relationships
Juvenile delinquency
Revocation of conditional release (from prison)
Criminal versatility (i.e., commits diverse types of crimes)
It gave me a theory to sit with for a while. Maybe the diagnosis is helpful in deciding how to act.
Still overwhelming.
Putting pressure on government makes sense… keep going.
Thanks for the prompt Sarah
Diagnosis certainly fits. It describes the status quo, which, which as much as many hate the term, really is toxic patriarchy.
Sigh. ‘Consume Less’ is the most powerful (non) action of them all, and probably the most difficult for humans (of this era) who have evolved to love the comfort of doing/buying, in the name of sustainability (or not). I sometimes think change can only come under extended duress, à la covid/black swan events (hopefully not one so extreme that it makes the plastic problem seem insignificant!). This is the cynic in me (right now, at 9.20pm), and I’m so hopeful underneath.. but it’s hard to make out what the solution could look like.
And to think you were going to delete this post! This is a great one! And it is so so crucial to get this information out there.
I could feel my anxiety ramping up reading this. We're only barely starting to get into the swing of renewable energy and fossil fuel companies are already moving onto their next money maker. Also - these corporations don't exist without people. To think that thousands of people all around the world are going to work for these companies and making this all happen!
I also think about the employees of these companies - do they know or care? Or is it denial, genuine need or the sunk-cost fallacy at play?
Maybe the top tier ones who are on super high salaries are drunk on the kool-aid or they just want to get rich quick, buy a bunker and think they'll live happily ever after. Screw the earth and the rest of us - just look out for themselves.
But what about the lower paid receptionists / data entry type people. Even if they are still highly paid for their roles compared to other industries and even if there is internal company propaganda about how they're carbon neutral etc, wouldn't they pick up information in the outside world about what's really going on? I'd love to hear an interview with a fossil fuel employee about what the company culture is like. Imagine if someone staged a mass resignation and walk out?! Sure, the company could just throw enough money around and recruit new people eventually but it would be a bit of a bother. My guess is that the employees probably think that it can't be stopped, nothing can change and so they might as well make good money in the process.
I don't want to seem like I'm hating on employees, some of them are probably good people but we tend to think/ talk of corporations as though they're entities in their own right - the corporations who do this are nothing without the many people who run them / work for them.
I find all this so overwhelming. I started seeing an Integrative GP, as well as some other functional medicine/alternative practitioners, because my health has just continued to decline over the years. Every day something new seems to pop up that is causing my body stress- viruses, mould, parasites, fungi, VOCs, chemicals- and I'm put on more and more expensive protocols to try and rid my body of these things, because I'm currently too sick to work. I really battle with the fact that I am a rich white person who is pouring everything into saving their own life, because I can, and yet I am likely fighting a losing battle. As you've said so many times Sarah, it is easier to put the onus back on us than to actually acknowledge what the real problem is. I understand intellectually that I am just a cog in a big machine and that I am just another victim of the planet fighting back. Yet my survival instinct kicks in so hard and I find it really hard to accept my fragile humanity most days.
Thank you for the information. So much around us is made of plastic. We re-use as much as we can and also if we need something we try to make it before buying it. My grandparents and great grandparents never threw anything useful away. Then when they needed something they made it out of the old things that didn’t work anymore. They kept old clothing to make new clothes out of for someone else. They were very good at using everything 2nd 3rd and fourth time!
I think I have been in the George Carlin camp for a very long time. The planet will be here long after we have gone. I don’t think we deserve to be here.
If the planet were a hotel and we trashed the room the way we trash the planet, we would be thrown out. I think the planet will throw us out.
This is a collective whole of humanity we.
I try to do the right thing but the majority of people I know are too busy to do anything and/or too overwhelmed by what to do so do nothing.
So we head toward the proverbial cliff.
I’d be interested to know more about the ranges within the greed-to-guilt spectrum (of massive FF companies) too. Money’s the motivator overall. Can’t be good for the mental health of some
Roger!