To be fair, it’s probably only been, like, an hour. Just spaced out over 24hrs, lol.

But I think we’re talking past each other a bit. The point of me bringing up eating food out of the trash (and sure, donuts count) wasn’t to chastise you for not doing it. I’m not trying to call you a hypocrite or something.

My point was more about charity and empathy. It was about viewing the decisions that people wo are “worse than you” (my words not yours) not as people to be looked down upon, but as people to be encouraged.

I think it’s tied up in the brinkmanship of your last statement. Will climate issues be a major problem that we’ll have to grapple with in the coming century? Absolutely. But allowing that to lead to misanthropy is unhealthy.

I think the issue is that we each have our own internal line of “acceptable participation in the upkeep of the world around us,” and they’re different.

So, like, if there’s a line graph here, it has the following points: 1: not throwing cigarette butts on the ground 2: not using disposable bags 3: eating food out of trash cans.

I’ve said, existing between points 1 and 2 is my personal level of “acceptable participation,” and you have said it’s between 2 and 3. Many people exist above point 3, and many exist below point 1.

And someone above point three might approach you and say, “why are you letting perfectly good food go to waste,” and hit you with all the stats and figures about how food waste is destroying the earth. And it would be such a tiny change for you to, instead of making or ordering food, just find some in a nearby trashcan. It’s all over the place, and super accessible. And it’s really dangerous. Freshly thrown away food is pretty much always potable.

But you have chosen that your personal level of “acceptable participation” doesn’t require that of you. Should the “above point 3” people judge you for not making that tiny lifestyle change?

And honestly, perhaps they should? You are living below what they have determined is the “minimal acceptable level of social responsibility.” You aren’t doing your part to help combat a real environmental problem.

But a majority of people have chosen not to eat out of trash cans. Just as a majority of people don’t bring reusable bags into the grocery store. And the only difference between those things is where your personal line of “acceptable participation” is.

And yes, there is a “generally societally agreed upon level of participation” which would say that throwing your cigarette butts on the ground is unacceptable. But you know why I know that’s the generally agreed upon standard? Because only a minority of people do it. The general societal standard for disposable bags is on the “use them” side.

And sure, would it be beneficial to put in work to shift the Overton window on that issue, sure. Campaign for it. Push the cause. (Which I recognize is kind of what you’re doing here). Who knows, maybe I’ll pick up some bags and forget them in my car next time I hit the store, only to get mad the stores paper bags don’t have handles.

But I think there’s a big difference between advocating for a shift in the societal expectation, and investing emotional energy into despairing over the condition of your fellow man. You can recognize that, just because someone is on the other side of an issue than you, doesn’t mean they’re “bad” or deserve derision. None of us, yourself included, are doing all the “little” things we could be doing to make the world a better place. There’s always a higher level of societal participation. But I think my concern here is that your mentality is, “people who chose differently than me are bad,” not, “how can I best advocate to help encourage people to improve.”

I think that it’s a bit of a false equivalent to say that since we can’t convince people to use reusable bags, we can’t get Jeff Bezos to reduce his.

They’re different problem sets. Industrial pollution (or pollution from people with access to industry levels of capital) is something that can be addressed with legislation. It’s also something with fairly broad, populist appeal. And it’s something that, if addressed might make meaningful and lasting impact.

The “people need to take personal responsibility for recycling” narrative has been largely funded by oil companies and polluting industries as a cover to avoid people realizing that those things make up such a tiny fraction of the overall problem. They work to turn people against each other so that were too busy fighting to address the much bigger environmental issues.

Also, I love straws. If I don’t have one the drink gets in my moustache.

Look, it’s easy to have the viewpoint that anyone who isn’t doing everything you’re doing to save the world is a shitty person, and anyone who does more than you is obviously just a try-hard.

Everyone, yourself included, makes “shitty” decisions for convenience sake every day. I assume you buy food from the grocery store instead of foraging through trash cans. I’ve had friends who did the latter, and called the rest of us shitty if we ever threw anything away.

Just because someone looks at a situation and comes out with a different “worth the effort” assessment than you, doesn’t make it “shitty.” That’s just life man. Are you driving a car instead of a motorcycle? Using toilet paper? Buying food from restaurants instead of eating out of trash cans? These are all decisions you could trivially change in your life today to make the world a little greener. So why aren’t you?

But, really, I think our actual disconnect here is that I’ve not articulated my position well enough. I’m talking paper bags with handles! I mean, if that’s not worth a dollar, what is?

I think the “more than I thought it would be” comment was more a reflection on how low I thought it would be than on how high it is. It’s still a pretty tiny fraction of the overall problem.

But, like, look. The optimal decision, and the only way to “stop accepting shit” as you put it, is for every single person to drop what they’re doing and go live as a hermit in the woods, and never produce or consume another product.

That isn’t realistic for the majority of people though. And while I could succumb to self-flagellation as a form of symbolic protest, I think my time and effort is spent participating in the system as it is, and donating to organizations that can make more systematic changes that might ultimately do some good.

Beating yourself (or others) up for “not doing enough” is at best a form of coping with things that are beyond your control, and at worst a form of alienating people who broadly agree with you.

And, to be clear, I didn’t say I’d pay a dollar a bag for any old paper bag. I said I’d pay that much for one with handles. Big difference.

I think there’s a couple of things in play here though.

First, this kinda has, “if millennials just didn’t drink Starbucks they could afford rent” energy. Would it make a difference? Maybe. But in the grand scheme what it would do is just take away something they enjoy, while they remain unable to make their student loan payments, much less but a house. The actual problems are more systematic, and the “don’t buy Starbucks” argument is to some degree just a distraction from fixing those more systematic problems (or an intentional effort to divide people so they can’t cooperate to fix those systematic issues.)

Second, I think you’re maybe exhibiting a little bit more brinkmanship than is warrented. It’s important to care about the environment, and there’s obviously a ton that needs to be done there. But as you say, there are bigger and worse threats out there than people buying paper bags, and it sounds like you’re letting your existential dread over the environment sour your actual, meaningful interpersonal connections. It feels a bit over the top to “lose faith in humanity” just because most people buy paper bags. Most people are good people, and it’s not unreasonable for them to take small conveniences, even if those conveniences aren’t environmentally “optimal.”

I think you’re overstating my position. It’s not that I’m “not willing to carry bags.” It’s that I’ve weighed the options and decided that the provided disposable bags are more convenient, so I’m just gonna do that. I’m unconvinced that switching would do much beyond slightly inconvenience me.

And you say it’s just a “me problem,” but a quick and unverified Google search says that 70% of people in the US don’t use reusable bags (and 57% worldwide). So it seems like it’s not so much a “me problem” as a “literal majority of the world” problem. Though I’m sure it probably felt good to attack me personally, as that gives you someone to lash out at.

I do think the BTUs portion is less concerning in the greater context. Both 600 and 2500 are negligible compared to, say, my daily commute, or a single plane trip, or basically any other activity that requires energy.

But the first part is kinda interesting. Doing some super sloppy back of the napkin math, I think that makes paper shopping bags about 6.5% of all paper products made in the US. Paper products account for around 50% of all wood products in the US, so call it just over 3% of total wood use (which may have gone up some due to increased prevalence of paper lately.)

Which isn’t nothing for sure. I would have guessed lower. I do think it may be overstating it to say we’d see a huge shift if everyone started using reusable bags overnight. A 3% drop in timber harvesting would be good, but not world changing I would think. But not insignificant either.

I’d be really interested to see a quantitative analysis of how much difference it would make if all 330mil of us swapped to renewable bags.

My gut is that paper bags are pretty clean overall, and that grocery bags are a tiny fraction of paper usage in the US. But I’d be really interested to be proven wrong.

I’d happily pay $1/paper bag with handles, just for the convenience. That’s about what it’s worth to me.

I’m absentminded as all hell, and I’m not gonna remember to bring an armful of bags into the grocery store with me. And then, if I’m not using a cart, I gotta carry them around? Nah.

I mean, it’s a super first world problem, and not a big deal at all in the grand scheme of things. But in all honesty I’d rather just pay $1/paper bag than have to deal with it.

I mean, feasible in an objective sense? Yes. I don’t want to though, lol. I really like the convenience of bags at the till.

Very much a first world problem though, I’m aware.

I just wish more places put handles on the paper bags.

I don’t mind a paper bag, but I hate having to, like, roll the top to carry it. Just give me some handles. Even a reinforced hole cut in the bag. Anything.

I just wish we would consolidate on 5 letter words ending with EL and LE as to what the order should be.

Why is it “table” and “label”? They’re basically the same word minus the first letter, but the spellings are different. I hate it.

I mean, it kinda just looks like boiled chicken, so it’s probably fine? Probably not tasty, but not raw by a long shot.