The Politics of Good Intentions
The Politics of Good Intentions
Narberth has banned plastic straws. Cue the cheering. But shouldn't such an human action accept at least some impact on curbing marine pollution?
November. xix, 2018
Last month, the Inquirer ran a prominently placed story almost the quaint Main Line borough of Narberth, the starting time boondocks in Pennsylvania to ban plastic straws. It quoted residents celebrating how the community had "come together" to "push something through on the environment."
Curiously, the story did not at all inspect the effects of what had been pushed through. In fact, the banning of plastic straws in lodge to reduce plastic pollution in the bounding main is trending nationwide—California and Seattle have adopted similar bans, and many municipalities and states are planning to follow suit—even in the face up of ample evidence that such bans will accept precisely no event in curbing marine pollution. Aye, plastic waste product in the ocean is a real issue . But plastic waste material in the bounding main from America? Not so much.
Close to a 3rd of all marine plastic droppings comes from China, and virtually some other third from places like Vietnam and Indonesia. The U.S. is really responsible for less than one per centum of all plastic debris in the oceans; straws account for an infinitesimal percentage of that .
This isn't some anti-environmental cursory. It is, instead, an environmentalist reminder that facts matter even when they are inconvenient to progressives. Fact-gratuitous cheerleading in favor of banning plastic straws elevates good intentions over really moving the needle on environmental progress.
Allow me be clear: This isn't some anti-environmental brief. Information technology is, instead, an environmentalist reminder that facts thing even when they are inconvenient to progressives. Fact-free cheerleading in favor of banning plastic straws elevates proficient intentions over really moving the needle on environmental progress.
And it couldn't come at a worse time. Last month's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) report was damn near apocalyptic, positing that we'll exist in for widespread collapse of food yields and human displacement if we don't cut almanac global emissions past half in the next 12 years and hitting net null by the centre of the century.
Should be a call to arms, correct? Time to talk almost the blazon of existent sacrifice called for when confronting existential threat, no? Instead, we're banning plastic straws, furthering the illusion that we're doing something in the face of a crisis. In that sense, even if unwittingly, straw banning amounts to little more than a prescription for maintaining the status quo.
How did the environmental movement become, in consequence, complicit? In the summer of 2017, earlier he became known as the billionaire most likely to abhor Donald Trump, I asked Tom Steyer to critique the environmental movement he'd long been a part of. "We've failed in our messaging," he said, noting that the green argument has long been that the sky was—quite literally—falling. "All along, the statement should accept been about two things: Jobs and health."
"I'g asking you for your practiced and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra twenty-four hour period per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set up your thermostats to save fuel," Pres. Carter said. "Every deed of free energy conservation like this is more than only common sense, I tell you it is an human action of patriotism."
In effect, what Steyer was getting at is not that unlike from the recent policy advice for progressives offered upwardly past Richard Vague: Strategically, appeals to enlightened self-involvement through "kitchen table issues" carry more weight and engender more activeness than doom and gloom scenario painting.
And there'south plenty of instance to make: The greenish economic system is where the time to come jobs are. Yes, solar panels and electric cars make up simply 2 pct of their respective markets—but they are the fastest growing segments of those markets. On Politico.com, Michael Grunwald, author of the fantabulous The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era , makes the instance that U.S. solar capacity has jumped v,000 percentage in a decade, while its price has dropped 80 pct. (The cost of wind ability over the same menses has dropped 50 percentage.)
In other words, despite Trump's pro-coal rhetoric, it's a settled issue: The future of economic growth is greenish. Comprehend that , and you'll be saving the planet. But it'due south hard to go purchase-in on that front if the implication is that, by signing a petition to ban straws, you've washed your part.
The green economy is where the future jobs are. Yes, solar panels and electrical cars make upwardly only two percent of their corresponding markets—but they are the fastest growing segments of those markets.
Particularly in light of the IPCC study, we need, instead, some unifying tough talk. The kind nosotros got dorsum in 1979, when then President Jimmy Carter, at the summit of the energy crisis, took to national Idiot box and told the American people we were in a "crunch of conviction." He said the energy crunch and our dependence on foreign oil was the "moral equivalent of state of war" and called for shared sacrifice in the course of widespread conservation. It came to exist chosen the "malaise" voice communication—even though the word "malaise" was never uttered.
Carter'south poll numbers shot upwardly 11 percent overnight: Finally, some straight talk. Merely then Ronald Reagan from his right and Teddy Kennedy from his left accused Carter of blaming America, rather than leading it. The era of finger-to-the-wind pandering had dawned, a context that helps explicate likewise-practiced-to-be-true easy fixes similar banning plastic straws today.
It's worth hearing what a real telephone call to sacrifice sounds like, and to intermission over just how prescient Carter was:
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, shut-knit communities, and our faith in God, likewise many of the states now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human being identity is no longer divers by what 1 does, merely by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up textile appurtenances cannot fill the emptiness of lives which take no confidence or purpose…We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to cull. Ane is a path I've warned most this evening, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Downward that route lies a mistaken idea of liberty, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would exist one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in anarchy and immobility… Energy volition be the immediate test of our ability to unite this nation, and it can also exist the standard effectually which nosotros rally. On the battleground of energy we tin can win for our nation a new confidence, and nosotros can seize control again of our mutual destiny. I'm asking you for your good and for your nation'due south security to take no unnecessary trips, to utilise carpools or public transportation whenever yous tin can, to park your car 1 actress twenty-four hour period per week, to obey the speed limit, and to prepare your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than only mutual sense, I tell you it is an deed of patriotism.
Who talks similar that nowadays? Yes, Carter could exist a downer. A scold. But he too was telling the nation what it needed to hear. And it worked for a time, earlier others bamboozled voters into believing that change doesn't come with a pricetag.
It's close to xl years since Carter's phone call to unity and if there'southward annihilation that could catalyze a contemporary "we're all in this together" ethos it'due south that apocalyptic IPCC written report. Just have you heard whatever phone call to artillery? Instead, we get more than towns like Narberth jumping on the plastic harbinger banning bandwagon, with media reports in The New York Times, National Geographic, and USA Today, among others, dutifully repeating the talking betoken that Americans employ 500 million straws a day. Well, information technology turns out, every bit USA Today reported in something of a mea culpa, that that statistic was pretty much the approximate of a 9-year-old .
Facts are under assail everywhere in Trump's America, and it behooves us to call progressives out when, borrowing from the Trump playbook, they similarly pass up to permit the facts make it the way of a good story. The fact is that nosotros're in crisis and it'south going to need a lot more from each of united states of america, beyond not using straws, to do what Carter long ago implored: Seize control once again of our mutual destiny.
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/the-politics-of-good-intentions/
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