Yes but if people bitch that much about straws imagine how much they would bitch if you tried to do anything meaningful like limit beef consumption or long distance flying. If you even mention anything like that as a recommendation (“experts say eating more than 10kg of beef per day is not sustainable”) people freak out (“they want us to eat bugs!!!1”).
I get it that people expect the rich to sacrifice first but the sad fact is they have the real power and can fight any attempts to limit their emissions. NY mentioned taxing private jets and they immediately came up with plans to move to chartering and change residency. You tax them in NY and they escape to stupid Texas because for them it’s easy. So people basically say “we’re not going to agree to anything that affects us until you achieve the impossible task of completely changing the entire system” and nothing gets done. We have been stuck in this “all or nothing” standoff for decades and it looks like we will be stuck until everything collapses.
I don’t think people are limited to bitching about one thing at a time, so we definitely shouldn’t hold back the discussion of unsustainable meat production until they’re done bitching about straws.
It’s not about how many things people bitch about. It’s about the pushback any environmental policy is facing from people. If people bitch for years and years about straws imagine how will they react to something significant like limiting beef. Those grievances are what populists use to gain power. If you push too hard people will vote you out and revert all progress (like Trump). So we’re stuck because no one is willing to sacrifice anything and you can’t really force anyone.
In my opinion that’s a band aid that has to come off.
We shouldn’t take the high road to avoid backlash. The populists are going to go lower regardless of where we set the bar. This is how it has already gotten so low that we’re even debating straws.
We should set the bar much much higher, so they can bitch and moan about hundreds of issues instead of finding unity in single issues like straws.
Yes but if people bitch that much about straws imagine how much they would bitch if you tried to do anything meaningful like limit beef consumption or long distance flying. If you even mention anything like that as a recommendation (“experts say eating more than 10kg of beef per day is not sustainable”) people freak out (“they want us to eat bugs!!!1”).
I get it that people expect the rich to sacrifice first but the sad fact is they have the real power and can fight any attempts to limit their emissions. NY mentioned taxing private jets and they immediately came up with plans to move to chartering and change residency. You tax them in NY and they escape to stupid Texas because for them it’s easy. So people basically say “we’re not going to agree to anything that affects us until you achieve the impossible task of completely changing the entire system” and nothing gets done. We have been stuck in this “all or nothing” standoff for decades and it looks like we will be stuck until everything collapses.
I don’t think people are limited to bitching about one thing at a time, so we definitely shouldn’t hold back the discussion of unsustainable meat production until they’re done bitching about straws.
It’s not about how many things people bitch about. It’s about the pushback any environmental policy is facing from people. If people bitch for years and years about straws imagine how will they react to something significant like limiting beef. Those grievances are what populists use to gain power. If you push too hard people will vote you out and revert all progress (like Trump). So we’re stuck because no one is willing to sacrifice anything and you can’t really force anyone.
In my opinion that’s a band aid that has to come off.
We shouldn’t take the high road to avoid backlash. The populists are going to go lower regardless of where we set the bar. This is how it has already gotten so low that we’re even debating straws.
We should set the bar much much higher, so they can bitch and moan about hundreds of issues instead of finding unity in single issues like straws.
I’m all for it but unfortunately majority of people would vote out any politician that proposes something like that. And politicians know it.