[lorenzhs]

It's a false equivalence to claim that we can only care about one but not the other. Plastic pollution is threatening entire species and food chains. We need to tackle both problems simultaneously.

Not to mention that everyone just assumes that fewer plastic bags sold = many more cotton bags produced without providing any numbers. Maybe plastic bags are mostly being reused more? Maybe people remember to bring a cotton bag they already owned anyway to the store more often?

Also, that 7100x number is for ozone. For climate impact, it's 52x, and that number doesn't include disposal. See hannob's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20581751 and the point in the tweet chain here: https://twitter.com/arthurhcyip/status/1115749691566821376

[gambiting]

I just have these giant bags that every supermarket sells for like 2 pounds - they are made from plastic, but I've had the same set of 5-6 bags for a couple years now. It doesn't have to be a choice between a shitty 5p plastic bag or an energy intensive cotton bag - large sturdy plastic bags also exist.

[bobwaycott]

It’s not a false equivalence.

The parent is saying, “A and B are both bad. A is worse by an order of magnitude. I (and others) should care about A more.” There’s no suggestion of A and B being falsely equivalent to each other on the same order of magnitude based on a loosely shared common feature or property that is manipulated or misrepresented to incorrectly/dishonestly establish A and B as equivalent. That is what false equivalence means.

The parent is grading two bad things according to their estimated impact, and is perfectly justified in choosing to focus on the one they think is worse. They aren’t suggesting nobody care about item B—just that it not be cared about more than the far worse item A.[0]

[0]: I'm just rephrasing the parent's argument and pointing out the argument is not equating A and B (which is required for a false equivalence); I'm not taking a position on whether or not the argument is correct.

[nothrabannosir]

For global warming to be relevant in a conversation about culling plastic waste, it needs be shown that either the efforts are mutually exclusive, or that fighting plastic waste somehow increases global warming. The former I’ll leave to speak for itself, the latter is a bold claim that requires actual numbers: how many people switch to a supposedly worse reusable bag after said ban (as opposed to just reusing the existing bags), and how much does that actually influence global warming? The >1000x number posted elsewhere in this thread was about ozone. Once you have those numbers, there is one final question to answer: is it worth it?

Without those numbers, bringing up climate change does little more than discourage a worthwhile effort.

[bobwaycott]

> ... bringing up climate change does little more than discourage a worthwhile effort.

I almost entirely agree. From a purely environmental perspective, habitat pollution and species destruction is 100% worth caring about, understanding, and reducing/eliminating. I think we're sadly living in a time where public discourse has equated environmental impact with climate impact, and fails to keep them separated when necessary.

Some things are worth caring about and doing because they are destructive to the environment(s) on Earth as a whole—and we should avoid destroying the environment itself, as well as habitats, ecosystems, and species when we realize we are doing so. Some things are worth caring about, understanding, and reducing/eliminating because they are destroying the climate itself, which is getting dangerously close to becoming actively unfriendly to humans and other species in a relatively short timeframe. These things are occasionally, but not always, interacting & influencing the other. Environmental destruction can, in turn, cause climate destruction/change. The reverse also holds. I think many people have difficulty discussing one without bringing up the other, or in very specific cases, discussing them as if they are equivalent.

However, the two examples I called out as accusations of false equivalence that do not hold were more whataboutism than false equivalency. The accused were not claiming the two things to be the same—they directly admitted they were different issues, with different concerns and impacts, and still wanted to push that one was more important (at least to them) than the other. Had the accusers pointed out the whataboutism, I wouldn't have commented. But they called it false equivalency, which prompted me to point out that their responses actually rode the line of false equivalence far more egregiously than the comments to which they replied. I stand by that assessment. I wasn't seeking to defend the accused's whataboutism—it was both distracting and unhelpful. But it was important to me—some random internet nobody who really doesn't mean much of anything at all—to point out that the accusations were incorrect and try to prod the accusers to not go throwing around a term like false equivalence without it being warranted. I guess just because words and terms matter. Public discourse is better when we keep that in mind.

[Retric]

The false equivalence is assuming the impact on A and B is equivalent. If A is 100x as bad as B, but X’s impact on A is 1/1,000 as much as B then B is more important.

[C1sc0cat]

Unfortuetly you cant have every thing as priority 1 (as anyone who works in tech knows).

This is something the "green" movement needs to take on board - unfortunately a lot of the hobbyist end of the movement doesn't really get this.

[Hitton]

Plastic pollution isn't valid argument against use of plastics in developed world. When you throw out your bag, it doesn't end in ocean, it ends in a dump, is incinerated or recycled. Plastics which end in ocean are virtually all from developing countries without functioning waste management.[0]

[0] https://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-...

[H8crilA]

I'm trusting the upper level comment on the numbers:

> Studies have shown multiple times [1], [2] that cotton bags require far more energy and water to produce than almost everything else and need to be reused circa 7.100 times for non organic and twenty-thousand times for organic cotton until they surpass plastic bags.

And yeah sure, both is better than one. But one of those two is much more important. One will remove , say, ~10% of species and humans, the other will remove, say, ~50% of species and humans.

[DCKing]

It's still a false equivalence. Comparing the comparatively higher energy costs of making reusable bags [1] does not compare to the systemic causes of the climate catastrophe. Arguably the behavioral pattern of using non-durable, non-reusable or non-repairable items that are "cheap" [2] is one of the systemic problems.

The climate catastrophe also is not only caused by rising greenhouse gases (although yes, that's causing the most disasterous results). Other results of unbridled human (ab)use of their natural environment is causing biodiversity collapses everywhere. Single use plastics are an important factor there, wreaking havoc to many different environments.

Sometimes priorities really are complicated but in this case they aren't.

[1]: I'd argue flimsy cotton bags are a non-solution to this problem, as they still do not really discourage single use. They don't fundamentally change people's behaviour, and as a result don't address the systemic cultural problem. Proper, well made, high quality, repairable shopping bags exist. It's a shame we need to be so inconvienced to go out shopping prepared, but that's a cultural mindset we have to get over.

[2]: They are only "cheap" because the real impact of these products are not accounted for in the price you pay for it. Again, it's a systemic cultural problem that this is acceptable and even desired.

[bobwaycott]

You’re now the second commenter to incorrectly accuse a parent comment of a false equivalence. Neither commenter to whom either of you replied were claiming rising temperatures and reducing single-use plastics are equivalent—which is a necessary condition for them to be making a false equivalence between the two.

Each commenter is stating the two things are definitively NOT equivalent, that one is far worse than the other, and that everyone can care about both—but should really care about the temperatures issue more because it’s worse by a lot.

It sounds like you and the other false-equivalence-accuser are the ones who are making false equivalency happen here—you’re both saying that because rising temperatures and habitat pollution/destruction are bad for the environment or Earth's climate, they are both equally bad and worth caring about equally, or at least simultaneously—THAT is so textbook false equivalence I'm struggling to understand how you and the other FE-accuser are doing it without realizing.

[lorenzhs]

Sorry, I edited my comment after/while you posted yours. The 7100x number is totally misleading because it's the maximum over all factors they considered, which turned out to be ozone depletion. But the study didn't communicate that well and apparently nobody who reported on it saw the footnote. The number of reuses required to get the same climate impact is 52x, excluding disposal. See the last paragraph of my edited comment.

[terminalhealth]

It's still a relatively minor issue. There are far greater sources of microplastics, especially wear and tear from tires, paint:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CA7zXLWUIAAaSfS?format=png&name=...

We'd need to drive way less, stop sending products overseas, build high speed underground trains. Even more importantly we'd need to make sure that India and Africa are going to follow the same principles because they're going to exceed the consumption of the West in future. That being said, I do not care because I do not plan to have children.

[seunosewa]

> I won’t have children

That is a bit sad. We need more thoughtfulness-enhancing genes in the genetic pool.

[tomjen3]

Humans can only focus on a few things at a time, so between job concerns, family concerns do you really want to risk global warming versun some harm to food chains (nothing new)?