[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.