[latexr]

I don’t drive either, so I should be inclined to agree with you. But when I’m drowning due to the effects of climate change, it won’t do me any good to turn to the person drowning next to me and tell them it’s their fault.

Yes, we should pass better laws. Yes, we don’t have them now. But when (if) we do, I’d rather have a fighting chance than it being too late because the water is already up to my neck.

[Wowfunhappy]

Yes, except that I'm not convinced these laws reduce emissions, and I'm concerned they do the opposite. I realize the study being cited around this thread [1] was commissioned by the plastic industry and is thus suspect, but just based off of watching people in the checkout line at the grocery store, I see far too many shoppers buying "reusable" bags for me to believe they're actually being reused enough times. [2]

The inconveniences I'm describing are personal gripes, but I don't believe they only apply to me! On the contrary, I think they explain all the not-reused reusable bag sales. You can say "these people should just do X Y and Z", but unless they actually do that, plastic bag bans aren't helping the environment.

(If we're exclusively discussing my personal carbon emissions, I used to reuse every single one of my shopping bags as trash bags. Now I buy separate plastic trash bags instead, so my emissions have gone up.)

And then there's the other way they harm the environment: we need more people to give up their cars and move to cities (or form new walkable cities). If you make city life less convenient, fewer people will do that.

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1: https://www.freedoniagroup.com/press-releases/freedonia-repo...

2: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-environmental...

[latexr]

> If we're exclusively discussing my personal carbon emissions

No worries, we definitely aren’t.

Unfortunately I have an early flight tomorrow so won’t be able to continue the conversation. Still, thank you for the discussion. Have a nice <your time of day>.