> I agree. This seems like they treating symptoms of the problem than the actual cause.
How do you agree with something when you don't even take 2 minutes to read a bit more, especially about what you're complaining about? They're not only trying to pick up plastics in the ocean, but also stop plastic from going from the rivers that flow into the oceans, and preventing plastic from entering the rivers in the first place.
If you are a normal individual and don’t control or have influence over the largest polluters in the world it seems to me your options are either:
- Come at it from an angle assuming people and nations will continue to pollute and try to clean up the mess (what this group is doing). It is a bit defeatist but more realist than other takes. I would assert that it is the opposite of helplessness. This is a group actually doing something that they are capable of doing and having some impact. Likely more impact than your or I.
- Try to shame individuals into doing better. This seems to have limited success as collective action today is much weaker than in the past, and this is more of a systems / incentives / externalities problem than an individual one.
Oh, yeah, it's so out of reach to force companies (entities made by and comprising of humans) to not use a packaging that destroys the earth (the place where humans live).
- There is the financial solution: taxing the hell out of plastic packaging.
- There is the policy solution: simply not allowing plastic products.
- There is the consumer solution: people refusing to buy plastic crap.
- There is the R&D solution: producing better packaging (biodegradable, non-toxic etc)
- There is the waste disposal solution: making sure plastic is properly separated and recycled/upcycled/disposed of.
This is not a problem that's out of reach, it's a problem of human greed, wrong incentives, no political will, and general population apathy. But yeah, when babies start being born en massse with disabilities and grown ups start dying due to microplastics accumulation in soft tissues, the apathy will turn to anger, and suddenly political will will be there!
But for now, all we have is relying on a Dutch guy's startup to clean our rivers and oceans cause we simply.gotta.drink.from.a.plastic.bottle. \s.
All I’m saying is that there is a huge machine backed my more money than can be reasoned about which doesn’t care about the environment.
It’s been an almost 100 year battle to get laws and business culture to be more mindful.
It’s clear that it doesn’t really work. At best it works, but far too slowly.
The most any small group of people can do is treat symptoms.
I don’t have faith in our ability to solve the root cause in the face of the political-industrial machine.
Just in 2020 we saw crypto explode. An insane money hungry machine that burned energy to literally waste time so that the value of a record in a ledger increased.
Both individuals and large businesses jumped on that trend with 0 care towards the environment.
LLMs are similar in terms of energy consumption as well.
How do you agree with something when you don't even take 2 minutes to read a bit more, especially about what you're complaining about? They're not only trying to pick up plastics in the ocean, but also stop plastic from going from the rivers that flow into the oceans, and preventing plastic from entering the rivers in the first place.