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"Almost none"? Not even remotely true. Not the majority but we certainly contribute plenty. We are in the top 20 as far as plastic polluting countries go so, let's not get too proud of ourselves for not being the worst of the worst.

Adding up the "Marine Debris" column in your source, the U.S. is responsible for just 1.00% - 1.04% of the ocean plastic produced by the top 20 nations. If you include the rest of the world rather than just the top 20, it's almost certainly less than 1%. Considering the U.S. represents 4.3% of the world's population, I'd say we're doing a pretty good job. You'll notice that the "% mismanaged waste" column in your chart puts the U.S. at only 2%, while most of the others are up around 80%-90%. So basically the reason the U.S. makes the top 20 is because of it's the third-most populous country on the planet, not because it's a prodigious contributor to plastic waste in the oceans (measured either by tons or kg per capita).

Our country (USA) is responsible for almost none of the plastic in the ocean.

"Almost none"? Not even remotely true. Not the majority but we certainly contribute plenty. We are in the top 20 as far as plastic polluting countries go so, let's not get too proud of ourselves for not being the worst of the worst.

We do lead by example by generally not littering, by reusing bags, by recycling them, and by disposing of them properly.

Are you shitting me? We litter plenty - just spend a little time cleaning up along a highway if you don't believe me. I have. In 2014 the US produced approximately 100 billion plastic bottles and an estimated 14% of those ended up as litter. We litter a huge amount. Just because you don't see it where you live doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Literally almost every grocery store in the US uses tens of thousands of disposable plastic one use bags every day and we certainly don't dispose of an awful lot of them properly. (protip - a landfill is not proper disposal of a plastic bag in most cases) Reportedly we use about 1 million of them per minute on average. 91% of plastic we use isn't recycled and plastic bags are certainly a non-trivial piece of that 91%. About 40% of plastic is used for packaging of one sort or another.

Banning plastic bags (and straws) here would change very, very little in waste except make it more inconvenient for most people.

We already have paper bags and people can bring their own and we already have paper straws and people can bring their own of those too. Exactly who is being inconvenienced here? Now paper to be fair has its own pollution problems, but let's not pretend we're putting some huge burden on anyone. Nobody is claiming banning plastic straws is some cure-all but it's a low hanging fruit that does solve a measurable part of the problem. Your argument is that we shouldn't solve a small part of the problem just because we haven't solved the bigger parts of the problem yet. That's idiotic.

I imagine styrofoam is more of a problem, anyway.

What you imagine is irrelevant and in this case wrong as well. You appear to lack the data to really understand the problem.

https://www.earthday.org/2018/...

The USA is at the very bottom of that list ranked #20. So sure, we're not innocent. Ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the plastic pouring into the oceans is from other countries isn't going to help the situation though.

This then suggests a simple fix for global warming - we just need to move Earth into a slightly higher orbit. A few hundred well-placed nuclear bombs ought to do it.

Yes, but not a new idea. The slogan for Earth Day 2012 was "Mobilize The Earth":

For Earth Day 2012 we are mobilizing the planet simply to say one thing: the Earth won't wait. It seems that environmental issues have been put on the back burner as we are in the midst of a global recession. It is time for us to Mobilize the Earth

However, I was disappointed when their implementation did not even begin to approach my own vision.

We'll never get to witness that, either Sol will become a red giant first, consuming anything that still lives on the earth, or, the gravity of the black hole with eat the earth before Sol succumbs. Either way, we'll already be dead.

Unless, of course, you have reservations at Milliway's

Considering this year's Earth Day slogan,
There may yet be another option...

Personally, I use KVim. I set the font to something san-serif, big, and very readable, repeatedly use the 'j' and 'k' keys (for ease of scrolling), and use marks ("m[a-zA-Z]" and "m'"). I also make the KVim window really big, but not full-screen; I keep the title bar on the screen.

I do this on my monsterous LCD monitor, and this helps.

Usually, I prefer to save a tree.

Human activity is now effecting the planet's ecology at levels never seen before NYTIMES: Forget Nature. Even Eden is Engineered..

The total world-wide human environmental footprint is now so large that we use up resources at a rate faster than the biosphere can regenerate. The original report at the PNAS is here (you need a subscription to read the entire text) Tracking the Ecological Overshoot of the human economy. The story was summarized in news papers about a month or so ago (sorry, can't find now) but the basic message is that overall we are annually using up 120% of what the earth can regenerate. The typical American is using up 22 acres of resources, topping the list by far. If everyone on the planet lived like an American, we would need a biosphere at least 5 times as large. For comparison, there are only 4.5 acres per person for use given our *current* population.

To learn more about sustainable living, check out Redifining Progress.

Glaciers and large meteors are also forces of nature and look what they have done. I personally can make choices and so can you. I'm in the process of a massive yet completely doable and non-ascetic lifestyle change by selling my oversized mansion of a house, moving onto a bus line and close to an in-city farmer's market. According to the Ecological Footprint Quiz at earthday.org, the differences between my old and new dwelling, my car vs. bus use and shopping habits will have me reduce my footprint from 33 (!!) acres to 14. (I probably still fly too much on airplanes).

Human activity is now effecting the planet's ecology at levels never seen before NYTIMES: Forget Nature. Even Eden is Engineered..

The total world-wide human environmental footprint is now so large that we use up resources at a rate faster than the biosphere can regenerate. The original report at the PNAS is here (you need a subscription to read the entire text) Tracking the Ecological Overshoot of the human economy. The story was summarized in news papers about a month or so ago (sorry, can't find now) but the basic message is that overall we are annually using up 120% of what the earth can regenerate. The typical American is using up 22 acres of resources, topping the list by far. If everyone on the planet lived like an American, we would need a biosphere at least 5 times as large. For comparison, there are only 4.5 acres per person for use given our *current* population.

To learn more about sustainable living, check out Redifining Progress.

Glaciers and large meteors are also forces of nature and look what they have done. I personally can make choices and so can you. I'm in the process of a massive yet completely doable and non-ascetic lifestyle change by selling my oversized mansion of a house, moving onto a bus line and close to an in-city farmer's market. According to the Ecological Footprint Quiz at earthday.org, the differences between my old and new dwelling, my car vs. bus use and shopping habits will have me reduce my footprint from 33 (!!) acres to 14. (I probably still fly too much on airplanes).