Some people do push back on that figure and the statistics behind them. However I think that why they may have good points that they are also overreaching.
I did see different numbers, so yes, there is that.
But bankruptcy aside, there are issues.
Some people do not believe that single payer is at all an option. Most of the people I know of that bent do not want to pay higher taxes.
Then again, what is spiraling insurance rates but a tax? Even if you say it isn't, the money is gone. I spend at least as much on healthcare insurance as I do on Taxes. Funny how the people who shit their pants over any tax, make cricket noises about that little thing.
Some will say Government is corrupt. I say people are corrupt. Doesn't matter where you put corrupt people.Private industry is showing us that every day.
But because this statistic showed up as support for Obamacare, it means those opposed to Obamacare wanted to attack the evidence (despite the irony of the same people probably bitching about rising healthcare costs before Obamacare. since literally no one thought healthcare costs were reasonable).
I never took a poll, but my acquaintances who are dead set against socialized medicine are the recipients of socialized medicine. The meme of "Keep your filthy government hands off my Medicare" is their exact attitude. But they don't think they are having the government pay for them. Or if they understand that, mot think that everyone but them is mooching off the system. Well, maybe not their buddy down at the Legion - but yeah - everyone else.
"This American Life" did a great piece on dissecting the US Healthcare conundrum.
People too poor to get healthcare would use emergency rooms - the most expensive medical service on the planet.
Of course, they were too poor to pay
But there is that bill. Hospitals distribute that bill among the customers who do pay.
Health insurance rates go up because the bills have gone up.
Employers drop insuring employees. Many of these uninsured employees find the Emergency room healthcare route. They likewise can't afford to pay the bill. Hospitals re-distribute the costs again. Insurance rates go up again. Less people are insured. Emergency rooms again.
A classic positive feedback loop. This ship was taking on water, and listing bad.
O'BlamaCare, or better named Romneycare isn't all that hot. But it is a start. The problem is that before the Insurance system was going to collapse, there was a large amount of dollars to fight over. So fight we did.
Clearly the result of governmental meddling in the free market. Good thing we don't have socialized medicine for all. Any attempts to increase the fraction of the population covered by the socialized medicine we do have are just an attempt by the elite to take our freedoms and ruin the country - don't fall for it.
Just to be clear: I don't really mean that.
Roger, that. And to our proponents of the present system, even those who extol the pre Kenyan Terror baby O'Blamacare. Know this:
When over 40 percent of bankruptcies are because the shitty citizens simply cannot pay their medical bills, that means that the upstanding citizens like Martin Shkreli and Nirmal Mulye do not get their rightful and morally needed money. How can the good right thinking citizens put up with that sin. We need to start executing these foul creatures that are not providing God's emissaries on earth the money that is their due.
Seriously though, people who approve of people losing everything over a hospital bill nee do enjoy that experience for themselves.
Anyhow, time to decommercialise medicine. Yes, I know it sounds pinko commie socialist. Even so.
Why do you think markets can't correct this type of behavior?
"Goodwill" is also an asset - one that's actually quite valuable.
This CEO just shat all over whatever goodwill his company had.
And how! Ask Martin Shkreli, who tried this trick. What was funny was earlier headlines said that the Government couldn't do anything about it. NOw he's a convicted felon.
And that's the issue. Like it or not, Slashdot hardcore, there are some people in the world who won't sell their enemies the bullets to kill their countrymen.
Expect Nirmal Mulye's activities and those of his company to be examined in great detail. People who believe that profit is a matter of morality, will probably have many exceptionally interesting details of their activities just there for the plucking. Another popcorn and tequila party is in the offing. Kettle corn is great with cheap Tequila,
Obviously, your 'invisible hand of Supply vs Demand' isn't working in this particular Capitalist case. The problem is our perverted version of Capitalism.
There are things that should always be driven by market forces. Cars, houses, recreational activities.
There are some things that should never be driven by the profit motive, like health care.
If a country's leading cause of bankruptcy is medical bills https://www.clearbankruptcy.co... at 42 percent, It is kind of obvious that there is a problem.
And no amount of calling people commies or socialists is going to erase that figure.
I'd even venture that this is keeping good capitalistic medical companies from getting the money they deserve.
And having insurance often doesn't save your backside. Many bankrupt people had insurance.
Let's face it - even if there is something wrong with single payer, it does not follow that the US system, with the highest costs, and the leading cause of bankruptcy, is anywhere near good.
Regardless, I have made it clear in an advance directive, that if medical treatment is going to bankrupt my family, I'm going to refuse treatment and die as soon as possible, immediately if I can. Look for more of this.
are you a virtual slave to your employer because if you loose health insurance your self or one you love will surely die? Because thats the norm here for people approaching retirement.
Anyone who is not willing to quit their job and move across the country to find work in a new field that maybe offers better health care coverage really just hates America. They are the problem with the US health care system! Not the insurance companies! Not the employers!
I am not certain if you are poe-ing us or what. Here is an example that runs counter to your argument. My wife's boss has a blood clotting problem. His wife had a breast cancer issue, totally cured now.
His health insurance company wanted to drop him badly. To the point of charging him somewhere between 30 - 40 thousand a year. He tried to get insurance elsewhere. The answer was always no.
He was stuck. Had he been an employee, moving to another company would have left him completely unable to get insurance. Forced immobility, and at the mercy of the insurance company, and if an employee, employment
Who waits for an MRI for that long?
My co-worker had his MRI done within 2 hrs.
I have had MRIs scheduled within 2 days.
A fractured arm isn't an Emergency situation, people can go days without it being treated and be fine.
If the Triage at the ER receives people that are going to -die- without treatment, they will be bumped ahead of you. just like in the US.
You do realize that fractures start to knit immediately after the fracture. I had an aunt who needed her elbow re-broken because of that
False dilemmas aside, in a private system your healthcare decisions are not made by a faceless corporate bureaucracy. You can switch insurers, or pay out of pocket to go to another doctor. When the whole country is one system you have neither of those choices. You are literally forced to accept the fate handed to you by a single bureaucracy.
Precisely correct. After my father died, he switched insurers. The free market addresses everything and has never failed.
People die in the US from preventable diseases. Chronic disease. From stuffing twinkies in thier neck and loading up on a pound of beef when they are in the mood for a "healthy" meal.
Fear not citizen. There is a weight limit to get into heaven and recieve God's endless paradise. Fat 'Murricans adipose tissue is what powers the flames of hell.
I'm Canadian, and I can assure you that our "socialised" system is:
Damn expensive (50% of budget in Quebec)
Inefficient (people waiting 26 hours in an emergency room for a fractured arm)
Inefficient (people waiting 2 years for some basic surgeries)
Inefficient (people waiting 1 year for an MRI)
So please, don't say our system is better than in the US. People are not dying in the streets up here, but when you have a condition, you better be patient. A patient patient.
We need to stop providing all medicine anyhow. If God didn't want us to have diseases, he wouldn'g give them to us. When you treat a diseas with a man made medicine, you are working against God's divine will. Either die, or recover, and do it on your own dime and time. Canada will be treated to the fiery flames of hell.
>"...suddenly doesn't look quite so bad, does it?"
That is exactly what I was thinking.
>summary: "with many heralding their adoption as the death of the internet."
Well, no, but it might be the death of the "internet" in the EU. At some point they are going to go too far (this might be it) and companies will just give up and start blocking the EU and it will be like the great firewall of China, except in reverse. Then the EU can live in their own "digital utopia world" with as much censorship, manipulation, taxes, and control over information that they want.
While if the European Union wants to turn their internet into a latter day version of 1930 Germany''s Volksradio, for some reason they have the weird idea that they can force the rest of the world to appease their ideology.
Meanwhile I will be implementing measures to block people from the EU from accessing my web pages, And serving notice that citizens of the EU are not welcome on my sites, and that if they use efforts to get around that blocking, that is their problem.
One of my ground rules is when working a problem, I insist on working the problem.
But are you actually working on this problem or just complaining about the actions of others while theorising about an unworkable solution? Because if you're just doing the latter then you're doing even less than someone whose only response so far has been to use less plastic straws; but if saying they're the problem makes you feel better about your own lack of action then there's nothing I can do to stop you.
Well now, that's an interesting concept. My solution involves educating the people who are the exact cause of the problem, if possible motivating them by allowing them to gain some re-numeration, and perhaps lifting themselves out of dire poverty. Could be seeded via the UN - who is already doing work in that direction. Could be funded by well meaning people. Perhaps eventually be self sustaining.
But your concept of essentially telling me to STFU because I'm not personally involved - you don't even know what things I am involved in - just to fuel you and some people's latter-day crypto Calvinist drive to assuage your feelings of guilt because you have been inculcated to believe passionately that there is no problem on earth that isn't the fault of White Americans. I hate to bust up and trample your narrative, but no, not all problems are their fault.
Which is crypto-Calvinist because while at base, you blame yourself - or white 'Murricans if you are a person of color - but demand to make yourself feel good with silly and useless symbolic geegaws.
Because let's face it, pointless symbolic measures that do not one thing but make you feel better about yourself while doing nothing about a real problem is pretty narcissistic. The important question is why you feel bad about yourself in the first place. Carrying conflicting impulses like that is not good for the soul.
It's like asking a millionaire to keep his yard sanitary, even though the homeless guy by the river doesn't. When Europe was impoverished and industrializing it polluted a lot more too.
Also, a significant fraction of the pollution in the developing world is from the manufacture of products for developed world consumption -- and so altering consumption can still change the market incentives and help that problem.
Well, looks like the feelgood virtue signaling folks are in lockstep with President Trump. If we simply do not purchase our terrible plastic goods that we are using to destroy the earth - then thes oppressed third world countries will not sell them to us, and all will be in harmony. And the third world countries will enjoy a better life.
Just a question though. If this plastic that third world countries put into the ocean is the result of making plastic goods for the USA - how are they getting it back to put in to the ocean? Seems.......odd.
Anyhow - your support of Trump's tarriffs is acknowledged. Who knew?
I received a cardboard straw with my malt at an ice cream shop the other day. It wasn't weird or cardboardy, only noticed it was different because of the color. Had a waxy coating to protect it from liquid.
That waxy coating might be made from petroleum products.
Y'all need to talk to the people that cause the problem, not scream at some guy in Nebraska who probably recycles plastic anyhow.
The issue with this world view is that unless you have more to offer than talk how exactly do you expect to persuade poorer nations to change?
I've already addressed this in some other posts, but I'll try to do a listing here.
One of my ground rules is when working a problem, I insist on working the problem.
So the problem is that there are ten specific and known rivers that are putting over 90 percent of the plastic that ends up in the pacing and Atlantic Gyres.
The problem is also that after abrading or other decomposition, the plastic ends up in sea life.
The answer to the problem is to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean.
The way to do this is to interrupt the waste stream at it's source, not on a different continent.
Use human factors. Have people make some money to support themselves and their families. These places have people living on the brink, and who will be willing to invest the effort if it helps them feed their families. Might be a helpful way to bootstrap into a higher standard of living.
Now some people might feel good that they are reducing the amount of plastic by an almost immesurable amount. Does this solve the problem? No it does not.
Does your shaming solve the problem? It not only does not solve the problem - it puts you on an adversarial collision course with the very people you demand solve the problem. You are worse than worthless.
But hey, if banning plastic straws allows you to sleep at night as you signal your virtue to the world, then start a paper straw factory, and embrace the trees that you cut down right before the guys with the chain saws fell them.
You should add a caveat for the spineless Republicans too scared to do anything about it. I understand the larger point, however, that there's no active resistance.
Spineless Republicans - but there I go repeating myself! 8^)
Most of the plastic in the ocean comes from a handful of rivers. Put the giant trap in the mouths of those rivers, and you'll catch a lot more.
Yet the plastic shaming is aimed at the US and Europe.
Its like looking under a streetlamp for your lost keys when you know you didn't lose them there, but hey, the light's better.
No it isn't, so stop playing a victim. Article after article and paper after paper points out that sampling has shown that the vast majority of the material in the Pacific garbage patches, for example, is generated by China and about 10 other Asian countries, here the US is in 20th place. Basically he is right, plugging those sources of garbage would solve a huge part of the problem. This does not mean that plastic shaming is misplaced since use-once-and-throw-away plastic packaging is a huge problem, the need to solve it is pretty urgent and there is nothing wrong with pressuring politicos and industry to do that.
Sorry muchacho - chillaxe if you would. I was agreeing with him to an extent, but noting that the efforts have largely been aimed at banning straws and other virtue signaling efforts in places that are not the problem. I get UN notices about this, and yes, they spend a whole lot of time trying to make people feel good about abandoning plastic straws and cutting trees down instead.
An analogy, if I might. Here in the Northeast of the US, we have a lot of water (we're undergoing flooding as we speak) almost all of the time. There is almost never a need to conserve water, because it gets recycled via natural pathways. And we get much rain, and it is very green here.
People in California have a much different problem. There is not enough water in their ecosystem to support the number of people living there without constant conservation efforts. No amount of my conservation will help the people in California in water matters, even if they sometimes get angry at me if I water my lawn or wash my car, or take long showers.
Solve problems by means that will solve them, not feel-good measures.
Anyhow, my thoughts on traps are that they are stop gap. The people in these places need to start appreciating the art of recycling, which makes a more permanent solution.
Reducing use of plastic straws is nothing more than solving a problem that can be solved.
Explain how the US banning plastic straws solves the problem of Africa and China polluting the ocean with their plastic?
As much as I think about it, it just doesn't.
Sure there probably is some virtue signalling and other stuff too but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem or that we shouldn't bother.
I'd be all in favor of making posession and use of plastic straws a crime if I owned a facility that makes paper straws. Then again - why do we not ban straws altogether? Less trees cut down you know. You do care about the trees dont you?
Nobody who knows what they are talking about is claiming it is the biggest source of plastic pollution.
The problem isn't people who know what they are talking about. The problem is the cynical manipulation of people who have been trained to think that they are inherently evil because 'Murrica, and that if they only do something or another they will be saving the planet. So strange the streak of Calvinism in some modern folk.
The only result of banning plastic straws will be increased demand and profit for paper straw makers, more trees cut to make the paper straws, and people who feel good about themselves.
It's a relatively small part of the problem but if we can mitigate that waste stream then we damn well should. Plastic straws are merely low hanging fruit so pick it while we can.
So you don't really care about actually solving the problem do you? Trying to solve the problems of plastic in the ocean by banning something that won't end up there is something that makes no sense at all to me.
I get UN alerts about this issue, and rather than banning plastic straws that won't make a bit of difference, if I were on the project, I would try to use methods that attempt to stop the waste plastic flow where it is. They have had a few efforts that work the problem at the source, but too much is spent on making people who aren't the problem feel oh so good about themselves
Okay, we have China and Africa. We know the specific rivers. In order of pollution: Yangtze River, Indus River, Yellow River, Hai River, Nile River, The Ganges, Pearl River, Heilong River, Niger River, Mekong River. The top ten, responsible for over 90 percent of the problem.
So here in the US (I didn't notice any US rivers on that list, did you?) banning plastic straws will make effectively no impact at all on the problem.
People in those specific places must learn about recycling. Shaming might help with the Chinese - almost certainly better than the 'Murrican shaming at any rate.
Africa is a different subject altogether. Here's a partial solution. UN sets up plastic recycling plants near the ocean outlet of the rivers. Then we have the labor source. In Egypt, one Christian sect - the Coptics, have a tradition of scavenging at landfills.
Pay them for plastic retrieved from the rivers. Jump start it with UN money, or perhaps even donations from people here in 'Murrica. Start there.
I suspect that after China becomes the undisputed main source of plastic pollution, and with a constant reminder of that, they might decide that they too want to clean up their act.
Regardless, it is an attempt to actually address the problem, not make people feel good about themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Not true, here in the UK if you want to pay the cash you can either go private or go to another country.
Not certain who you are replying to. Some quotes would help.
Some people do push back on that figure and the statistics behind them. However I think that why they may have good points that they are also overreaching.
I did see different numbers, so yes, there is that.
But bankruptcy aside, there are issues.
Some people do not believe that single payer is at all an option. Most of the people I know of that bent do not want to pay higher taxes.
Then again, what is spiraling insurance rates but a tax? Even if you say it isn't, the money is gone. I spend at least as much on healthcare insurance as I do on Taxes. Funny how the people who shit their pants over any tax, make cricket noises about that little thing.
Some will say Government is corrupt. I say people are corrupt. Doesn't matter where you put corrupt people.Private industry is showing us that every day.
But because this statistic showed up as support for Obamacare, it means those opposed to Obamacare wanted to attack the evidence (despite the irony of the same people probably bitching about rising healthcare costs before Obamacare. since literally no one thought healthcare costs were reasonable).
I never took a poll, but my acquaintances who are dead set against socialized medicine are the recipients of socialized medicine. The meme of "Keep your filthy government hands off my Medicare" is their exact attitude. But they don't think they are having the government pay for them. Or if they understand that, mot think that everyone but them is mooching off the system. Well, maybe not their buddy down at the Legion - but yeah - everyone else.
"This American Life" did a great piece on dissecting the US Healthcare conundrum.
People too poor to get healthcare would use emergency rooms - the most expensive medical service on the planet.
Of course, they were too poor to pay
But there is that bill. Hospitals distribute that bill among the customers who do pay.
Health insurance rates go up because the bills have gone up.
Employers drop insuring employees. Many of these uninsured employees find the Emergency room healthcare route. They likewise can't afford to pay the bill. Hospitals re-distribute the costs again. Insurance rates go up again. Less people are insured. Emergency rooms again.
A classic positive feedback loop. This ship was taking on water, and listing bad.
O'BlamaCare, or better named Romneycare isn't all that hot. But it is a start. The problem is that before the Insurance system was going to collapse, there was a large amount of dollars to fight over. So fight we did.
Was she in life threatening danger? No? Did it ultimately get fixed and healed? It did? Yea thought so.
She could have been put in a physical state in which she might have had to get SSI - which of course, you'd shit your pants in anger about.
May you live to 120 and personally experience every part of the US healthcare system.
Your signature is a fascinating counterpoint to your post.
Yeah, when I'm in high sarcasm mode it tends to look a little strange.
That sucks. I really mean that.
Clearly the result of governmental meddling in the free market. Good thing we don't have socialized medicine for all. Any attempts to increase the fraction of the population covered by the socialized medicine we do have are just an attempt by the elite to take our freedoms and ruin the country - don't fall for it.
Just to be clear: I don't really mean that.
Roger, that. And to our proponents of the present system, even those who extol the pre Kenyan Terror baby O'Blamacare. Know this:
When over 40 percent of bankruptcies are because the shitty citizens simply cannot pay their medical bills, that means that the upstanding citizens like Martin Shkreli and Nirmal Mulye do not get their rightful and morally needed money. How can the good right thinking citizens put up with that sin. We need to start executing these foul creatures that are not providing God's emissaries on earth the money that is their due.
Seriously though, people who approve of people losing everything over a hospital bill nee do enjoy that experience for themselves.
But maybe it's what they teach at MBA courses.
Anyhow, time to decommercialise medicine. Yes, I know it sounds pinko commie socialist. Even so.
Why do you think markets can't correct this type of behavior?
"Goodwill" is also an asset - one that's actually quite valuable.
This CEO just shat all over whatever goodwill his company had.
And how! Ask Martin Shkreli, who tried this trick. What was funny was earlier headlines said that the Government couldn't do anything about it. NOw he's a convicted felon.
And that's the issue. Like it or not, Slashdot hardcore, there are some people in the world who won't sell their enemies the bullets to kill their countrymen.
Expect Nirmal Mulye's activities and those of his company to be examined in great detail. People who believe that profit is a matter of morality, will probably have many exceptionally interesting details of their activities just there for the plucking. Another popcorn and tequila party is in the offing. Kettle corn is great with cheap Tequila,
Obviously, your 'invisible hand of Supply vs Demand' isn't working in this particular Capitalist case. The problem is our perverted version of Capitalism.
There are things that should always be driven by market forces. Cars, houses, recreational activities.
There are some things that should never be driven by the profit motive, like health care.
If a country's leading cause of bankruptcy is medical bills https://www.clearbankruptcy.co... at 42 percent, It is kind of obvious that there is a problem.
And no amount of calling people commies or socialists is going to erase that figure.
I'd even venture that this is keeping good capitalistic medical companies from getting the money they deserve.
And having insurance often doesn't save your backside. Many bankrupt people had insurance.
Let's face it - even if there is something wrong with single payer, it does not follow that the US system, with the highest costs, and the leading cause of bankruptcy, is anywhere near good.
Regardless, I have made it clear in an advance directive, that if medical treatment is going to bankrupt my family, I'm going to refuse treatment and die as soon as possible, immediately if I can. Look for more of this.
In Phoenix, we had to wait 4 weeks to get an MRI scheduled (Wrist) Vs 2 Days in California (Neck) Vs 3 Days in Calgary, Canada (Neck/Upper Back)
Given personal experience, US can be much much worse.
Do not abuse the narrative with facts.
I wonder how many of these free market health insurance zealots are on medicare and or medicaid?
are you a virtual slave to your employer because if you loose health insurance your self or one you love will surely die? Because thats the norm here for people approaching retirement.
Anyone who is not willing to quit their job and move across the country to find work in a new field that maybe offers better health care coverage really just hates America. They are the problem with the US health care system! Not the insurance companies! Not the employers!
I am not certain if you are poe-ing us or what. Here is an example that runs counter to your argument. My wife's boss has a blood clotting problem. His wife had a breast cancer issue, totally cured now.
His health insurance company wanted to drop him badly. To the point of charging him somewhere between 30 - 40 thousand a year. He tried to get insurance elsewhere. The answer was always no.
He was stuck. Had he been an employee, moving to another company would have left him completely unable to get insurance. Forced immobility, and at the mercy of the insurance company, and if an employee, employment
Who waits for an MRI for that long? My co-worker had his MRI done within 2 hrs.
I have had MRIs scheduled within 2 days.
A fractured arm isn't an Emergency situation, people can go days without it being treated and be fine. If the Triage at the ER receives people that are going to -die- without treatment, they will be bumped ahead of you. just like in the US.
You do realize that fractures start to knit immediately after the fracture. I had an aunt who needed her elbow re-broken because of that
False dilemmas aside, in a private system your healthcare decisions are not made by a faceless corporate bureaucracy. You can switch insurers, or pay out of pocket to go to another doctor. When the whole country is one system you have neither of those choices. You are literally forced to accept the fate handed to you by a single bureaucracy.
Precisely correct. After my father died, he switched insurers. The free market addresses everything and has never failed.
People die in the US from preventable diseases. Chronic disease. From stuffing twinkies in thier neck and loading up on a pound of beef when they are in the mood for a "healthy" meal.
Fear not citizen. There is a weight limit to get into heaven and recieve God's endless paradise. Fat 'Murricans adipose tissue is what powers the flames of hell.
I'm Canadian, and I can assure you that our "socialised" system is:
So please, don't say our system is better than in the US. People are not dying in the streets up here, but when you have a condition, you better be patient. A patient patient.
We need to stop providing all medicine anyhow. If God didn't want us to have diseases, he wouldn'g give them to us. When you treat a diseas with a man made medicine, you are working against God's divine will. Either die, or recover, and do it on your own dime and time. Canada will be treated to the fiery flames of hell.
>"...suddenly doesn't look quite so bad, does it?"
That is exactly what I was thinking.
>summary: "with many heralding their adoption as the death of the internet."
Well, no, but it might be the death of the "internet" in the EU. At some point they are going to go too far (this might be it) and companies will just give up and start blocking the EU and it will be like the great firewall of China, except in reverse. Then the EU can live in their own "digital utopia world" with as much censorship, manipulation, taxes, and control over information that they want.
While if the European Union wants to turn their internet into a latter day version of 1930 Germany''s Volksradio, for some reason they have the weird idea that they can force the rest of the world to appease their ideology.
Meanwhile I will be implementing measures to block people from the EU from accessing my web pages, And serving notice that citizens of the EU are not welcome on my sites, and that if they use efforts to get around that blocking, that is their problem.
But are you actually working on this problem or just complaining about the actions of others while theorising about an unworkable solution? Because if you're just doing the latter then you're doing even less than someone whose only response so far has been to use less plastic straws; but if saying they're the problem makes you feel better about your own lack of action then there's nothing I can do to stop you.
Well now, that's an interesting concept. My solution involves educating the people who are the exact cause of the problem, if possible motivating them by allowing them to gain some re-numeration, and perhaps lifting themselves out of dire poverty. Could be seeded via the UN - who is already doing work in that direction. Could be funded by well meaning people. Perhaps eventually be self sustaining.
But your concept of essentially telling me to STFU because I'm not personally involved - you don't even know what things I am involved in - just to fuel you and some people's latter-day crypto Calvinist drive to assuage your feelings of guilt because you have been inculcated to believe passionately that there is no problem on earth that isn't the fault of White Americans. I hate to bust up and trample your narrative, but no, not all problems are their fault.
Which is crypto-Calvinist because while at base, you blame yourself - or white 'Murricans if you are a person of color - but demand to make yourself feel good with silly and useless symbolic geegaws.
Because let's face it, pointless symbolic measures that do not one thing but make you feel better about yourself while doing nothing about a real problem is pretty narcissistic. The important question is why you feel bad about yourself in the first place. Carrying conflicting impulses like that is not good for the soul.
Don't get irony, eh?
Enron,
It's like asking a millionaire to keep his yard sanitary, even though the homeless guy by the river doesn't. When Europe was impoverished and industrializing it polluted a lot more too.
Also, a significant fraction of the pollution in the developing world is from the manufacture of products for developed world consumption -- and so altering consumption can still change the market incentives and help that problem.
Well, looks like the feelgood virtue signaling folks are in lockstep with President Trump. If we simply do not purchase our terrible plastic goods that we are using to destroy the earth - then thes oppressed third world countries will not sell them to us, and all will be in harmony. And the third world countries will enjoy a better life.
Just a question though. If this plastic that third world countries put into the ocean is the result of making plastic goods for the USA - how are they getting it back to put in to the ocean? Seems.......odd.
Anyhow - your support of Trump's tarriffs is acknowledged. Who knew?
I received a cardboard straw with my malt at an ice cream shop the other day. It wasn't weird or cardboardy, only noticed it was different because of the color. Had a waxy coating to protect it from liquid.
That waxy coating might be made from petroleum products.
He's saying that you have to pick your nose.
Pick my nose? Sorry, but that's the nose I was born with...
The issue with this world view is that unless you have more to offer than talk how exactly do you expect to persuade poorer nations to change?
I've already addressed this in some other posts, but I'll try to do a listing here.
One of my ground rules is when working a problem, I insist on working the problem.
So the problem is that there are ten specific and known rivers that are putting over 90 percent of the plastic that ends up in the pacing and Atlantic Gyres.
The problem is also that after abrading or other decomposition, the plastic ends up in sea life.
The answer to the problem is to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean.
The way to do this is to interrupt the waste stream at it's source, not on a different continent.
Use human factors. Have people make some money to support themselves and their families. These places have people living on the brink, and who will be willing to invest the effort if it helps them feed their families. Might be a helpful way to bootstrap into a higher standard of living.
Now some people might feel good that they are reducing the amount of plastic by an almost immesurable amount. Does this solve the problem? No it does not.
Does your shaming solve the problem? It not only does not solve the problem - it puts you on an adversarial collision course with the very people you demand solve the problem. You are worse than worthless.
But hey, if banning plastic straws allows you to sleep at night as you signal your virtue to the world, then start a paper straw factory, and embrace the trees that you cut down right before the guys with the chain saws fell them.
You should add a caveat for the spineless Republicans too scared to do anything about it. I understand the larger point, however, that there's no active resistance.
Spineless Republicans - but there I go repeating myself! 8^)
Most of the plastic in the ocean comes from a handful of rivers. Put the giant trap in the mouths of those rivers, and you'll catch a lot more.
Yet the plastic shaming is aimed at the US and Europe.
Its like looking under a streetlamp for your lost keys when you know you didn't lose them there, but hey, the light's better.
No it isn't, so stop playing a victim. Article after article and paper after paper points out that sampling has shown that the vast majority of the material in the Pacific garbage patches, for example, is generated by China and about 10 other Asian countries, here the US is in 20th place. Basically he is right, plugging those sources of garbage would solve a huge part of the problem. This does not mean that plastic shaming is misplaced since use-once-and-throw-away plastic packaging is a huge problem, the need to solve it is pretty urgent and there is nothing wrong with pressuring politicos and industry to do that.
Sorry muchacho - chillaxe if you would. I was agreeing with him to an extent, but noting that the efforts have largely been aimed at banning straws and other virtue signaling efforts in places that are not the problem. I get UN notices about this, and yes, they spend a whole lot of time trying to make people feel good about abandoning plastic straws and cutting trees down instead.
An analogy, if I might. Here in the Northeast of the US, we have a lot of water (we're undergoing flooding as we speak) almost all of the time. There is almost never a need to conserve water, because it gets recycled via natural pathways. And we get much rain, and it is very green here.
People in California have a much different problem. There is not enough water in their ecosystem to support the number of people living there without constant conservation efforts. No amount of my conservation will help the people in California in water matters, even if they sometimes get angry at me if I water my lawn or wash my car, or take long showers.
Solve problems by means that will solve them, not feel-good measures.
Anyhow, my thoughts on traps are that they are stop gap. The people in these places need to start appreciating the art of recycling, which makes a more permanent solution.
Quiet, you'll harsh his agenda.
I fear I took your good advice too, too late...
Reducing use of plastic straws is nothing more than solving a problem that can be solved.
Explain how the US banning plastic straws solves the problem of Africa and China polluting the ocean with their plastic?
As much as I think about it, it just doesn't.
Sure there probably is some virtue signalling and other stuff too but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem or that we shouldn't bother.
I'd be all in favor of making posession and use of plastic straws a crime if I owned a facility that makes paper straws. Then again - why do we not ban straws altogether? Less trees cut down you know. You do care about the trees dont you?
Nobody who knows what they are talking about is claiming it is the biggest source of plastic pollution.
The problem isn't people who know what they are talking about. The problem is the cynical manipulation of people who have been trained to think that they are inherently evil because 'Murrica, and that if they only do something or another they will be saving the planet. So strange the streak of Calvinism in some modern folk.
The only result of banning plastic straws will be increased demand and profit for paper straw makers, more trees cut to make the paper straws, and people who feel good about themselves.
It's a relatively small part of the problem but if we can mitigate that waste stream then we damn well should. Plastic straws are merely low hanging fruit so pick it while we can.
So you don't really care about actually solving the problem do you? Trying to solve the problems of plastic in the ocean by banning something that won't end up there is something that makes no sense at all to me.
I get UN alerts about this issue, and rather than banning plastic straws that won't make a bit of difference, if I were on the project, I would try to use methods that attempt to stop the waste plastic flow where it is. They have had a few efforts that work the problem at the source, but too much is spent on making people who aren't the problem feel oh so good about themselves
Okay, we have China and Africa. We know the specific rivers. In order of pollution: Yangtze River, Indus River, Yellow River, Hai River, Nile River, The Ganges, Pearl River, Heilong River, Niger River, Mekong River. The top ten, responsible for over 90 percent of the problem.
So here in the US (I didn't notice any US rivers on that list, did you?) banning plastic straws will make effectively no impact at all on the problem.
People in those specific places must learn about recycling. Shaming might help with the Chinese - almost certainly better than the 'Murrican shaming at any rate.
Africa is a different subject altogether. Here's a partial solution. UN sets up plastic recycling plants near the ocean outlet of the rivers. Then we have the labor source. In Egypt, one Christian sect - the Coptics, have a tradition of scavenging at landfills.
Pay them for plastic retrieved from the rivers. Jump start it with UN money, or perhaps even donations from people here in 'Murrica. Start there.
I suspect that after China becomes the undisputed main source of plastic pollution, and with a constant reminder of that, they might decide that they too want to clean up their act.
Regardless, it is an attempt to actually address the problem, not make people feel good about themselves.