Bullshit Goes Green

I was in a liquor store the other day (I can handle it, it’s fine. FINE.) when I realized they were giving away free plastic bags with your purchases. I was quite impressed, and I said so.

Why? Because over the past few years, using free plastic bags to take your ridiculously expensive wine to your car without fumbling it like Chevy Chase playing Gerald Ford has become a rarity. What was once expected as part of the customer service experience has become an act akin to walking about with a swastika armband.

It’s all about saving Mother Earth, you Mother Earth Molesters. Where’s your cloth bag? I’m old. I forget shit, like cloth bags and pants. This is hard for me.

But here’s the question so many people never seem to ask when it comes to feelgood environmental initiatives: What is the actual fucking point? What outrage against the blue marble are we addressing here?

The answer is; not much of one, to be honest. As a matter of fact, our sudden aversion to plastic bags, already made biodegradable by some virgins in lab coats, doesn’t make much sense.

According to a recent report by the Nature Conservancy, the percentage of “Mismanaged Plastic Waste” accounted for by North America as a whole is…wait for it: 0.9%. That’s it. That’s the reason you can’t get a plastic bag anymore.

Essentially, tossing plastic waste into the ecosystem is a Third World problem. Almost entirely. Take a guess who the worst polluter is? It’s not even close: China, at 28%. In addition to losing entire viruses and enslaving people to make Nikes and Macbooks, turns out the folks in charge of the PRC have been rather naughty on this score, too. North America’s share of plastic waste is beaten easily by single countries like South Africa (three times as much).

Now surely this cannot be a surprise. Anyone who’s traveled in the Third World knows that seeing trees festooned with discarded bags is a common sight. The anti-littering ethos we all take for granted here is a work in progress there. I have personal experience of this from traveling in Brazil.

Remember that scene in Anchorman when they all throw their ice creams on the ground? Or when Ron Burgundy knocked Jack Black off his Harley with a carelessly tossed burrito? That was North America in the 1970s, when I was growing up. Pretty accurate description, actually.

But then, they put that ad with the crying Indian Chief on TV, and we all started using the trash cans. You didn’t want to make him cry, because it was rude. Brazil hasn’t yet gotten there. There’s still a lot of public shaming required. Maybe a sobbing Guarani or Mapuche too.

The point is; we’re all being penalized for stuff we stopped doing years ago. Kind of like white supremacy, I guess. I don’t know what the figures are, but if my experience is any indication, here’s what North Americans do with plastic bags today:

1. They recycle them.

2. They use them as trash bags in the home.

Point 2 gets me thinking conspiratorially (not hard these days). Is anyone calling for a ban on plastic garbage bags? Of course not. You’re gonna toss used diapers in a paper bag? Yuck.

But will Glad sell more plastic bags when you can’t get them for free at Walmart, or less? I smell a rat here. At any rate, given what my family uses plastic bags for, I’m confident we are not fucking Mother Earth at all. Not even telling off-colour jokes in front of her. Remember: 0.9% percent, folks. When you gasp in horror at the Pacific trash vortex, be confident that you’re not responsible for that one. Now Burkina Faso, on the other hand…

This brings me to the larger point. Remember the Holy Paris Accords that mean orange man pulled the US out of? They commit the western nations to substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, often allowing Third World polluters more leeway. China, for instance, produces 28% of CO2 emissions in the world, compared to the US figure of 11%, according to rhg.com. China’s CO2 emissions have tripled since 1990, and she is still building coal-fired power plants at a breakneck pace. Given China’s sorry safety record on many fronts, the fact that she isn’t building more nuclear plants may be a blessing in disguise. How do you say “meltdown” in Mandarin?

The fact is, China gets a pass, along with other Third World countries, in many areas. While we ban plastic straws, China subsidizes dirty coal. And it’s not just China: There are a great many flowery promises of climate action in the Paris Agreement, but if you read the fine print, it’s often contingent on massive amounts of foreign aid. Take Egypt, for example. Simply to meet their Paris commitments will take 73 billion dollars US. Hang on, it’s here somewhere.

And Canada, pure-hearted, earnest Canada? Responsible for 2% of global emissions, despite having one of the world’s largest energy sectors? Just in case, we’re destroying our domestic oil production. But we still need oil, so we’ll bring it in from Saudi Arabia. Wonder how their green initiatives are going?

Yes, there’s a lot of flat-earther, Genesis-is-literal thinking among the anti-Paris MAGA set. There’s no denying it. But much of the opposition to the Paris Accords stems from the not-unreasonable suspicion that it’s a bum deal. America: throw out those straws. China: smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

From my perspective, much of the theatre around plastic bags and straws is camouflage for a reinforcement of the status quo that has made the 1%’s stock portfolios swell to gigantic proportions. Keep moving manufacturing offshore. Play it clean here, dirty there. Keep costs down. Give people shit for taking their kids to Disneyland, while you move massive cargo ships burning oil around the world like a kid playing Risk.

The truth is, like Mark Carney, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor who now has a book out preaching planet-solving, pro-Paris solutions, the Davos set are absolute hypocrites on this score. Carney opposes pipelines in Canada, yet happily invests in, and profits from them, in the Third World.

Hang on a sec? I thought it was all one planet. These pipelines aren’t on Mercury. Either coal is bad everywhere, or nowhere. Ditto oil. It seems to me like the Paris Accords, and all the green posturing that goes with them are just so much feel-good bullshit.

If it’s really a “Climate Emergency,” then maybe we can do without cheap shit from China for a while, until they clean up their act. After all, what do all those city-sized container ships that bring that stuff here run on? Unicorn farts?