<story><title>Plastic Straws Aren’t the Problem</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-07/plastic-straws-aren-t-the-problem</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chewbacha</author><text>The plastic straw boycott is not meant to fix the problem, that’s been acknowledged [0]. It’s to help drive a message and teach awareness. The hope being that people shift behaviors that impact other areas.&lt;p&gt;Everything helps at this point. Because something helps less shouldn’t mean we bash it. Collectively we should do more.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;17488336&amp;#x2F;starbucks-plastic-straw-ban-ocean-pollution&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;17488336&amp;#x2F;starbucks-plastic-str...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwaway76543</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s true that &amp;quot;everything helps.&amp;quot; I think many of these grandstanding initiatives are received with open mockery and I think they serve to undermine the credibility of the larger environmental effort.&lt;p&gt;Recently we have had some rather large political shifts which move the needle considerably further away from our ecological goals. If you look at what people are saying within these political circles you will see derisive phrases like &amp;quot;virtue signaling,&amp;quot; referring to exactly this sort of thing.&lt;p&gt;When you &amp;quot;send a message&amp;quot; you take work which might be perceived as mutually beneficial and you turn it into a fight. You should expect the response to be the inverse: People will begin to &lt;i&gt;intentionally destroy&lt;/i&gt; the environment to send you a message in return. This has been part of Trump&amp;#x27;s schtick over the last year. This is why there is a culture around &amp;quot;rolling coal.&amp;quot; This is actually happening.&lt;p&gt;This is extremely bad policy and it hurts the environment.</text></comment>
<story><title>Plastic Straws Aren’t the Problem</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-07/plastic-straws-aren-t-the-problem</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chewbacha</author><text>The plastic straw boycott is not meant to fix the problem, that’s been acknowledged [0]. It’s to help drive a message and teach awareness. The hope being that people shift behaviors that impact other areas.&lt;p&gt;Everything helps at this point. Because something helps less shouldn’t mean we bash it. Collectively we should do more.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;17488336&amp;#x2F;starbucks-plastic-straw-ban-ocean-pollution&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;17488336&amp;#x2F;starbucks-plastic-str...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Symmetry</author><text>I know, for myself, that people focusing on silly thing to &amp;quot;raise awareness&amp;quot; of a bigger problem has in the past tricked me into thinking that the larger problem was overblown.  Because of that and because our bandwidth for reaching people and people&amp;#x27;s patience with environmental messages is finite we really ought to concentrate on important topics rather than obsess over minutia.</text></comment>