Tommy Siegel | Bluesky | website

Transcript

Comic in 4 Panels:

Header: It’s That Easy!

Panel 1: The year is 1994. A dad with short black hair, in a blue shirt, red shorts, and white sneakers with calf high white socks, kneels with one arm resting on a knee and the other raised demonstratingly in front of a kid in a green ball cap, yellow shirt, blue pants, and green sneakers. There is a round metal trash can behind them.

Dad: Pick up your litter and save the Earth!

Panel 2: The year is 2004. Same dad, but in brown cargo shorts, brown shoes, and ankle high white socks speaking to the same kid. There is a green recycle bucket behind them.

Dad: Recycle and you can save the Earth!

Panel 3: The year is 2014. Same dad, but wearing a bike helmet, black athletic pants, and black sneakers to the same kid. A bike is behind them.

Dad: Reduce your carbon footprint and you can save the Earth!

Panel 4: The year is 2024. Same dad, but he’s in the same outfit from panel 1. There is a massive fire behind them.

Dad: Completely restructure global economic systems and you may be able to save a remnant of humanity!

  • arrow74@lemmy.zip
    4·
    22 hours ago

    We could ban single use plastic containers globally, we have alternatives that work quite well. Bamboo can replace all plastic utensils.

    Hell most of the plastic alternatives if scaled would likely be a carbon sink. Grow plants to make packaging, as plants grow they absorb carbon, packaging is discarded, then sealed away in a land fill trapping the carbon.

    It probably wouldn’t be net 0 given the industry around production and transport, but still a lot better than what we’re doing.

    • balsoft@lemmy.ml
      11·
      21 hours ago

      sealed away in a land fill trapping the carbon

      This is generally not how it works and/or a bad idea. Anaerobic bacteria tend to reduce carbon compounds to CH₄ (as opposed to CO₂ - makes sense). It is a lot worse as a greenhouse gas, and it will eventually bubble up and escape from the landfills, we can’t realistically seal them in the same way as ancient peatlands did for our current oil and gas reserves.

      A better way is to recycle that packaging into mulch/fertilizer of some kind so that this carbon is absorbed, directly or indirectly, by newly growing trees.

      • arrow74@lemmy.zip
        1·
        20 hours ago

        Fair enough, my understanding was that most modern landfills were so full and sealed that they limited the ability for waste to breakdown significantly.

        If we get the infrastructure there mulch and compost away