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Green Policies Are a Scam
These are thoughts I’ve had for a long time. I think about writing something but never do it. Today has another trigger point in the news, so I’m pushing through and writing something. McDonalds is announcing that they are ditching their McFlurry spoons for a “more sustainable option.” From the article, “This small change will help reduce single-use plastic waste in restaurants – while giving customers the same delicious McFlurry they know and love,” McDonald’s said. “That’s a win-win in our book.”
Many years ago, Rush had insight to what these companies are really doing. Companies are always trying to reduce costs and increase profits. What the green movement gives them is cover for these monetary decisions. The company reduces supply costs, says that they’re really looking out for the environment, and it is a win-win. Material costs go down and they get plaudits from environmental groups. Will the decision make a noticeable difference to the environment? Doesn’t matter. The company can say that they are doing something, all the while shaving pennies off the unit price of production.
The frustrating part is how structurally weak products have become. One planned post-starter I had was a couple years ago when I was checking out at the grocery store. I bought something, maybe eggs, and the cashier warned me as she scanned them that the manufacturer had changed packaging and I needed to be careful handling it so it wouldn’t break on me and spill the contents. Another place I noticed changes is in two-liter bottles. It used to be I could pour a glass of the beverage with one hand. Now, the bottle will bend under the weight of the contents and I’ve had a thumb pinched between the lip and bottle as it bends in two. Plastic bags rip more easily. Paper grocery sacks are thinner and tear frequently when I unload the car.
I had planned to write something in May on the topic. I live in Albuquerque and my house is around 5,300 feet of elevation. My daughter had an end-of-year camping event for her American Heritage Girls group on the east side of the mountains. The campsite was around 7,200 feet. When I left for work Monday morning, I noticed this partially filled water bottle left in my truck. The thin-walled bottle was affected by a slight 2,000-foot change in elevation. It was enough to push in the sides. Notice the thin cap as well. Look greenies, we’re saving the environment.
I don’t begrudge companies making a profit. That’s what they’re there for. That, and to provide a service that the customer wants. What I don’t like is the appeal to environmentalists when they are really cutting production costs. Rush wanted conservationists to start claiming the color blue to differentiate themselves from the greens. He said that since the earth’s surface is 75% water, there’s more blue, and therefore we could claim to care more about the earth. It never caught on.
Published in Environment
Small annoyance along the lines of this post, I’ve recently noticed that the plastic of the storage baggies I use for refrigerating leftovers or opened deli packages, for example, has become noticeably lighter and thinner, and it tears more easily.
Scam is correct word. Like any good scam, a few people are making money at the expense of others. I don’t think bamboo spoons are a big money maker for McDonalds, but the environmental industrial complex makes money. My pet peeve these days is thin/fake straws. If you squeeze them wrong or suck too hard, they fail. Fake straws are a scam! The true irony is that in America all the waste ends up in hermetically sealed waste dumps where the biodegradable stuff *never* degrades.
ps. the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is also a scam. In reality is a few truckloads of glitter like plastic bits. If there was really a pile of garbage the size of Texas, surely it would have been photographed by now. As it is, we have more pictures of Bigfoot than the GPGP.
The ice cream machine is broken. Again.
The Green scam is bigger and ongoing, but the lockdown/Covid excuse was (is) just as bad. Restaurants started offering extremely restricted service, changed their menus, etc., all in the name of Covid bs. We felt sorry for them, rallied around and patronized them in a show of support so they wouldn’t go under.
Now it’s two years later and almost every restaurant I go to has stuck with all the restrictions. Why? Because they make a lot more money if they offer less for the same dollar, of course.
My favorite honey-tonk burger joint down the street was the best place for a burger and beer, watch the game and see your friends. And a short walk from my sailboat in the marina. During the lockdown it switched to to-go only, so you had to take your burger and onion rings in a styrofoam clamshell. Wow is it ever NOT the same experience.
After the lockdown, the owner discovered that by closing down his dishwasher and getting rid of the waitresses, he was making more money than he ever had before. So you still go in, order from the bar, then take your plastic bag containing styrofoam boxes and beer in a solo cup over to a table and unbox it all. Yuck. There goes my favorite roadhouse.
But he’s making money, so I guess some people don’t mind. At least with the “Green” crap they can pretend they are saving the planet or whatever. What a total scam.
Sounds like you – and everyone else – need to stop going there.
I did. And of course right after I bought a place that’s only half a mile away. After thirty years of driving around to that side of the lake for a Pinesburger and a beer. No more.
Good. And hopefully the owner knows why. As well as that – presumably – he would benefit by going back to the old ways.
As the gov likes to say, “The nation’s conscience.”
And those awful paper straws…
I like “shrinkflation.”
It stated with Rachel Carson and Silent Spring – how many people in Sub-Saharan Africa had died because of lies about DDT.
The last estimate I read on that was 60,000,000. But that was at least ten years ago.
Had another demonstration last night at the grocery store. Bought a few bottles of cola and had to use self-checkout (another peeve) because the only cashier had turned off her light. I put two in the flimsy plastic bag and picked it up to insert in another flimsy bag for more support. The bottom split open and the bottles fell to the floor.
My recent favorite “green” absurdity (by which I mean the lies greenies tell themselves about saving the planet) is the sticker I found on my (heavy duty) plastic milk jug congratulating me for not using a thinner-than-paper plastic bag. You can’t make this shite up.
Also, Colorado passed a law last year requiring vendors to charge 10 cents for every plastic bag you use to carry off your purchases. I sometimes point out the absurdity at the grocery store checkout line where nearly every damn item on the conveyer belt is packaged in plastic when it’s not in plastic wrapped in cardboard (cereal). Sheer idiocy.
I want the greenies to have to go one week without any products produced or moved with petroleum. Just one stinkin’ week. They’d be crying their eyes out after 24 hours — at most. Cell phones would be the first to go.
I would add “Low flow” toilets.
Recycling
The bird/batch Cuisinarts – windmills
Killing Natural Gas production and use
Many years ago, I read an article about how some “green” activists freely admitted that such regulations served no useful environmental purpose. They supported an endless stream of such regulations as a way to “train” the populace to be compliant to every government whim.
Yes, and places that are not actually doing curbside recycling etc, still maintain the separate bins etc must be used so that people retain the habit for later…
Today, both the recycle dumpsters in my condo complex had large notices posted on their lids, to the effect that no plastic bags are to be deposited in recycling.
Huh. I thought the whole recycling thing started to prevent things like plastic . . . uh. . . bags and the like from ending up in landfills.
A few years ago I read some articles about “low fat” milk. I concluded it’s no more healthy than regular milk; we changed back to regular milk and haven’t looked back.
I’m okay with 2%, but full-skim or even 1% are just colored water as far as I’m concerned.
The point was the jug, fellas. Not the contents.
About 4 million die each year from cooking over dung and not having cheap energy to provide clean water and sanitation. Energy is prosperity.
About 10¢ worth of DDT would cover the inside of a dwelling for about a year. No chance of any birds ingesting any, and the mosquitoes would cease to be a problem. No more West Nile virus, sleeping sickness, malaria, yellow fever, or dengue fever. That’s Rachel’s legacy.
Her legacy is a monstrous lie that has killed massive numbers of people.
Fair enough; just felt the need to mention that “low fat” milk is a garbage product.
I think it was way back in the 1970s that my wife and I realized that margarine was a nasty chemical compound with exactly the same calories as natural butter.
That was the end of margarine at our house. Took a lot longer to figure out the milk scam.
I don’t think I ever used margarine since living on my own. Mom used to get it just because it was cheaper.
As I recall, when I read about how if you leave butter in the kitchen sink it’ll eventually go down the drain, but margarine sits there forever, that’s what did it for me.
Yeah; my wife grew up in a family that used margarine exclusively, so that was her habitual buy. I kind of helped move that needle toward butter and once we were there the obvious flavor improvement was all it took.
But we remained dumb about milk for a long time.
Will coffee be stirred with a community spoon now? Lots of things we use are single use. Perhaps they’ll make us bring our own coffee mug . . .
Unless the birds are bald eagles or egg-laying chickens, I don’t care about birds.