Essay talk:Sunday school environmentalism/Archive1

This is a badly-needed article....
...and one that we should develop/create links around. Bit since "Sunday school environmentalism" gets 2 google hits and "greenwashing" gets 2,160,000...could we talk about a rename? TheoryOfPractice 15:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It thought about that, but "greenwashing" refers to corporations doing it and trying to hide behind it. This is a far more general thing and I'm not opposed to creating terms that may one day put RW higher up the google ranks for it (I just used this title because it came to be a few months ago and seemed to stick in my head). But, I'm happy to put it to the mob for a better name (I'm against "woo envrionmentalism" because I don't think it is "woo" as such). Anyway, links and references are important, this is mostly working from memory of when I did a Green Chemistry module about two years ago; it was real interesting stuff to calculate the life-cycle assessments of plastic milk bottles vs glass milk bottles and the plastic ones come out better! 16:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Just now I came within a carriage return of adding greenwashing as a redlink. My years on wikipedia have encouraged boldness at the keyboard, but I'm still feeling my way around the mission here. Waddaya think? Sprocket J Cogswell 16:40, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Be bold. Otherwise, add it to the To Do list to test the waters. Or just go for it, if you think it's a good idea, then people will probably agree with you, it's the ones that people aren't sure of, or "maybe but maybe not" that cause endless mission discussions. 17:31, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Must have been my fat fingers' spelling that made it look like a redlink in me edit preview. Looks like greenwashing has been around for a little while. We now return to your regularly scheduled program. Sprocket J Cogswell 01:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Bronze?
If not silver. What's visibly lacking? - David Gerard (talk) 13:28, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Bronzed it. Any reason not to silver it? - David Gerard (talk) 10:55, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Silver
So there. - David Gerard (talk) 16:13, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Plastic bags
Funny, I thought that degradable bags were supposed to solve the problem with the plastic bags that didn't end up in a landfill...--ZooGuard (talk) 13:36, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * They don't turn into not-plastic - they just turn into tiny fragments of plastic - David Gerard (talk) 13:39, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The point of degradable bags is that it just speeds up the normal degradation process. The eventual pollutants are still there, especially the additives; namely the dyes, plasticisers and the coatings that prevent it them from sticking together - and the catalysts in the case of the earlier plastic bags. The case of the ones that get blown around are interesting, but they're very, very few compared to the number that are actually used in total. They still take a long time to degrade, and just leave a soggy mess from what I can gather, so pretty much don't solve the problem at all. Giving people permanent bags that aren't considered disposable and are higher density so don't blow about is a far more effective solution. 11:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I've had my five canvas grocery bags for running on to 20 years now, still as good as new for their purpose. I still screw up once in a while and go shopping (grocery or otherwise) and forget to bring my own, so I end up responsible for probably 20-30 paper or plastic bags every year (not counting take-out food packaging, I guess).  12:33, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't bother yourself over a few plastic bags a year, as you say, most of it is in the packaging by far. You probably breathe out more CO2 walking around a supermarket than is released in plastic bag production (I'd have to check that, but it seems reasonable-ish, it's certainly not very high; driving there and back is probably the big one). Although paper bags, if I remember rightly from doing the calculations in a Clean Tech workshop, is more damaging than plastic in production; even though it "degrades" faster. 12:48, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * We actually find ourselves running out of disposable shopping bags around the house. A bit too efficient - David Gerard (talk) 12:50, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * People who use them to pick up their dog's poop are, of course, exempt. At Armond, I can't "not breathe", and I do have to get to the market/stores somehow.  I have however, "not used" 15-20 thousand plastic bags.  So they were never made.  I have also lowered my electric bill 40% over several years (new Energy Star fridge was 10%, $20/month!), mostly, it seems, by buying CFLs.  13:12, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yuh. In the UK, you can hardly move without tripping over someone giving away CFLs. The electrickery companies were required to do something useful, so the cheapest thing they could think of was to send a coupla CFLs to all their customers. I have for many years used daylight-spectrum CFLs around the house, which cost a bit more (about 5 quid off eBay instead of 89p at Asda) but are soooo much nicer. And CFLs wherever I don't care about the colour - David Gerard (talk) 13:15, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I wasn't telling anyone to not breathe just kind of giving a comparison. And you can always bus, or get it delivered - as this uses mass transport and only has to cover redundant distances once, it is more efficient, although probably only in urban areas. Speaking of fridges, I need to pester by landlord into buying me a new one, the heat pump is so damn inefficient that I never have to switch the radiator on in the kitchen. I'm 100% CFL in the flat now, though. 13:19, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * A serious reason not to use plastic bags - at least for those who live on the edge of the Irish Sea - is that they end up blown into the sea where leatherback turtles confuse them with jellyfish - their staple diet - with disaterous results. WP has one third of adult leatherback turtles as having ingested plastic bags. Placeholder (talk) 13:58, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Cover worthiness?
I'd love this to be coverworthy. (I'm all for getting our all-but-dead-and-decaying cover article pool stirred up again.) Things it could do with: - David Gerard (talk) 11:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * a better title. "Pseudoenvironmentalism" is not quite it, nor "Environmentalism woo". Its ambit is pretty clear (things suburbanites think are helpful that aren't), so there must be a title that expresses that obviously and elegantly.
 * moar. Just moar. It feels like it can't be all coverage there is of the subject, though I'm not sure off the top of my head what else it needs.
 * the usual line-by-line jaundiced eye.
 * I don't think so. Needs more research to back it up as most of the original content was culled from my Green Chemistry and Clean Technology lectures. I'm happy that it's right, but I'd like to back it up with some research if it can be found. 11:56, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I see where David is coming from here. This article has great potential, and is mostly already a great third draft.  But since it talks so much about "real" environmental issues, the title could possibly be broader (environmentalism?) with a sub-section for the "Sunday School" variety?  Damn, that would be a lot of editing to achieve.  01:16, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Data
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/18/energy_idiocy_survey/ - David Gerard (talk) 21:15, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * To put it mildly, the Register is not exactly impartial in environmental issues, so it's better to reference (and read) the original report: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/08/06/1001509107.abstract (full text in PDF is available).--ZooGuard (talk) 05:28, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, the issue is that The Register seems to have done what most media outlets do and take a general point and twist it to their conclusion. In the case of that article, the punchline seemed to be "stop listening to experts" or something like that, which isn't true. The original will be worth looking into and including, though. 11:33, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Change title to Pseudoenvironmentalism
I know I suggested and rejected this before, but on thinking about it, it's a better name, and adequately covers what the article is about, without being "[seven syllables]-environmentalism" - "pseudo" may actually cover it. Anyone think the present title is actually better than that? - David Gerard (talk) 10:00, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Not at all. This is one vote to re-name. We have to admit that pseudoenvironmentalism is, itself, its own brand of pseudoscience. And we create an article on it, ours is likely not to be corrupted with the traditional right-wing bias often found on the topic. 10:05, 21 January 2012 (UTC)


 * "Real" environmentalism can involve pseudoscience - witness Monbiot having to call out his compadres for being unable and unwilling to use actual numbers - David Gerard (talk) 13:44, 21 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes and no on the rename. Sunday school environmentalism is the reduction of environmentalism to things like paper bags over plastic, biodegradable plastic bags, using paper instead of styrofoam boxes for Chicken McNuggets, and buying "green" batteries and detergent. These are all easy things to do, they make you feel good, and their overall effectiveness is negligible.  I liken it to Keep American Beautiful and the anti-litter campaigns of the 1970s.  For the longest, people thought ecology was synonymous with "don't litter".  Pseudoenvironmentalism is something else altogether, and we already have articles on it: greenwashing and anti-environmentalism.  Good point also about real environmentalism can involve pseudoscience.  Gaia hypothesis woo and extreme Malthusianism come to mind.  Secret Squirrel (talk) 13:49, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * For the rename: This is just a term I made up one day out of nowhere.
 * Against the name: It's just a term that we'll have stuck "pseudo" in front of. We do this with a lot of things, I don't think it helps to just throw that around too much.
 * Other than that, what Squirrel says. I think the overlap with what is here and pseudoscience, which is the connotation you'll develop if you change the name to pesudoenvironmentalism, is minimal. Wrong ideas are not pseudoscience. Outdated ideas are not pseudoscience. Misconceptions are not pseudoscience. Scarlet A.pngpathetic 14:36, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Armondikov and Secret Squirrel make good points and I agree with them.  02:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Speaking of Earth Hour...
Not content to merely scoff at a silly gesture, Red State encourages its followers to increase power consumption to piss off those damned Libbruls. They even make reference to North Korea. --TheLateGatsby (The end of the dock ) 19:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
 * See also: Earth Hour.--ZooGuard (talk) 21:26, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Plastic bags
So.... what is wrong with using the (cardboard) boxes that comes with the pallets of goods that shipped to the store, as opposed to plastic bags? Places like grocery stores occasionally have a bin to put those boxes into that let you use them. User:K61824User_talk:K61824 12:53, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The only ones that's really good for are the flat fruit trays because most people reflexively break down boxes as they work to stop them getting in the way (try working while kicking around 80 uncollapsed boxes if you don't see why that is). And the fruit trays are usually put straight on the shelf and taken off when they're empty, so you don't actually have that many at any given time. And you can't give people the ones that have stains / ooze / etc on them, so that cuts down the number even more.
 * Also they're designed to be lifted into position off a pallet right next to you and are kind of a shit to carry any particular distance. King Skeleton (talk) 09:38, 28 November 2014 (UTC)