Originally posted by: O2bnVegas
I pick up discarded trash as I do my daily walk in the neighborhood (ironically, it goes in a plastic grocery bag, ultimately into trash bin or recycle bin). An I'm in a middle class neighborhood. Some days not much, but there isn't a day without a fast food sack, drink lid/straw combo, plastic glove (newer item!), beer bottle, soda can, I could go on and on. That's my neighborhood but it makes me notice that stuff tossed on the side of roads in town and out of town.
My point is whether we are or are not willing to stop using plastic water bottles and Walmart bags, it is HUMANS who are a big part of the problem. In a million years I would never (and have never) tossed fast food trash (or anything else) out the car onto any street anywhere for any reason, but apparently a portion of the population have grown up thinking this is an OK thing to do. I think it reflects total disregard/appreciation for the conveniences we are happy to partake of (pick up a Big Mac or a giant sized soda) but not at the same time make a little effort to take care of our planet. Let others clean up the mess I suppose. JMHO.
Candy
Well, a few million years ago, Earth was pretty pristine. Only the occasional forest fire or volcanic eruption to foul the air. Then WE came along. So the obvious solution is to wipe out humanity. Fortunately for the planet, we're doing that ourselves. The aliens who visit every couple of million years won't have to go "tsk, tsk" and deploy their sterilization rays. We'll be gone by the time they show up again.
(Remember that utterly idiotic movie, "The Day After Tomorrow"? At the end, something like two billion people have been killed, but the astronauts overhead marvel at how clean the air is now.)
We lost several decades between when environmental awareness first became "a thing" (Earth Day, 1970) and now, when we're taking the first halting steps toward actually doing something. That's because environmentalists were continually derided as "hippies" and "radical leftists." Rush Limblob (may his soul rot) was particularly fond of mocking and ridiculing people who dared to say that maybe clean air and water is important. And recently, of course, we have the fossil-fuel-slave RepubliQ trying to stop renewable energy.
And yeah, I mentioned politics again. That's because everything is politics.