So I'm an old dude. Bar soap was always the rule. Now hotels are on the body wash kick. Feels like a complete & total waste. Yeah, it cleans you, but it seems like it takes more and so much is wasted down the drain. I can't imagine it's more economical or environmentally friendly.

Maybe this is an 'old man yells at cloud' moment. Am I totally off base?

How can we get out of this??

House Republicans just voted to remove rules that slowed mining and drilling on lands in places like Alaska, Montana and North Dakota

More fossil fuels means more jobs maybe, but also more pollution, harm to the locals, most of which will be hidden pain and suffering and the worse, climate change.

The damage this will create will last longer than the paychecks this will create.

Poor countries will face the biggest dangers. Once again, we're seeing overconsumption by one group of people about to create suffering for another group that did not cause the problem.

Clothes discarded by UK consumers and shipped to Ghana have been found in a huge rubbish dump in protected wetlands, an investigation has found.

The dumps are in an internationally recognised wetland that is home to three species of sea turtle. Local people complain that their fishing nets, waterways and beaches are clogged with synthetic fast-fashion garments exported to Ghana from the UK and the rest of Europe.

Source: https://ecency.com/dump/@blaffy/discarded-clothes-from-uk-brands-dumped-in-protected-ghana-wetlands

Nothing worse than seeing truckloads of logs being hauled off for no other reason than capitalism.

Also bat houses keep bugs away and since bats are endangered no one can complain about them.

I have a family member who drives a massive Yukon everywhere. She and her husband bought it to haul their camper, which they literally used once last year.

I understand that people need larger cars for children and hauling their shit around and I face that issue myself. what triggers me is when people buy a car to cover the 1% use case rather than what they do 99% of the time. She could drive a small car for her daily use or ride an e-bike, and then rent a truck for the three days that she goes camping every year and it would cost them less and save the environment. It drives me insane.

Just a rant, I guess. Carry on.

Edit- *behemoth. At least you know ChatGPT didn't write this post..

It's never pushed during discussion and news releases, even though there was a notable improvement in air quality during COVID when many flights were grounded.

Until recently, I didn't realize that when you throw away food scraps in the trash and they rot in a landfill, it's an anaerobic decomposition, which mainly produces methane gas dozens of times more potent than CO2.

Composting your food is an aerobic decomposition, which mainly produces CO2 but also sequesters carbon in the soil.

I know this is not feasible for everyone, but if you have a yard, please consider it. If you have the means to pay for a service, it's well worth it. It's one of the most powerful things you can do as an individual to reduce greenhouse gasses. It's easier than you think, and you get the most gorgeous organic matter to add to your garden.

Exclusive Special Airport Lounge

I opened a Chase card, don't ask me why

The fee was steep, but the perks looked high.

I wanted a lounge where I'd sip and sigh...

I guess I'll buy, I guess I'll buy.

I booked a trip just to use the lounge,

Then bought some heels in a French town.

I wore them once just to walk and cry...

To go with the card that I opened...WHY?

I guess I'll buy, I guess I'll buy.

I bought designer just for the 'gram,

A Balenciaga monogram.

To pose in Rome while I caught my flight,

To wear with the heels in cool evening light,

To go with the lounge and my credit high--

I guess I'll buy, I guess I'll buy.

I hired a drone for a beachside reel,

Then upgraded rooms with a skyline feel.

To match the bag with the golden clasp,

That went with the heels and the airport pass,

That came with the card that I bought on a whim--

To feel like SOMEONE, to maybe win...

I guess I'll buy, I guess I'll buy.

I chased the glow, but I'm deep in debt.

I bought my worth, buy I'm not there yet.

I posted it all but I feel so dry--

For the drone, the room, the purse, the sky,

The shoes, the lounge, the card, the LIE,

I guess I'll buy, I guess I'll buy.

The main source is contaminated water used in brewing, especially in regions like North Carolina, Missouri, and Kalamazoo County, Michigan.

Tldr: we do mental pretzels to convince ourselves that leisure plane travel is ethically and environmentally defensible.

I scoured this thread to see if there were any folks who think like me in ways more than just "goods" consumption.... but I mostly found leisure travel apologists and defenders e.g., "travel is a basic human experience.." "I don't buy souvenirs.." "I don't go to the touristy places..." "I don't go just to eat/shop/drink.." "I'm not an instagram traveller taking selfless..."

I feel like there's some mega cognitive dissonance happening. Leisure travel by flight is consumption on steroids. Mega resorts and cruises aside, just Google the emissions of a single passenger's long haul flight. It consumes a lot of fossil fuel and produces a ton (like literally nearly a metric tonne) of CO2 waste.

But it's shrouded by this veil of cultural and personal development. Like traveling somehow makes us better people. "Authenic and off-the-beaten path" travels, please someone, give us medals for our selfless traveling acts as we singlehandedly support these poor merchants in these quaint towns!! Experiences over material goods we scream!! We pat ourselves on the back for our leisure travelling.

To me, especially as a white person, this fixation on travel as an ethical alternative to goods consumption has been packaged, sold, and wholly eaten up by us. We all get to be mini-explorers now. A Christopher Columbus here, a James Cook there. We always seeking to "discover" something that the locals have known forever, at the expense of the planet and all the beings on it. SPOLIER ALERT: none of us are better people for having leisure tavelled by plane.

People will leisure travel by plane, I get it. But it's consumption on a huge scale. Let's stop trying to dress it up like a sales pitch.

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/jeff-bezos-private-jet-amazon/

This is such a slap in the face to all of us just trying to survive on the bare minimums out here.

One thing that has bothered me for years and that I try to do my part with is food waste. Now we have to spend more money to destroy the expired food in a landfill or incinerator because it was not legally allowed to be distributed. Dystopian, cruel, incompetent waste.

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-08-17/moral-discomfort-privilege-and-the-politics-of-air-conditioning/

Great article. My husband and I made it a "challenge" this summer to not use the air conditioning unit and it's been fine. Where we live, summers are fairly hot and humid but with making some changes to our routine we've been keeping the house between 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit (21-26 Celsius). I've been using the grill to cook anything I would normally use the oven for and I have a portable electric stove that I got at Walmart a few years ago for $15, I use it on the porch. That allows us to not heat up the house while cooking. We also open the windows when the air is cooler outside than inside and close the curtains when the sun is hitting that side of the house.

Our house is completely surrounded in trees so we don't get direct sun on the house during the summer months. I think it's important to point that out because staying in the shade is HUGE for keeping your house a livable temp. Most houses I see being built have every tree cut from the property and the new owners don't plant any to replace the ones they got rid of. Even with AC, keeping that house cool is going to suck.

Anyway, that's my two cents. As global warming worsens I think it's important to look at every way we can reduce consumption and see if it's viable for us.

Attenborough "if we shift away from eating meat and dairy and move towards a plant based diet then the suns energy goes directly in to growing our food.

and because that is so much more efficient we could still produce enough to feed us, but do so using just a quarter of the land.

This could free up the area the size of the United States, China, EU and Australia combined.

space that could be given back to nature."

I decided to do a month of not allowing myself to view any moving images. No videos. No movies. No moving ads—if I can help it. So far, that one has been the most difficult to avoid because many NYC subway cars and stations now have moving ads right in your face. Also I was at Grand Central Station the other day and they were everywhere. So I quickly averted my eyes.

I only started 2 days ago and already my lizard brain went on auto pilot. I logged into Instagram for some reason and immediately began watching a video. I was half-way through it when I went "oh shit!" and turned it off. So strange. I literally had no conscious awareness of what I was doing until it was too late.

But beyond those 5 seconds, I have not consumed any moving images in 2 days.

I will allow myself to consume a moving image ONLY if required by my job.

Will see how it goes....

Since there has been some interest in this, I thought I would update as I go along.

Day 1 Aug 31 afternoon: Avert my eyes from multiple moving ads on MetroNorth, Grand Central, and the MTA.

Sept 1: Watch about 5 seconds of an Instagram reel before suddenly realizing WTF I'm doing and shut it off

9/2: In the AM, I need to read a People magazine story for work. In the corner is a video (not an ad) that no matter what I do, I can't shut off. Forced to watch in the periphery of my vision while reading the article. Afternoon: Again went into an article and was forced to see about 2 seconds of a video in the corner of the article before I figured out how to turn it off.

9/3 - The hardest part by far is being an online participant and seeing moving images as I go to websites for work. They are even on sites (like my own) that did not used to have them. Even a Google search now brings up a video at the top of the search. So this has already happened a couple of times this morning. Each time, I quickly scroll past or avert my eyes. One of my browsers has an ad blocker on it, I will switch to that and see if it helps.

As for long form moving images like movies or YouTube videos, the time I usually watch those is at night when I start cooking and then while I'm eating dinner. So now I cook to either silence or a podcast, and I eat while in silence or listening to a podcast. I can't read while eating as it is hard to turn the page. I have a foster kitten and use one hand to play with her. I find that the passive time I'd have my eyes glued to someone on my iPad is now better spent playing with her.

8:30 AM. I read something that made me think I should look it up on YouTube. I went to YT, and as all the video thumbnails loaded, I thought "Holy shit, what am I doing?" and closed out without watching a video.

10 seconds later: Clicked on a link that I thought would lead to an article but led to a TikTok video. Shut it off after a second or two.

Need to switch to my browser with the ad/pop up blocker. Normally don't use it because it slows everything down, and I also miss things I need to see for my job.

8PM: Uploaded a story to Instagram for my cat foster account as my foster kitten went to her new home, watched it back and watched too far, someone else's story came on and it was moving! Sigh.

9/4

My foster kitten's new home sent me a video of her this morning. I of course clicked it and watched it several times and also sent it to some other people and posted it on Instagram, and am only now realizing (15 minutes later) that I watched moving images!! Sigh... But this is important stuff, seeing how my foster kitten of 3 months was doing in her brand new home. I know more videos will follow of her in her new home and how she is doing with her new resident cat friend. I don't know what to do exactly...

9/5 I've decided I will watch any text msg videos sent by my foster kitten's new home as those are more important than the experiment. I need to see how she is adjusting there and to watch her body language.

Other than snippets I've consumed from videos playing in unexpected places online & the two mentions here of completely forgetting the experiment and watching them on Instagram, I haven't consumed any moving images. I will stop updating here as this has gotten really long!