Nature and Preserving Our Planet

Good sticks.

What about the carrots?

Not sure what you mean Izzy.

Any initiative like yours needs two directions, and it’s likened to moving a donkey. You can use a stick or carrot a reward or punishment to make it move.

You have outlined punishments in the form of taxes, plenty of sticks, but what should be done to encourage good behaviour? What should the benefits be?

The benefits are a cleaner, healthier earth.

Shouldn't that be enough?

How about free tv dinners for a year?

That is better than carrots maybe.

That’s way too flippant an answer for such a serious question.

Put it like this, if you were some small ethical company capable of taking over a service currently provided by some huge polluting multinational. Despite having to pay polluting taxes the sheer size of the multinational means the small company cannot realistically compete.

What benefits can be given to the ethical company to level the playing field?

If we don't tax corporations for plastic use and proper disposal thereof they will continue to profit off the use of the stuff and never be held accountable.

In the end once corporations have spent their ill begotten wealth, taxpaying consumers will be the only one left to pay the bill to clean the mess up.

We are already paying this bill with having to foot the bill on climate change, a bill that corporations should share in the responsibility of.

I would think the magic carrot would be not being left having to pay to clean up the mess while corporations walk away from the mess they played a large part in creating.

Isn't it often the case that capitalism sanctions corporate irresponsibility while people who "actually" pay taxes are left to pay for and repair the devastation left behind.

A stitch in time saves nine. How about we put the cart behind the horse and everyone pulls together?

Isn't that enough incentive to change the way we do things?

Or we can just not do anything as our world decays and crumbles around us in mutually assured destruction. Destruction that can never be fixed because the things we are destroying took millions of years to come about.

Just because the benefits may be long term it does not mean we don't have to do anything.

Instant gratification should not be the main criterion for change.

The, "What do I get out of it?" defense can also be the, "What don't you get out of it?" response. We have all partaken in the privilege of the riches of this Earth and we owe a debt and have a duty to fulfill this debt. We must all pay it forward according to our own usage and be respectful, thankful and grateful while doing it...

I’m not saying polluters shouldn’t be taxed. What I am saying is that people need both carrots and sticks to change their behaviour.

Look at global warming, even now there are people who still believe it's a myth and relying on people to do the right thing just because is what got us here in the first place.

When renewable power became an issue it needed to be subsidised to make it economically viable. Coal hasn’t become less popular just because it’s dirtier it’s because other sources are cheaper.

People won’t buy electric cars if there aren’t any places to charge them up.

If you want to change people’s habits you need a mixture of rewards and sanctions.

I understand your point Izzy and thanks for pointing that out.

Gullible people buy Apple products that are twice as expensive and have much less functionality than their PC and Android counterparts.

Consumers will swallow a line of bull hook, line and sinker.

What consumers need is, "the truth".

And along comes Tesla with self-driving, gold plated wheel-hubs and diamond studded gas caps.

All we asked for was a cheap, ******* affordable electric car...

Is this the end of forests as we've known them?

Trees lost to drought and wildfires are not returning. Climate change is taking a toll on the world’s forests - and radically changing the environment before our eyes

The World Is Stuck With Decades of New Plastic It Can't Recycle

We've been hoodwinked into thinking recycling is a solution.

Only 3rd world countries like the U.S. aren't recycling plastic. (cynical)

nbcnews

CLEANING UP THE GARBAGE PATCHES
https://theoceancleanup.com/oceans/

I just donated to this project. It's not much, but some to help.