Plastic

Plastic items can take up to 1,000 years to decompose. The first plastic based on a synthetic polymer was made from phenol and formaldehyde, with the first viable and cheap synthesis methods invented in 1907, by Leo Hendrik Baekeland, a Belgian-born American living in New York state.

Plastic has existed for only 113 years.
Every piece of plastic that was ever made still exists today.

Read that again and while you read it, think of all the plastic you use in one day.
Uff, it makes me want to either cry or throw up.
Every water bottle, pen, toothbrush, headphones, product packaging, food containers, almost every single item that we’ve used since we were children, it all still exists.
As of November 2019, the world population is 7.7 billion.
A mountain of stuff per individual. Monstrous.

So, obviously I’m not a genius, and these are not some secret facts. These are facts that most people are aware of, even if very minorly. Since this is an issue that is obviously relevant to every single person that lives on this planet, it has been an issue of a lot of discussion lately:
How to reduce the pollution of this planet?

The September 2019 climate strikes, also known as the Global Week for Future, were a series of international strikes and protests to demand action be taken to address climate change, which took place from 20–27 September. The strikes' key dates were 20 September, which was three days before the United Nations Climate Summit, and 27 September. The protests took place across 4,500 locations in 150 countries …The Guardian reported that roughly 6 million people participated in the events, whilst 350.org—a group that organized many of the protests—claim that 7.6 million people participated.

Amazing. People are aware and are trying to maybe do something about it.
But, what I don’t understand is why are they protesting against the government?
I’m not even specifying which government, it’s irrelevant, the question is
How does one protest against something they themselves are causing?

Obviously, the government has a major role in creating laws and regulations that govern industry and waste. But, let’s take a second and picture what the situation was in Toronto when this protest happened:

1.

A group of people gathered in a large city on a cold day. Toronto is a massive city, so when a very large number of people were gathered on the streets, there were many roads that were closed or blocked off. There’s already a lot of traffic in Toronto (the city is always under construction because it’s always expanding). On this day, like any other day, a lot of people who were on their way to work, but because of the road closures, they sat in traffic a lot longer than they already do.

Outcome #1: Wasted gas, more pollution in the air than an average day.

2.

Now let’s consider the people on the streets. It was a cold day so a lot of these people were wearing jackets. In Toronto, one of the major trends is Canadian goose jackets. These things cost somewhere between $500-$1500 and are made of canadian goose feathers with the hood lined in coyote fur. I was watching this young man on TV giving an interview about why he was protesting and he was wearing one of these. How can you be against the government for destroying the environment when you are wearing a mass produced product made of animal fur? Even if the company claims that they are “humane” in the way these animals are killed for their fur, since it’s such a popular brand, how many animals do you think they kill in just one day? Aren’t they essential to the Canadian environment?

Outcome #2:

Please understand that I am not defending the government. Big industries are the biggest polluters, there is no doubt about it. But, aren’t you a part of that big industry? Don’t you buy things, use gas, go home to your centrally heated homes? If so, aren’t you just as guilty?

It seems too easy to point a finger at a large entity which is run by nameless, faceless bureaucrats.
If you want to save the environment, shouldn’t you first change inward?
How can we tell others to change their behaviours, when our actions are just as guilty?

The biggest contributors of carbon dioxide emissions in the world:
#1 China
#2 The United States
#8 is World – International Shipping
#11 Canada
#12 is World – International Aviation

Where are most of your things made? China. As long as we keep buying things, China will keep making things. Then they’ll ship them to North America and keep mass distributing the products. All those steps are major contributors to pollution.

So going back to the protest. The outcome: a lot of people came out, lots of media coverage, lots of selfies and hashtags, and then it was over. Did anyone change anything personally? Did people collectively decide that maybe one car per household is okay? Did they come to the conclusion that yes they buy too much useless stuff, and would try to change this habit? Did they understand that as long as the economy is booming, the environment will keep dying?
If so, amazing. Thank you.
If not, why did you participate in the protest?

I’m not saying don’t protest, I’m just trying to suggest that before we point fingers, we first understand our own part in this mess. It’s easy to point the finger, harder to look inward and deny ourselves what we think we deserve. It’s easier to find a big, bad villian to blame than to admit that we are also at fault in our actions towards the Earth.