Exactly. BTW, not having kids is the greatest thing ever.
Also, on the bag front - how hard is it to just reuse them?
I used to get paper bags from Trader Joe’s (the heavy ones with handles) double them up and use them dozens of times.
We just use whatever reusable ones available now, but before I never saw the need to just toss the paper (or plastic) ones away.
Especially on hard discounts, I take an empty cardboard box that was used to contain the stuff on sale. By the way is really easy to put in the boot. I really like the ones used for apples, I reuse them as storage boxen. Not to mention that if you have a kitten you get a free cat toy!
Ten years ago the trash coop gave me for free a nylon reusable bag, that is absolutely sturdy. Or if you like to Crochet, and still have PE bags you can use them to make a bag, like it’s 1976…
It may be worth noting that “organic” isn’t the same everywhere either. That 2014 Slate article mentions Rotenone as an organic-approved pesticide (comes from roots, and doesn’t last long), but studies have proven ill-effects on non-pests. Rotenone sale has been forbidden by the European Commission since 2009, its use to be entirely banned after 2011.
On the cotton bag front, several of those I made were upcycled old sheets. As in “first half of the 20th century”. I’m pretty sure their current footprint isn’t the worst. And they happen to be very sturdy.
Why are you nitpicking the wrong way? You’re un-correcting.
Because there are plastic bags in the ocean? And the majority of humans live close enough to an ocean to affect it?
the ocean trash island patch is from the countries that dump all their trash in the river / ocean
First, there’s not just one. The Pacific one gets attention because it’s densest. The patches deserve attention as a symptom of how bad the problem is, but the bigger issue is that micro plastics are getting into all waterways, including inland sources, wherever you are.
Also the headline is a factual error, clearly at this point.
People will find it misleading if it’s not noted in the title, when this clear point is deep in a mass of update text:
After using a cotton bag 52x, cotton has lower climate impact than plastic!
Nope. Try looking up the definition of “burying the lede”.
I know the history, thanks.
“Burying the lead” is the original. The new version has picked up popularity, but “burying the lead” is never incorrect and doesn’t need correcting when used.
Not only this, you can also knit with strips made from old T-shirts. Why do they talk about producing new organic cotton? Isn’t that a consumer solution to a consumption problem?
We all have the materials and Youtube tutorials to make a lifetime of bags. Let’s make re-use and repair sexy again.
I will absolutely second this. The text of the story makes it clear that this study has serious issues, and should be taken with enough salt to kill a horse, but the headline, “Organic cotton shopping bags have to be used 20,000 times before they’re better for the Earth than plastic disposables” is demonstrably untrue and disproven by the text underneath it. I love the free ice cream and all, but this is just irresponsible.
Pick a lane. Is the point of reducing climate change to reduce human suffering? Because kids are humans. If reducing climate change is about being on Team Human, then there is actually no point in doing it at all if we aren’t having kids.
And @Mike.71
I get a lot of surprised/confused looks when I explain I make my bags from plarn.
For me the point is actually to reduce the impact on the natural world for its own sake. It’s the same way I think that the preservation of wilderness is important, even though I’ll never go there. It’s just important because it is. For me preserving the natural environment is not fundamentally about reducing human suffering. If it is to survive, we need far fewer humans. Nature will ensure this, one way or another. I’d just prefer the massive population reduction to not be by way for resource wars, famine and disease.
Not having kids is a retirement system bomb.
Only if you don’t waste water. No hosing down the dog shit first.
[Editing to note: This coming statement was meant to refer to arguments for why we, as a species, should stop propagating ourselves (anti-natalism), not reasons why individuals choose not to have children] I’ve just never encountered an argument for not having children that isn’t a better argument for committing suicide. I get that people don’t like war, famine and disease. But if humans hadn’t brought children into a world full up to the brim with war, famine and disease we simply wouldn’t exist. Our ancestors lived through conditions that will rival the worst of what we have coming until we are finally fully extinct.
To me the natural environment as we conceive it is our own construction. The vacuum of space is a natural environment. If literally everything dies and the planet returns to it’s pre-life condition, what will have been lost? Whatever our answer to that is, it seems like it has to be life of some kind, so I find choosing not to continue the cycle of life as an odd way to avoid that.
Among the people who are going to continue having a lot of kids are fundamentalist Christians, fundamentalist Muslims, and ultra-orthodox Jews.
Jus’ sayin’…
Now that I’m here, suicide isn’t really appealing to me. Not having children is the next best option for reducing my impact in the longer term. Hypocritical? Perhaps at some level, but so what? I’m also not advocating humane culling of people, although that’s what someone managing the planet from afar might conclude is needed.
Look far enough to the future and it is all pointless, of course. Everyone and everything dies. The universe is headed to a heat death. Long before that, our planet will be gone. So do we just party hard? Many seem to think it’s the best approach. I don’t. I think a sustainable future offers the best overall outcomes, rather than the “let’s just use it all up as quickly as we can” strategy.
For life to continue as long as possible, there has to diversity. That’s what we’re losing at unprecedented rates. I don’t rate the rights of humans to part of that diversity above any other species (OK, smallpox et.al.).
I hope you’re referring to humans in general and not an individual’s decision to not have kids. Yes, if most of the world stopped having kids then that would be bad (for humans) but an individual making that decision doesn’t mean he or she may as well kill themself. There’s more to life than procreation.
Edit to add that my personal reason for not having kids has nothing to do with the environment or their carbon impact our how I would be personally contributing to an overpopulated future. It’s simply because I don’t feel like I could be a good and generous parent.
Oh yeah. I’ve gotten looks ranging from ‘you’ve got two heads’ to straight up ‘mind…blown’. It amuses me. 
This is a bad take, and likening people’s choices to being somehow equivalent to arguments for suicide is dangerous and creepy.
Some people “not having kids” has nothing to do with suicide (either individually or as some wish against the entire human species, WTF), any more than “being vegan” has anything to do with someone wanting to die by starvation.
(“Not having kids” also has nothing to do with organic shopping bags.)
