The development explained at left may sound noteworthy, and I don’t discourage these people or anyone from doing whatever they can to slow the rate of environmental degradation. And yes, keeping plastic out of our waste-streams is a great cause.
But let’s look at this for a second.
Who, and at what expense, both financially and environmentally, is going to round up all these avocado pits and process them into utensils, then absorb the costs of product marketing and distribution? How viable will this enterprise be, especially at very low volume, compared to the $43 billion plastic industry?
I’m reminded of a would-be client, “Fertile Grounds,” who met me a few years ago and asked for my help. Their idea was to collect coffee grounds from Starbucks’ and process them into organic fertilizer. I asked how they planned to collect the coffee grounds, and they explained that they would have drivers of small truck with routes around the nation’s cities, who would drop off this feedstock to processing plants that would dry (over heat–where does the heat energy come from?), bag it, then sell it into the market of hardware stores and large home improvement centers.
Of the two, which idea is more inane? Hard to know.
I told the “Fertile Grounds” folks that I loved their name, but advised them to keep their money in their pockets and look for another business concept. I didn’t use the word “inane” at all in our conversation. That’s how to win friends and influence people. I should have written the book.
Trump appeals to two groups of constituents: a) a small group of billionaires who lavish him with campaign contributions in exchange for huge financial favors, and b) a large number of poorly educated white people who call themselves Christians–the so-called MAGA base.
Trump has little if any appeal to everybody else: honest, fairly well-educated people of a variety of ethnicities and religious affiliations.
For Trump, staying in power means making sure that there is a minimum of leakage away from the MAGA base. That requires barraging these people with messaging to the effect that the president is the only thing standing in the way of communism/socialism, open borders, the invasion of Muslims, godlessness, teaching our little children about LGBTQs, critical race theory, choking environmental regulation, and whatever else may be on the radical left’s agenda.
Maintain this chasm means not letting up on the propaganda for a single minute. No nuance, no critical thinking, no considering what we’ve learned from history–just constant bombardment.
The mural here reminds us of what Tom Joad famously tells his mother at the end of in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, in response to her asking Tom where he’s going:
Wherever people are fighting for their rights, where kids are hungry and crying, and where folks are struggling to be free. Everywhere in the dark, wherever there is a fight so hungry people can eat or a cop beating up a guy.
What the late Frank Zappa said here about atheism is what I began predicting when I was in my teens, but I’m not so optimistic today.
In fact, there seems to be a trend towards the rejection of science, fear, brutality, and tribalism–each one a pillar of religion and the fanaticism that so often surrounds it.
-
Climate Change1 year ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy10 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits