A vast amount of the Pacific Garbage Patch consists of discarded commercial fishing gear.
Commercial fishing 🤝 dumping horrific amounts of plastic waste in the ocean
Over three-quarters of the GPGP mass was carried by debris larger than 5 cm and at least 46% was comprised of fishing nets.
It is really just a few countries
Im on board with both of these things. But if you try to invalidate peoples small victories with larger issues, that they have no direct control over, for no good reason they will rightfully dislike you.
I can control the use and manufacture of straws as much as I can the use of plastic nets in fishing. I can reject straws and not eat fish, thus marginally reducing demand for both.
The straws are a win, a very very small win that we just stopped at. It’s like we just said “mission accomplished” while tossing an empty plastic cup into the bin.
They don’t like us anyway so what do vegans care? Hahahaha
You do have direct control over fisheries as much as you do over straws. But indeed, don’t invalidate. Say “if you like X, you might also want to do Y which has an even greater impact”
But they do have a direct control over the fishing industry?
What direct control do I have over the fishing industry?
Changing from buying their stuff to not buying it maybe?
And at what significant figure does that show up on their quarterly sales report as?
Does it even show up at all? Since somebody else can still just buy the fish I don’t.
Not much, admittedly, but not eating seafood does a heck of a lot more than not using straws.
not eating seafood does a heck of a lot more than not using straws
which isn’t a justification for trying to invalidate a small victory
And what change in outcome did refusing a straw cause?
a “small victory” doesn’t imply a direct, tangible impact
“direct control over” does
you’re comparing two things when the point of the original comment is literally that you shouldn’t compare them good job
Direct control = if i could decide that the fishing boat doesnt go out tomorrow or how they do their fishing
Indirect control = i decide not to eat fish
You also only have indirect control over plastic straw production, but my point wasnt the “control over” part but the “let people have their small victories” part. If you actively harass people for doing good things, they will stop doing good things.
in this case quite a number of people would want plastic straws back because the paper straws has been bringing a significantly worse experience. So yeah they do want this good thing to stop.
I feel you have to try hard to take that as the message here.
Weird, I’ve never been called a vegan for speaking against industrialized fishing.
Maybe you made being vegan part of your argument, which does make it kind of preachy.