Paper straws suck. They suck at the one thing they are supposed to do - allow people to suck. And yet they have become a shibboleth for the pro-climate change camp. Often, I’ll see commenters on Reddit or in the New York Times say something along the lines of, “There’s no way we can come together as a species and solve climate change. People aren’t even willing to deal with minor inconveniences like paper straws or reduced-flow showerheads. How can we expect them to make major sacrifices like not flying on airplanes or only using their air conditioning if it’s above 80 degrees?”
The problem with this type of thinking is it misunderstands how most people function. In order to significantly reduce carbon emissions and halt the warming of the Earth, people are going to have to make significant sacrifices. We are going to have to spend trillions on changing the energy grid and penalizing consumers of fossil fuels. Quite possibly the worst way to do this is to try a foot-in-the-door technique where you start by getting people to make small sacrifices like paper straws before moving to larger ones like $10 gas. Why? Because the small sacrifices accomplish nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Telling people to use paper straws to end pollution is as helpful as telling children to stop peeing in the ocean because we need to stop rising sea levels. It does not matter if governments across the world came together and banned plastic straws. Even if society devoted vast resources to shutting down black-market plastic straw producers, conducted police raids on speakeasies that secretly served plastic straws in their cocktails, and mounted a pressure campaign to shame those who secretly kept plastic straws in their cupboards. If all this were successful, and plastic straws went the way of mercury-filled thermometers, it would not produce any meaningful change. It would not decrease climate change or deforestation or the Pacific garbage patch.
This is the fundamental issue with most climate-friendly policies that are consumer-facing; they don’t solve the problem. They don’t even help solve the problem. Instead, they provide a highly salient irritation. In order to get people to make sacrifices, they have to know that those sacrifices will be justified in the end. By insisting that people make small sacrifices that accomplish nothing, environmentalists are guaranteeing they are viewed as untrustworthy. Thus, people will ignore demands for large sacrifices.
We see this again and again and again.
Low flow shower heads. Start-stop (automatic idling shutoff) systems in cars. Eco appliance cycles that take three hours. All of these things are annoying. None of them will solve, or even help solve, any environmental issues. I’ve had a car with a start-stop system since October of 2023. Since the car rolled off the lot, the start-stop system has saved, wait for it, five gallons of gasoline. That’s roughly one gallon of gas for every 6,000 miles driven. In other words, a rounding error. Far more gas could have been saved by any one of a hundred measures, like, say, replacing stoplights with traffic circles. Yet after almost two years, I’m still annoyed when my car randomly shuts off at a red light. Same with eco cycles on a washing machine. How much energy and water can a machine that takes three hours really save over one that takes 45 minutes?
Low flow shower heads are even worse. Not only do they make showering a much less pleasant experience, they may actually increase the amount of water people use. Turns out that individuals will often take short showers when they are being drenched, but will take far longer showers when the water comes out as a dribble. I, thankfully, still have a shower from the 1990s. Every morning I get to shower in a deluge. Even if I move houses that showerhead is coming with me. Hopefully the new owners don’t mind an open pipe sticking out of the wall. At least the pressure will be good.
The question is why environmental types continue to fight for these symbolic changes. We all know paper straws aren’t going to result in world peace. Why continue the charade? I suspect this is a form of virtue signaling more than anything else. Businesses that serve $12 smoothies to yuppies, a word, by the way, that needs to make a comeback, need to signal that they are on the right team. So they supply paper straws. Never mind that it falls apart before the smoothie is even finished. Even worse are sacrifices demanded by the government. Low flow shower heads are the result of myopic government fiat. Same with start-stop systems. It’s great that people can signal their environmental credentials, but it ultimately comes at the cost of real progress.
These symbolic gestures also help people avoid the collision between two of their values - the environment and the poor. To end climate change, things like $10 gas are going to need to happen. The price of electricity is going to increase significantly. This is going to make life more expensive for everyone, and is going to hurt those on low incomes the most. There isn’t a viable solution, either. Other than banning private planes, those with lower incomes are going to have to sacrifice as well as the millionaires. The lack of acknowledgement of this tension makes me doubt how truly committed to tackling climate change people are.
Environmental concerns are valid. Climate change is real and an increasing problem. Getting people to make sacrifices is always difficult. Let’s make sure the ones we ask of people are at least helping to solve it.