Sacrifice your drink, save the planet!
What our attitude towards soggy and limp paper straws tells us about sacrifice.
In 2022, Canada introduced a ban on single-use plastics in most commercial settings. This meant no more plastic cutlery, checkout bags, straws, and more. Fortunately for Canadians, this ban also introduced a hot new topic of conversation that can conveniently be discussed at patios and cafés across the nation: paper straws.
I underestimated how much conversation material the topic of paper straws would offer. Besides the typical “I hate how it turns into wet, limp, mash after a few sips” stuff, we can discuss whether they are actually better for the environment, or how they reinforce the idea that climate destruction is caused by and can be solved by the actions of individuals. Or, if you’re Pierre Poilievre, you can talk about how paper straws are “about punishing all of us to make [the Liberals] feel good.”
Paper straws are whipping up a frenzy that seems entirely disproportionate to the significance that straws hold in our society and the amount of anguish a soggy straw could possibly cause. I can think of two possible explanations for this:
- I underestimated the significance of straws in our society. Maybe straws are satiating some kind of psychosexual oral fixation à la Sigmund Freud;
- And the frenzy surrounding paper straws is not just about the straws but, about more insidious issues.
I’m going to discuss my second explanation—mostly because I think it’s the more correct explanation, but also because I am unqualified and completely unwilling to discuss the first point.
As one sucks on a rapidly disintegrating straw, I think that we can’t help but to think: is it worth it? Here I am, mash straw in my drink, while 57 companies are linked to 80% of all global greenhouse emissions since 2016.
Most Canadians believe that the government and businesses aren’t doing enough to combat climate change. While companies raze rainforests, exploit water supplies, and our government eyes a new pipeline, a single-use plastic ban feels insincere and might appear as an example of greenwashing. I think that it’s easy to feel that maybe the small misery of the paper straw is actually quite large compared to the dent in plastic pollution it is making.
More importantly, people generally don’t like having their things taken away from them. Although a store’s provision of plastic straws doesn’t belong to the customer, it’s something that many people have become accustomed to and have developed a certain entitlement to. Living in one of the richest countries in the world in an era of mass production, I think that millions of Canadians feel entitled to goods and services like fresh strawberries in the winter and Amazon next-day delivery. Again, maybe it’s just natural for people to cause a stink when their goodies are taken away.
Many believe that revolutions occur because of material conditions. A major part of such material is poor living conditions. For example, people rallied around Vladimir Lenin’s cry: “peace, land, and bread” in 1917: a response to dissatisfaction of war in Europe, conditions under landlords, and widespread hunger.
Activists James and Grace Lee Boggs suggest that “the revolution to be made in the United States will be the first revolution in history to require the masses to make material sacrifices rather than to acquire more material things.” Furthermore, they assert that these material things are acquired through the ongoing exploitation of many of the world’s people. That is, in the fight to improve the lives of people around the world, it’s necessary for those in the imperial core to lose access to certain things, even if that means a dip in quality of life.
However, James Boggs notes that people are often unwilling to make these sacrifices in fighting for a cause and “would rather sacrifice the issue.” People typically don’t fight for a cause where they lose things and stand to gain almost nothing. Yet, this is exactly what is required of us to fight climate change.
Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, plastic pollution, and other eco-ills come at the cost of a decrease in quality of life in Canada. There would be unemployment, supply chain problems, and probably no straws at all. On top of all of that, we probably won’t even be able to see much of the results: there’s a latency between when a greenhouse gas is released and when we most acutely feel its effects. Even if we all converted to a monastic, eco-conscious life, we would probably continue to observe a worsening climate for decades.
Dramatically decreasing your quality of life without the chance to reap the rewards is certainly a hard sell. The elimination of single-use plastics is the tiniest of baby steps, and even after three years many people remain unconvinced. I’m doubtful that we’ll see much comprehensive decision making from the Canadian government that puts the environment over profit.
In the meantime, however, sacrifices are being made on our behalf; sacrifices of things that truly do belong to us: a clean, safe environment, access to food and water, peace. Get ready.
