I’m an American. I’m not one of the “good” Americans, though, since I’m disabled, not Christian, not capitalist, and not white. I’ve spent my whole life getting shit on as a third-class citizen by Americans steeped in American culture and public school education that has, at every turn, preached American exceptionalism and pulling oneself up by their bootstraps while totally ignoring every benefit offered to them and withheld from people like me.
I think that you’ve been lucky so far, but now that you’re being asked to sit the fuck down and listen while other people talk, you’re taking it badly. After a lifetime of privilege, it’s really easy to mistake being brought into line with everybody else’s equality for oppression; please don’t do that. It’s a bad look and sets you up to feel bad unnecessarily.
There are like 8 billion people on this planet and you’re one of about 330 million Americans. It’s pretty reasonable that your perspective isn’t the majority opinion, and that other people from other countries may also think their home is the best possible place to live and everyone else is an unlucky chump. Instead of dismissing all the critical comments as the kvetching of the jealous, unwashed masses outside your borders, it may help to look at them as nothing more than other people sharing their own viewpoints. Also, reading about events like Juneteenth, the MOVE bombing, the Kent State massacre, the Jackson State killings, and the Tulsa massacre may help you better understand why people from other places side eye Americans.
And seriously, the metric system is based on the physical properties of Earth and base 10 counting, not dead oppressors.
This is almost exactly what the article says doesn’t work. We’ve been laying the bulk of the responsibility on average consumers–figure out your consumption, find better options–before insisting that corporations make better options available for consumers.
So, why not try putting some of the responsibility on the largest polluters first for a change? Jail or prison time instead of fines for the decision makers knowingly contaminating environments because it’s cheaper than doing things right, high corporate taxes to fund environmental remediation for the damage already done, penalties for continuing to produce goods in wasteful and unnecessary plastic packaging, incentives for work towards innovative, environmentally sound materials science and engineering. We haven’t tried any of these things, we’ve just been telling consumers, “There are better options out there, use those. It’s your responsibility!”
Like geez, it’s not as if consumers will stop bringing their own bags to the grocery store or using the reusable straws they already bought. Lots of us are already invested in doing better than we have in the past. We can continue to educate the public while also updating our legislation to drive corporate participation in the process. Why wouldn’t we?