Is it Better Not to Know?

I think one of the difficult thing with how the world exists right now is that we're asked to care about, like, everything. I cannot care about everything and I SHOULD NOT care about everything, because if I do care about everything, I will care incorrectly about a lot of things. Instead, get this, different people need to care about different things deeply, rather than a lot of people caring about things on only a surface level.

Like, everyone caring a little bit about ocean plastic has caused the problem of people focusing on straws when we should be focusing international fishing regulations, decreasing international poverty, and supporting waste management infrastructure in other countries.

Not saying any of this is easy...but I am saying DO NOT PUT MY SHOEBOX IN A COTTON BAG.

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[SandyVanV]

"Simplicity is almost always a lie" is the most frustratingly true statement.

[tessa_hs]

I think the aesthetics and “vibes” of eco-friendliness are so much easier for people to grasp than that fact about plastic in the ocean mostly being a result of fishing equipment and a lack of waste management infrastructure. And it’s easy to become cynical from this and say that nothing an average consumer can do individually matters, so why try, but that isn’t helpful either. I think so many people are caught in this feeling of wanting to help, and having grown up being taught about recycling and everything, taught that they CAN indeed help, and feel lost, with a baseline sense of “everything I do is more bad for the environment than it is good anyways.” At least that’s how I feel. Your videos are good reminders of actual facts and I always respect your opinions on these topics though!

[SageThyme]

I wish more people saw reduce, reuse, recycle as an ordered list. The best way to do anything for the environment is to reduce consumption.

[ArielBissett]

If I’m being honest, I was super bummed when I saw your scishow video. For about a week I was like “god dammit, I thought I was doing good and it’s just another example of the reality being worse for the environment.” But after sitting with the information and processing it (totally offline, I should add, so the public pressure wasn’t on) I’ve come to a place (like always!) of feeling empowered by information! Now I’m like “this is funny! I’m gonna have the random tote bags I have now til I die! I wonder how long they’ll last! I definitely won’t make cotton tote bags as merch ever! Wow! I’m glad I’m on a better path!” So thanks for the truth, even if it made me feel shaken for a bit, because the planet is worth me being humbled.

[ItsShahrzadG]

Nothing like a good robust waste management system

[catherinecase]

When I get overwhelmed with these choices, I remind myself to just start by using what I have. And if that’s plastic, well it’s only “single use plastic” if I only use it once.

[thehappyplate]

“Simplicity is almost always a lie.” In other words, imagine complexly.

[annemcrowell]

I'm set for life with the cotton tote bags I acquired mainly in my early 20s. It's unfortunate that they weren't as eco-friendly as I had initially been led to believe, but since I already have them, I'm going to use them until they're no longer functional so the resources used to create them won't have been in vain. If I live to be 100 and the bags survive that long, I might actually come close to 20, 000 uses for some of them. I think it's really helpful to have this knowledge to be able to make better decisions in the future, like not buying any more bags, using the ones I already have, and finding better options if and when I can no longer use them.

As a practical consideration, since I live in a city and walk to the grocery store (and more to the point, home from the grocery store), I find the cotton tote bags are easier for me to carry than single-use plastic because they have straps long enough to put over my shoulder. So while I do feel bad that the cotton bags are so resource-intensive, they're part of what makes it easier for me not to have a car, so hopefully that helps balance out a not-so-good choice with a better one.

[alexandriadavis]

I think there's a lot of wisdom in "the greenest bag is the bag you already have". It's permission not to stress about choices you made when you had less information. Dealing with getting a greener bag isn't something you have to worry about until the bag you have is no longer sufficient.

I know that with certain marketing, there is pressure to buy the new greenest thing as soon as you can, even when what you have doesn't need to be replaced. I suspect that's part of where the stress regarding bags specifically comes from.

People need things. You made your decisions in the past with the information you had. If that got what you need without the impact you were hoping for, it doesn't invalidate the effort made previously, nor require you to make up for it. It just puts you where you are.

[OliviasOpinions]

Some time ago I had a friend who went “zero waste” for a month. I recall her telling me about how she would make a longer trip to a different grocery store so that she wouldn’t have to weigh her produce and then use a sticker to determine its weight. She also told me she wanted to switch from monthly birth control pills to the shot so that it would save waste. I was baffled by this then, as I am now. Did she think a kind old lady walked the tomatoes to the grocery store and deposited them right into the food aisle? How could she take issue with a small produce sticker, of all things, when that produce arrived at the store packed in cardboard and plastic, on a delivery truck that burned fossil fuels? Was it worth the longer bus ride to a different store? Would a birth control injection really create less waste than one small packet of pills? Did she want us to return to the era of reusable syringes?

This small conversation made a huge impression on me. For so many people, being environmentally conscious is far more about what *feels* or *looks* right rather than evidence and pragmatism. I’m not knocking the effort to go low-waste; I think it’s fantastic and we should all actively participate in mitigating climate change and environmental pollution. But not thinking critically about our actions will only get us into more trouble in the end. Even if the only changes we can make are small ones, we need to make those changes with a clear, rational head and an understanding of their limitations.

[amanatee]

"I think one of the difficult thing with how the world exists right now is that we're asked to care about, like, everything. I cannot care about everything and I SHOULD NOT care about everything, because if I do care about everything, I will care incorrectly about a lot of things. Instead, get this, different people need to care about different things deeply, rather than a lot of people caring about things on only a surface level." I needed to hear this so badly from someone I respect. Thank you.

[carleybutler]

2:37 "If we're gonna care, we have to orient our care based on reality."
I feel like this idea can be applied to so many other aspects of the human experience. Sometimes caring about something (or trying to appear to care) offers no real benefit without research/information on how the benefit can be implemented and a real effort to learn and help. Thanks for the thought train, Hank!

[shoyuramenoff]

"We got them because they were swag at a conference." This is too real...way too real.

[johnchessant]

Took us long enough for the conversation to go from "is it good to be Green" to "how can we most effectively be Green". Of course it's better to know. The performative aspect might encourage others to care, but it has to take a back seat to actually doing the best we can for the environment. As John would say, "stupid truth, always resisting simplicity".

[mlemleh]

The “I’d rather not know” stance is always an interesting one. I know so many people who actively avoid finding out more about factory farming and where meat is made, because they like eating meat and don’t want to feel bad about it. Which makes me think… well… you sort of DO know then, don’t you?

[Nefi]

I have a little satchel that I use everyday from groceries, to carrying around a water bottle or umbrella, to bringing my lunch to work, etc. As a tote bag, it's probably not outweighed the equivalent in plastic bags, but as a convenient and useful tool, I'm exceedingly happy that I've only had to get one of them in years. Maybe getting something long-lasting and multi-purposeful is the key to getting rid of single-use plastics as an individual?

[nahAllow]

The cotton vs plastic bag stats tend to only look at production impact and not the end of lifecycle (ie 50, 000 plastic bags rotting in landfill/rivers is clearly much worse for wildlife than one cotton bag) but that’s just another example of simplifying something for the sake of their argument.

[JM-usfr]

“The truth resists simplicity” has turned into “Simplicity is almost always a lie.” I like it Hank. Much more aggressive.

[justmartine]

I need Hank Green to continue explaining things like reusable bags to ocean plastic to me because I learned more in the last four minutes than maybe the last year combined about waste

[erinmariecece]

I work at a high traffic tourist bookstore in a major American city. The state law requires us to ask each customer if they would like a bag for 10 cents. It’s a rather thick bag and could easily be reused almost 20 times over, but I know that it’s usually not.

I think we are making steps in the right direction, but the amount of misused information tends to cloud people’s judgement.