Lianne Rood has No Time For Tim's: (CBC News). She doesn't like the cup lids used to replace single-use plastic lids at Tim Horton's. Really? Is she so concerned about her coffee comfort that she will raise it as an issue in parliament?
Actually, I think she was aiming at a larger target, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and government efforts to deal with the problem of plastic pollution. She is arguing against do-good liberalism in favour of common sense conservatism.
About doing good, here is a quote about hope from Wendell Berry (the New Yorker):
"... [I have] become more careful in [my] use of the word “hope”: ... If we do the right things today, we’ll have done all we really can for tomorrow. OK. So I hope to do the right things today.”
Doing right things today implies knowing what we are doing so we can predict outcomes. We get limited information from direct experience like the feel of a cup on the lips. We get the most reliable information from those who have examined more methodically and in detail the way things are going and how they might be improved.
On the other hand, according to Lianne Rood, the common sense attitude seems to be that any initiative interfering with her comfort today is bad (woke, liberal). She ignores and disparages information presented by the experts. She doesn't want to know that since 1950 the global cumulative production of plastic is more than one tonne per person alive today, and it continues to accumulate at an increasing rate, 460 million tonnes per year at present. That's about 58 kg per person per year.
If we are a bit woke, we might switch to a reusable cup or quit the coffee habit altogether. Then there's plastic bags and yoghurt containers and peanut butter jars and fast fashion and lots of other issues needing attention, because we hope that doing the right thing today will improve things in the future.
Stay woke.
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What has worked and what hasn't: Emily Chung, CBC News, May 7, 2024
The new front in the culture war: Aaron Wherry, CBC News, May18, 2024
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