Our Grocery Bags are now a Climate Issue

The government, uninformed public and corporations are now going after plastic bags in order to help the environment, and possibly curb the effects of global warming. Ikea has lead the crusade in the US by charging customers who choose to use plastic bags a little extra, followed up by the San Francisco government who has banned the usage of plastic bags completely. Other companies and districts worldwide have begun their own bans.

“There are many reasons against themthey’re a petroleum product...You see them in trees...and they even wash up on beaches in the South Pacific," states John Calandrelli, coordinator of the Connecticut chapter of the Sierra Club. He goes on to say that leaving a store with a one-time-use plastic bag “is something a lot of time we’ll do for ease or convenience, without even asking ourselves, ‘What is a planet worth.’”

Are these people serious at this point? Yes, Al Gore made a persuasive movie that can influence those who do not understand the science, or simply listen to those who have been pushed aside because they DO follow the science (Fred Singer, Robert Carter, Ian Clark, William Gray, Sallie Baliunas, Lee Gerhard, George Chilingar, Khabibullo Ismailovich Abdusamatov, David Legates, Nir Shaviv, and the list goes on and on).

Hey, lets try a new idea: Look up the facts on your own from the scientists who don't have salaries dependent on the existence of man-made global warming. Plastic bags may be hazardous to aspects of our society, but their production is not hurting the climate.

“We applaud anyone trying to do anything to reduce” litter and “the amount of waste going into landfills,” says Donna Dempsey, executive director of the Film & Bag Federation, a business unit of the Society of the Plastics Industry. Well then, maybe people should simply be more conscious of how they dispose of their plastic bags. I'd like to see that rather than just another mandate in response to how "we the people" have screwed up yet again. Apparently we desperately need the government to step in and hold our hands...

I am all for industry attempting to cut costs in order to serve the customer more efficiently, but to ban a plastic bag because a polar bear might float off is just plain ludicrous.