World News
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
view the rest of the comments
Compostable plastic bags are only a few cents more expensive than the shit ones, no reason why every supermarket in the country can’t convert over.
Kind of funny. When I was a kid, people would be asked, "Paper or plastic?" and encouraged to use plastic as it "saved the rainforests"
We've come full circle
Plastic definitely had a pretty good PR team in the beginning there. “Don’t use metal cans, the chemicals the leach into water kills fish”. “Switch to plastic drink bottles, glass is dangerous to wildlife if it ends up in the ocean”
Never heard those. The ones I would hear are. It takes a bajillion pounds of fossil fuels to make one can. Glass will just randomly explode into a shower of splinters that will definitely get into all the children's feet with no warning whatsoever.
Obviously plastic causes a whole bunch of other problems but using it for bags literally does save the rainforests in a roundabout sort of way.
Corporations being corporations, very few are going to spend the extra money to offer you FSC certified paper bags sourced from a well managed, renewable plantation. They are going to buy the absolute cheapest product available that they can slap their logo on.
The inevitable consequence of that choice is that those bags likely come from a country with little to no regulation of their forest industry. In all likelihood those ultra cheap bags are either a) made from irreplaceable old growth forest that was then burned to cinders and turned into a palm oil plantation.
Or b) made from low grade timber imported from the other side of the planet. When this timber arrives, it and everything else in the hold are completely and utterly black with mould. All good though, you can just blast it with a mixture of industrial bleach and a cornucopia of the harshest chemicals imaginable before draining and allowing that entire slurry to wash into the river, which then flows to the ocean.
Now you can make paper!
Even where I live in Australia, we've rapidly shut down sustainable state forest logging for hardwood. These decisions were made on emotion, but essentially out of a desire to do good. It's just unfortunate that the people making that series of decisions doesn't really understand the consequences of their actions.
We do not have anywhere near the amount of sustainable plantation required to service the needs of our local paper making industry. Further still, you can't make quality paper out of plantation pine alone: you need hardwood.
There's massive investment into hardwood plantation timber over the next few years. Unfortunately we are looking at 30 years of buying our bags from countries where there are no standards, and no hesitation to pump chemical slurry into the ocean or cut down old growth forest to make shopping bags.
So yeah, I'll take the plastic thanks. I'll re-use it as a bin liner before it goes to landfill but at least it isn't burning sludge diesel in TWO directions as the ingredients are shipped around the world and it didn't pour a thousand litres of filth into the ocean or tear down an old growth forest.
I think it could depend a lot where you are. I just took a look at my own paper bag from Trader Joe's in CA. I looked up the company that produced it, it seems like they're using 3rd party sourcing certification and source their pulp domestically. Also 40% of the bag is recycled. I'd love to be proven wrong but it seems like it's a lot better than plastic to me.
Oh without a doubt. I have no idea what sort of store trader joe's is, but I'd imagine whole foods stores and others who want to look like they give a fuck would do their due diligence on the supply chain. In which case absolutely paper is better than plastic! It's renewable and doesn't stick around forever.
And speaking as a kiwi, we produce very little for ourselves. Most of our production is immediately sent overseas for better prices... This is double-bad because we're so damn isolated.
I've sat amongst policy wonks trying to raise the profitability if the country and had them joking that if we could just move across the equator closer into Asia, it would all be so much easier...
My point is, the carbon miles on everything makes it awful. Sure consumers and supermarkets are changing (after legislation, certainly not before!), but the whole playing field is based around the convenience of the shipping container and it's absolutely unsustainable.