Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Climate columnist Tricia Clarkson thinks eco-warriors stuck at home because of the Coronavirus lockdown can still help save the world by convincing Tropicana to switch to hemp based juice containers.
Stuck at home? Now is the time to become a climate-change activist
Climate columnist Tricia Clarkson says we may have more time on our hands to start making change
OPINION Apr 12, 2020 by Tricia Clarkson
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Staying at home until the Coronavirus is over, allows us more time to be a climate change activist.
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Tropicana: A friend was picking up groceries for me so I told her to avoid buying anything that was in plastic. However, she couldn’t find Tropicana grapefruit juice in the cardboard carton I usually bought it in so she brought it home in a plastic bottle instead. When I asked her why, she said that Tropicana stopped producing their juice in cardboard cartons and was using plastic instead. I couldn’t believe they would go backwards knowing how harmful plastic is to the environment. 1-800-237-7799 was on the back of the plastic bottle so I called it.
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I suggested that Tropicana use hemp containers instead which is just as strong as plastic and is completely biodegradable. My suggestion has been registered and my call took five minutes.
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Read more: https://www.mykawartha.com/opinion-story/9940136-stuck-at-home-now-is-the-time-to-become-a-climate-change-activist/
Can you imagine what must have been going through the mind of the Tropicana representative during that call? In the middle of a global pandemic, a mob of climate activists call to demand they retool their supply chain to provide juice in plastic containers made from hemp.
“Rincewind rather enjoyed moments like this. They convinced him he wasn’t mad, because, if he was mad, that left no word at all to describe some of the people he met.” – from the book “Sourcery” by the late Terry Pratchett.
Where do they find nutjobs like Tricia Clarkson ?
Is it possible for someone to graduate from a reputable college and have such a complete lack of knowledge of economics, mathematics, chemistry, and physics.
To be honest, I didn’t think it was possible to graduate from high school with such astounding ignorance.
At the root of it is an attack on our natural gas and petro chemical industries.
The following should be required reading for all middle-school to college students:
https://andersen.sdu.dk//vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes_e.html
Seriously, at no time in history has a better reference been more appropriate to teach a very basic reality.
Your comment applies to all of Classical Literature. Most recently 1984, Gulliver’s Travels, Atlas Shrugged, …
Classical Literature is full of forgotten lessons, that better be recalled before its too late.
Democles’ Sword of Truth must needs to cut long and wide and deep through the elect when ‘this’ is over.
Are there sufficient graduates of a Great Books curriculum to save US? Alexander Meiklejohn!
I’m not a greenie by any means, but hemp is an amazingly versatile substance that could replace many of the less environmentally friendly substances used today. I’d like to see it used extensively, but not forced on any industry or company.
ty for that post, far too many people have chosen sides and are playing some game…….the marijuana plant is one of the most useful plants ever cultivated and it should be used to the maximum and that has nothing to do with politics or climate just common SENSE.
The version used for rope and plastic generally has little THC in it anyways.
wrong, it is the same plant……the stems are used to make rope and the oil is used to make plastics…….indeed those parts do have less thc but they still are from the same marijuana plants, the male plants also have less thc……Jefferson and Washington discussed this in letters to each other.
There used to be a law in some of the early colonies that a farmer legally had to grow hemp, which was deemed an essential product in the 17th and 18th century. Both Washington and Jefferson grew hemp in great quantity. Considering sails and rope, and a thousand other products were made from it, it is a sad reflection that somehow hemp, even with hardly any THC in it was classified a Schedule 1 drug, the worst of the worst. In 1937, hemp was strictly regulated by the Marijuana Tax Act and was partially lifted for WW2 as an essential product for the war effort.
As an agricultural crop, hemp produces 4 times as much pulp as does an equivalent area of forest in the same time frames. It is still a major pain in the butt to grow hemp just getting permits and licences and is getting better, but hopefully common sense will prevail and it will become another useful agricultural crop for our farmers to grow, that will also assist many different industries in creating old (and new) products.
Unfortunately, in many countries it is still straight up illegal as some have even pointed about Oz. The Philippines used to be one of the worlds largest growers, but now you are just as apt to be shot if found growing any type of hemp. This was always about politics and certain powerful interests, and blame was attached to it being Dope, which was also blamed on Black people with the reefer madness and criminality. It wasn’t about the miraculous properties of one of the oldest and most versatile agriculture products of all time, otherwise plain old hemp would have never have been banned. Or maybe it was, if the Hearst Corporation had signifiant interests in forested pulp for his newspaper empire.
Ease of manufacturing, transportation & handling, stacking strength, space limitations, shelf life are probably just few of the considerations when designing packaging for liquids.
Tricia Clarkson is making suggestions regarding what activists can come up with to fight AGW seeing as we all have more time on our hands.
Maybe we should be trying to come up with better ways to fight the activists!
Avoid the social justice networks and their #FakeNews. Read a book.
Unfortunately I chose to re-read Atlas Shrugged; and hopped from the current real frying pan into the fire of Ayn Rand’s burning prediction. It is eerie!
My husband is currently reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley first published in 1931 and revisited in 1958. It’s like he had window to the future/present.
Most plastic does nothing bad to the environment. Most people assume it does. I had someone say ‘well it’s plastic’ and I said so? She was like it’s bad and I asked in what way. She said litter and oceans. I said OUR trash doesn’t get put on the ground or the ocean, it goes into landfills. She said it doesn’t go away. I said neither do rocks. That finally ended the conversation.
According to an article I recently read in a national newspaper, Tropicana’s stated reason for switching from waxed cardboard to plastic is… Plastic is more easily recycled than waxed cardboard.
Makes sense to me. I recycle all plastic containers, while I unapologetically fill most empty milk and juice cartons with food prep residue and other garbage.
It also doesn’t hurt that the juice looks more appetizing in a transparent container.
And finally, the new plastic jugs are smaller than the previous cardboard containers, meaning it’s also a price hike.
Has she tried to convince the medical profession to switch to autoclaved hemp PPE supplies? Or perhaps they would like to start reusing plastic bags for shopping – to stop possible coronavirus transfer.