The plastic bag way to saving the planet

I chat with my girlfriend a lot about the environment - she's often of the opinion that things are irreversible and we're all doomed. Obviously we both feel that GW Bush was simply the worst thing that could have happened for the planet because of his disgusting;y foul attitude to the world around him - that's without the environmental catastrophe that is Iraq. However, I am still in the camp that refuses to give up - just yet.

I like to think of Jon's Plastic Bag Theory when things seem extra grim. I'm from the UK where people are more environmentally aware than in the US where only 20% of people even think that humans and their behaviour are having an effect on the environment. Maybe they think god's cooking things up a little.

Anyway, the Plastic Bag Theory goes like this: when you go to a shop, try refusing the plastic bags they offer you - at least a few times a day. Here in Japan I find it easy to refuse plastic bags where shop assistants are want to put even one thing in a bag without asking you if you need it or not. So, one person (me) refuses 3 bags a day, 21 a week, 1,000 a year. Lot of bags huh? In a population like the UK with maybe 20+ million shoppers - if they all did that we'd have what? 20 billion plastic bags NOT in landfills. Add this up worldwide and we'd be in the trillions of totally unnecessary plastic bags fouling up our one and only planet.

By doing this simple, seemingly inconsequential exercise we can see clearly that by all doing a little we achieve enormous things. If you live your life that way, of always having half an eye on what you need and what you don't, what can help and what can hinder, then things will move in the right direction. By doing this, you can move on to greater things - of restricting your car use, of recycling, of reusing, of making things last longer - it can all be done, and done easily.

The evil of GW Bush is that he barely recognises even a need to do anything. That's the joke: Americans are the least aware of the environmental disaster that awaits us, and yet they are by far the biggest polluters. Hilarious? No. An utter tragedy.