Smart People Fighting Stupid Inventions

I love this story on the Irish placing a 33 cent tax on each plastic bag they use at the grocery store.

Plastic bags are one of the curses of modern life. An incredibly stupid use of petroleum, these wafer thin bags never decompose, float in the wind, get caught on trees where they remain in remnants forever, and take up huge chunks of landfills. They also contribute in no small way to climate change. All this might be worth it, except that the product has absolutely no value whatsoever. There is no reason that we can't all just use cloth bags. They are pretty cheap too, last a long time, and are environmentally responsible. But we don't use them because we see the bags as free and painless.

Within one year, the Irish cut their use of plastic bags by 94%. Remarkable. Can you imagine what would happen if we tried this in America. First, the tax freaks would be going nuts, despite the fact that cloth bags are really cheap. Second, the president who proposed this would be accused of being another Jimmy Carter--weak, effeminate, and denying America's greatness. Like Carter when he pushed for conservation in the 70s, this president would likely be attacked since part of America's heritage is using as many resources we want at no cost. Plus, said president would be accused of not focusing on real problems, like killing brown people and pushing for anti-flag burning legislation. There has been some movement on this front in the US, but it has faced extreme resistance, even in the very liberal places it has been proposed, like New York and San Francisco.

Call me pessimistic.

In the recent UN Human Development rankings, Ireland was #5 and the United States was only #12. Evidence like this plastic bag tax helps me believe that Ireland in fact is a better place to live than the United States. You wouldn't think it given Ireland's history, but in fact it seems to be a wonderful place to be. I wish we were as smart as the Irish.