Blocking Bridges and Plastic Bottles

Protesters blocked some bridges during the rush hour last week in an attempt to raise the public's awareness of the need for action on climate change. It was an interesting strategy to accelerate public awareness and involvement in the issue. I am not sure how effective it was. The actions in various cities certainly garnered the attention of the media, the police and of course, anyone whose commute to work was made longer. While I found it impressive that some people were prepared to risk going to jail to increase public awareness, I am not at all sure if they were "attacking" the right audience.

Some commuters, I suspect, were just frustrated by the delay. Those that are concerned or even passionate about the need for someone to do something about climate change were probably tolerant of the action; those who have not made the environment their primary concern were more likely to be irritated by the delays. I suspect that no one who is in a position of power to do anything about the amount of carbon in the air, or the amount of pollution in our rivers, lakes or oceans was inconvenienced in any way. And surely, any social action must not only increase the public's awareness of the specific issue (although I find it hard to believe that anyone is not aware), it also must make it at least a little bit uncomfortable for those in a position of power.

I believe that protesters need to be sure that they are acting against the right target. Otherwise, they are frittering a valuable resource in terms of people's time and energy.

Yesterday, CBC (https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/sea-litter-ships-bottles-1.5318390) reported on an international study that suggests that a significant percentage of the plastic water bottles that are found of the world's most remote beaches may, in fact, come from boats, specifically cruise ships. Everyone, I assume, knows that disposing empty water bottles by chucking them over the back rail is not only a bad idea but it is also illegal. But clearly, some cruise ships are doing it. The paper wondered if our assumption that much of our beach and ocean plastic pollution comes from the land was at least partially incorrect. We can ban all of the single-use plastic we want in Canada, but if cruise ships are doing it where we can't see them - our ban will not solve the problem.

It would seem to me that blocking access to the corporate offices of the cruise lines and protesting every time a cruise ship docked at one of our ports would do much to both educate the passengers and to make it just a little bit uncomfortable for the owners. It could be a much more effective use of our resources.

Yes, it is a small thing, but we will start to win the war by winning small battles.

But of course, we won't do that because cruise ships bring too much money into our cities.