What To Make Of It?
Scenes of the 10/2/10 rally have just been shown and I was shocked with the condition of the mall and some of the monuments. There was trash everywhere, particularly discarded signs and literature. The memorials, at almost any other time, are treated with reverence, every scrap of paper is picked up by whoever sees it. Why did this happen? Did these people truly represent the environmentalists in their party? Aren't they the ones that lecture others about a clean planet?
I am disgusted when someone at McDonald's does not clean their trash and throw it in the bins provided. Very, very few people will leave trash on their tables, it is just natural to pick up and discard. I am confident that many of the people at the 10/2/10 rally have eaten at McDonald's and have discarded their trash in an appropriate manner. Why not at the rally?
The group on 8/27/10 cleaned up after themselves and left the mall without any paper on it. Why did that happen?
posted by Marcel at
3:08 PM
8 Comments:
Hypocrites. That's why.
I bike along the beach early Monday mornings. It is usually a pleasant ride. The trail is usually clean even though clean-up crews have not yet arrived to clean-up after a busy weekend. However, once a year there is an earth day celebration at the Santa Monica Pier. Attendees are generally people claiming to care about the environment, so called man made global warming believers. The following morning the trash along the trail, on the beach and in the parking lots is incredible. It is at times so bad you have to walk your bike to avoid a nasty fall. These people seem to think environmental protection is the job of the government or other people, not themselves.
Hypocrites!
By
John Beauregard, at 10:32 PM
Consider, if you will, that you are being shown exactly what someone wants you to see. Your clean crowd knew they were being shown on tv. They knew it would be shown to reflect an ideology and I suspect that the organizers had this message in mind and made sure that it was easy to find a trash can. [A little form over substance, but I digress.]
All big crowds leave trash. The bigger the crowd the more difficult it is to clean up after yourself and the more willing you are to leave trash behind. I am a girl scout--we leave a place cleaner than we found it, but I saw the phenomenon over and over in girl scouts. This is an organization of very consciencious girls and adults dedicated to these ideas, but the bigger the crowd, the more difficult it was to find a garbage can. I was willing to take my trash with me (no matter how smelly), but many others were not. Hypocrite is a very harsh word--Human is the Christian word. Human slobs who need a sharp reprimand, but human.
[I haven't seen any studies, but I find it difficult to believe that only liberals leave trash on the ground. You are taking two isolated facts and making considerably broad and far fetched conclusions. Sure it has a bit of Truthiness--Woodstock comes to mind--hippies were pretty dirty, but you wouldn't go to war over such flimsy evidence...]
By
KathrynVH, at 9:27 AM
Kathy raises a valid point about large crowds inherently making more trash. I have never attended an earth day event but I imagine it draws significantly more people than a peak Sunday.(especially in the Peoples Republic of Santa Monica) The PRSM probably does not put out more trash containers for the expected larger crowds. There is no equivalent conservative event in the PRSM to compare trash volume so I retract my hypocrite charge.
By
John Beauregard, at 12:56 PM
Kathy,
Regarding your first paragraph: organizers make sure there are port-o-lets and trash cans, all made difficult by having to estimate the crowd.
Both gatherings had organizers, can we say that the 10/2/10 crowd had poor organizers? I don't think so, both groups are good in planning. The question remains: What to make of this phenomenon?
By
Marcel, at 6:46 PM
Entropy in action! It is more favorable to be messy and disorganized because it takes less energy. A considerable amount of energy must be spent to reverse the effects of the force of entropy. Personally, I think we are all capable of reducing some entropy every time we go out in public.
I remember a large public event I attended in Cincinnati. It was an event they hold on Labor Day weekend called Riverfest. After people started leaving, the amount of trash left behind was disgusting. One thing I did do was pick up the used water bottles and put them in the recycling bins. The city did a good job of providing ample trash AND recycling bins, but people STILL did not use them! Come on people, get it together.
By
Sean M., at 8:24 PM
I know a lot of people like that Sean. They even live like that.
By
patb, at 6:19 AM
While talking to Mike at the Y today he gave me an additional insight on the mess that was left. He said: "They are union people and they were pushing and chanting for more jobs. Union people do not want to do someone elses work and they were merely protecting the jobs of the park sevice employees that are employed to clean up after events such as this."
Sounds plausable to me, but it does not explain what John experiences on his rides or Sean's need to pick up after Riverfest.
By
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