On the Contradictions of Climate Action

By Deirdre Heavey, Spring 2021

Gallivanting down Broadway between the gentrified 23rd and 24th Streets of the Flatiron District, I bare no mind to the line of fast-casual restaurants and yuppie coffee shops on every corner. Sweetgreen, Starbucks, Dig Inn, and the new CBD concept store that looks more like a contemporary art exhibit than a place to buy medicinal marijuana. I look down as I step over the grated sewer at my feet when a transparent piece of plastic reflects the sun’s light peeking through the well-conserved trees of Madison Square Park. 6 rings–small enough for a turtle’s neck to slide its way into, yet large enough to provide a toxic seasoning to a dolphin’s dinner. 6 rings that mark my transition from frolicking in my Business Improvement District bubble to a climate march down the streets of Madison Avenue. 

Coded in those tight plastic soda rings is Lovelace–the short and stocky godlike penguin from Happy Feet with big yellow whiskers sticking through the 6 pack ring around his neck. It dawns on me that if I had passed the same Broadway sewer just moments later, the 6 rings could be halfway to Antarctica by now–destined to slip onto the neck of one of Lovelace’s penguin friends. I reach down and pick up the penguin’s noose, using my fingers as a crutch to separate the circle of death into slivers into seaweed-passing plastic. Now if the rings find their way into the ocean, they can pass through an animal’s digestive system in peace without the threat of a lifetime of fixed suffocation. There are pale indentations on my index fingers from the plastic’s pressure. I wouldn’t describe the feeling as particularly pleasant, but I can’t imagine a soda ring around the neck is of particular comfort. I can’t soundly pass those 6 rings on the street without dropping my torso down to the floor like a wind-up doll, picking up the likely COVID-contaminated plastic, and separating the rings with my two hands.

The cows for my burger will still be dead, regardless of whether or not I choose to participate in Meatless Mondays. Does it make a positive impact on the environment or a positive impact on my mood?

When my friends from New York visited me in San Francisco, I explained to them that any and all food scraps can go into the dumpster-size green compost bin; the following week, they returned to New York where compost bins fit into Barbie’s Dream House.

If I buy a fur coat from a second-hand vintage store, then the chinchilla didn’t die for nothing. It would be wrong to leave the remnants of the beautiful creature’s fur sitting around a dusty store. It’s best to give the little guy a new life. With a one of kind coat, there’s no supply and demand anyways–right?

Cigarette butts don’t count as litter.

Single-use plastic is never okay, except for the clear Starbucks venti cup that holds my cold brew with almond milk every other day.

My reusable bags accompany every trip I take to the store. Somehow, I still have a drawer in my apartment overfilling with plastic bags. I will never understand why they insist on placing each individual item into a plastic bag and then placing each of those plastic bags into an even bigger plastic bag. 

When I’m choosing which tampons to buy each month, my conscience can rest easy with the purchase of the 30 pack of forest green organic tampons perfectly packaged in a clear box with a gold top. L. even donates one whole pad to a girl in need with my purchase of the 30 pack. 

I have never lived in a city in the United States that hasn’t had perfectly fine drinking water. Yet, an industrial-sized plastic Brita is my lifeline. How the thick plastic breaks down? I don’t know; I do know it must be better than Poland Spring water bottles every day. 

If it’s not cruelty-free, no thank you. Unless it’s my Benefit They’re Real! mascara that’s been sitting in my makeup bag much longer than the suggested three-month time frame. 

Thrift shopping beats fast fashion any day of the week. Every once in awhile, I find myself doing a haul at the too-cheap-to-be-true slave labor fueled Zaful.

I don’t eat red meat unless I’m visiting my family in San Francisco in which case I eat red meat every night. 

Shamelessly, I post an Instagram photo collage every Earth Day containing the photos I snapped made possible by carbon dioxide producing flights around the world. 

If I decide to boycott Nike, they’re going to continue to sell shoes. Don’t want to buy the latest Nike Free Runs? Child laborers will continue to clock in for work the following day to ensure ample inventory makes its way to the Nike Store in SoHo. 

I skipped class on a Friday to listen to Greta Thunberg speak at South Ferry about the importance of climate action only to witness the President of the United States continue to withdraw funding from the EPA.

Middle school soccer teams march and scream, “We want change,” in unison with colorfully disorganized signs questioning the point of education without an Earth.

Raising taxes in a 20 block radius in the middle of Manhattan isn’t gentrification–it’s a Business Improvement District! If we’re supporting small businesses, it doesn’t matter that the bodega guy is displaced to a 30-minute commute to Brooklyn where he can afford rent. 

San Francisco City & County will issue a fine to any resident that refuses to separate their trash, recycling, and compost into the respective bins. I didn’t know Hunter’s Point was the proper bin for toxic waste? Maybe the residents of San Francisco should fine the city for decades of environmental racism.

I don’t have the power to convince Trump to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord that we spearheaded under the Obama Administration. I don’t have the power to repair the respiratory systems of communities of color who have suffered at the hands of environmental racism. I don’t even have the power to convince my family to stop eating red meat. I do have the power to stop accepting plastic bags and to start bringing reusable cups to coffee shops. I have the power to stop supporting fast fashion and to make the switch to menstrual cups. Caught in the contradictions of power that weave their way into my efforts to lead a greener life, I often feel powerless in my good decisions and powerful in my bad ones.

In this so-called contradictory life, tearing apart each plastic ring of the 6 pack just makes sense. Tearing apart those 6 rings with such a might that they leave a slight indentation in my index fingers is at the core of my power–where I feel empowered to march for climate justice, to call for a ban on fracking, to make the switch to a vegan lifestyle.