Happy 5th

Two recent events have once again gotten me thinking about that tension between what I can do alone versus what we all must together agree. 

First, my landlord needed to replace the broken fridge in my apartment. I didn’t have a say, and when the hulking fridge arrived I looked up its serial number and discovered that it is not EnergyStar certified (not the landlord’s problem, of course). Try as I might, though, I cannot figure out what refrigerant this new fridge uses. Why is that information not mandatory? And why is it an option to produce and sell refrigerators today that don’t meet basic energy and refrigerant management standards? Why did my landlord have anything but good options? They shouldn’t have.

Second, I went for a lovely run/walk today. It was great, but it also was among the detritus of yesterday’s July 4th festivities. Strewn across every open space and piled up beside every garbage can were the remains of picnics, barbecues, confetti, fireworks, balloons and the other remains of any self-respecting celebration. It was clear that no one really meant to leave a mess. In fact, most people must have been quite careful to clean up after themselves, since the bigger pieces of mess were mostly piled near overflowing garbage cans and what remained strewn everywhere were those little bits of things. 

And, again, I was left wondering: why is this even a real option? I guess some would argue that it’s a question of free choice. That it’s too restrictive of government (or anyone) to say that people must buy a certain kind of refrigerator or must not buy certain types of celebratory fare. But, I can’t really see the argument for that. None of us have the time or skills necessary to personally investigate every product we buy. Instead, I think we naturally tend to think that someone has imposed basic standards that allow us to trust in the basic integrity of the product. That’s why it’s so devastating when, for example, buildings fall down or products explode accidentally or sicken us. It’s because we thought there were minimum standards and they were clearly not met. So I don’t really see how this is different. I suppose some would argue that what I’m talking about goes beyond minimum safety standards, but, again, I can’t quite see it. Sure, it’s not usually immediately obvious who the victims of the litter are or when the effects will be felt, and we can’t trace any specific incident to any particular item of litter, but the overall effects of pollution are clear beyond any doubt. Must we allow some pollution some time? Yes, unfortunately, that seems inevitable. But why would we not stop it in these easy cases? And why isn’t it the obligation of the polluter to explain why their pollution is a type that we should allow, despite its obvious and serious harms to our societies?