Plastic panic is another exemplary climate parable, in that it is also a climate red herring. The panic arises from the admirable desire to leave a smaller imprint on the planet, and a natural horror that the environment is so polluted by detritus passing through our air, our food, our flesh—in this way, it draws on a very modern obsession with hygiene and lightness as a form of consumer grace (an obsession familiar from recycling). But while plastics have a carbon footprint, plastic pollution is simply not a global warming problem—and yet it has slid into the center of our vision, at least
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