Another Reason I Hate The Plastic Bag Ban

It has taken me a couple of weeks to write this post because I was absolutely outraged at what happened to Mrs. RVFTLC and I on a weekend shopping excursion.
Some background is necessary here.
My hometown of Pasadena, California has a ban on markets and similar establishments from providing plastic bags to customers. This is the ordinance. If one forgets to bring their plastic bag(s), you can still obtain a paper bag. For the price of 10c each bag. This is a local ordinance. However, a bill was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown that would make this ban statewide. It is on hold as enough valid signatures were obtained to put it on the general election ballot in November, 2016.
So, whenever I am with Mrs. RVFTLC, she always remembers a bag or more than one, depending on what we need to purchase. Me. Uh, not so much.
One of the reusable bags was an insulated bag. We used it for cold items and or when purchasing ice. Which is what we were going to do on this Saturday afternoon. It was the last of the shopping and then, home.
We went in the store, reusable insulated bag in hand and eventually the shopping cart as we have done many times before.
After we finished our shopping we went in the line, put our items on the conveyor belt and then were asked during check out if we wanted to purchase a bag. Mrs. RVFTLC and I looked at each other and realized something.
Our bag was gone.
Mrs. RVFTLC looked around the check out area and it was gone.
Someone stole our bag! A frickin' plastic, but insulated, bag!
Needless to say, we were righteously pissed off beyond belief. I mean, a plastic reusable bag can be had for as little as 99c at most supermarkets. Since we were close to home, the fury in me did not subside and after helping Mrs. RVFTLC put away the groceries, I railed on Facebook about the dastardly deed. My mistake was adding a line, this line in particular:

BRING BACK PLASTIC BAGS!

That ended up being a long argument with my sister over, you guessed it, plastic bags and how terrible they are. Needless to say, she missed the point of the post.
THAT WE WERE ROBBED!!!!! RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES!!!!!
That coupled with the numerous times that I have forgotten a plastic bag as I noted here frustrates me about this abomination.
Look, as usual, environmentalist types get the whole issue wrong.
Firstly, supermarkets and the like used to have big boxes with signs for people to drop off plastic bags that they will not use for recycling. And also that people could trade or bring in used plastic bags to use. The problem was there was no incentive to do so. Under the current Pasadena ban, only one supermarket or like business offers any kind of credit for people bringing reusable plastic bags and that is the local Kroger outlet, Ralph's supermarket. Ralph's gives a 5c credit for all the bags one brings with them to shop. Why didn't places do that before, without the heavy hand of government?
Secondly, what ever happened to enforcing litter laws?
Has anyone not driven around your city and or suburban neighborhood and noticed, "Damn! Why is there just so much trash around?" I can tell you that the neighborhood park is one big trash can as there is trash all over the place.
What I would like to see is the kind of clean-ups that are done at the beaches. Most of that is done by kids through groups like Heal The Bay or the Surfrider Foundation.
As a conservationist, I see that as a real problem.
But this post is not about whether plastic bags are evil or a convenience.
It's about how low people can get to not spend a little money.
I don't exactly how much an insulated reusable plastic bag costs. Can't be more than $5 bucks, could it?  I mean, if one is going to steal a lousy bag, what the hell else are they going to steal.
Someone made the point on the now infamous Facebook thread that they might have been hungry and needed something like bread. Although that really had nothing to do with the issue, I got the Les Miserables analogy. First, I would not only personally buy the bread but any other food the person would want.
Maybe the crook was going to use said bag to steal more items. It's possible and more probable than not.
I will say that most people have not had the experience that we had but it is another reason why I hate the local ban on plastic bags. And am hopeful the voters of California will not allow a statewide ban next election.

My First Encounter With HAVING To Pay 10c For A Paper Bag

My fair hometown of Pasadena, California has a ban on stores providing plastic bags to its customers.
This was a simple city ordinance passed last year that officially took effect this past July.
One of the effects of this legislation is that stores now charge 10c for a paper bag.
Wait, I thought that the city of Pasadena wants to ban plastic bags?! I get that. But why are retailers charging 10c for paper bags?
Well, I have not had to personally encounter this indignity first hand until today.
That is because Mrs. RVFTLC always has a trunk full of reusable bags for all of our shopping needs. On those occasions when we shop together, she dutifully gets what she thinks that she will need for where ever we are. Not that she does not hear me rail against this over reacting, feel-good ordinance that is in a word stupid.
But today, as Mrs. RVFTLC is away visiting our son until next week, I decdided to use my gift card at Barnes & Noble to get a book that I have been wanting for a while. The gift card was a gift from my son. A great kid, yet very misguided politically.
So, since the Barnes & Noble is nearby the RVFTLC bunker, I figured I would ride my bike to the store. In reality it would be faster than walking and really faster than driving. That is a whole nuther post.
I rode down, looking like a great environmentalist. Except not wearing a turd helmet. I have a skateboarder helmet. There is another post. After dutifully locking up the bike and helmet, I went in and looked around. I knew the book that I wanted. But I looked around and tried finding the book. After walking by it  a few times, I finally looked in the right direction and my conspiracy theory of buring conservative books went out the window. So I picked up Dennis Prager's latest epic, "Still The Best Hope" and proceeded to the check register.
Of course I was oblivious but I did notice the gal in front of me not taking her books she purchased in a bag.
Then it dawned on me.
I should have heeded the words of my great friend and brother about the plastic bag ban.
And when the gal behind the counter asked if I wanted a bag, I realized that I would. And that will be 10c. I did not argue at all. It is not these people to take anything out on. They are doing their job. But I did ask the all important question.
Who gets the 10c that you (the company) are charging?
She answered the same way every clerk has done before. She did not know. But she did humorously add that she did not really care to find out as it was her last week at that establishment. I proceeded to raise my hand and said "Say no more! And good luck!"
I took my very large paper tote bag, much larger than I needed, and went on my way running a couple of errands on the way home.
With bag in hand.
Now that was so much humiliating as it was infuriating.
We always reuse plastic bag in RVFTLC manor. We do have two dogs and they poop a lot. There is also trash cans in our bathrooms that we often use the plastic bag as a liner. In other words, we don't just bring the bag home and throw it away. We are doing our job in recycling out bags.
But the hysteria and this push to make our fair burg a "green" city is what is driving such trivial and anti-business measure.
It used to be going to the market and the box boy or girl would ask "paper or plastic?" offering a choice to the consumer. Now in my town, it is "have your reusable bag or its gonna cost you 10c a bag".
And the environazis figure that people will tire of paying the 10c bag charge and be good little citizens and make sure to have their damn reusable bags. Or that there are enough that will not care because it is more convenient to fork over a little extra to not have to keep the reusable bags around.
See, these people do not live in the real world.
A lot of people have to fit shopping in to their schedules. For whatever reason. And sometimes, they do not have the time or are actually washing the reusable bags. In other words, they are living their lives. For some of these people, yeah it is more inconvenient to take the time to make sure that they have their precious, life-saving reusable bag.
But at a level it is our fault as those that do not like this government over reach and slapping yet another impediment on business that this has happened. We did not attend the city council meetings. We did not voice our objections in a loud enough manner. We let it happen.
It is what these folks hope from us. Little opposition. If there is, call them out as some whack job because they do not care about the environment.
I do believe in conservation but not environmentalism. There is a real difference, folks.
But no matter.
I just better remember to take my back pack with me everywhere in town just in case I don't have a reusable bag.

Yosemite, Conservation And Environmentalism

As the RVFTLC family took our recent trip to Yosemite National Park, the whole excursion made me think about what I am when it comes to such things as national parks and what it means to be a good steward of the earth and its resources.
Don't worry. I am not going crazy and becoming a Grennie or anything like that.
But there is something about the fact that the nation has a huge part that is undeveloped and that populations are being crunched into smaller areas.
So, I have to think about it.
Am I a conservationist?
Or am I an environmentalist?
I find it hard to narrow myself. I find that there is some overlap between the two forces. But today, environmentalism is winning out over conservation.
So, if I had to choose one to get out of a room, I would consider myself a conservationist.
Because I do believe that there are parts of the United States that do need to be preserved.
When I was at Yosemite and looked at the famous Half Dome formation, I looked at it and did not think "Gee, some oil rigs would be really cool up there." Or "Hmm, a nice fracking device at the top would be even cooler!"
No, I felt that it was a lot of what John Muir thought of Yosemite who wrote the following:

"No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite... The grandest of all special temples of Nature."

That is what I felt.
Conservation does seek to have a reasonable balance between nature and man. It seeks to balance the use of natural resources with efforts of preservation.
On the other hand, environmentalism believes not in a balance of nature and man but a perverse nature-worship. And it promotes such matters as Global Warming and so-called man-made climate change.
Yet the environmentalists ire is not at those that are currently the worst offenders, nations like Red China and India, but at the industrial West and the United States especially.
To me, it is all about the balance.
What difference will it make if the United States essentially returns to a pre-industial era when the two above-mentioned nations are raping and pillaging the land? Polluting like crazy?
The United States is unique in the world because of its sheer size that it can pursue a balance of forces that frankly, most nations can not.
One of the problems in the United States is the infamous Artic National Wildlife Refuge or ANWR.
The ANWR currently is 19,000,000 acres or 77,000 kilometres.
Essentially, in 1986 a report by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that all of the coastal plain of the reserve be opened for oil and gas development. The total that would be subject to allowing for oil and gas development is 1,062,000 acres. It is not even 10% of the total of the reserve. But conservationists and environmentalists have successfully blocked this for over 20 years. And the reason?
That all of this would disrupt the Porcupine Caribou and their calving areas and their migration patterns.
The problem is that there is no discernible proof that oil and gas exploration would do just that.
What should be done, again in the name of conservation and using a beneficial natural resource would be to halve the acreage and have the development on about 531,000 acres of land. And that it be done as far away as possible from the caribou to see if it would indeed have and impact on calving and migration patterns. Because unless it is done, how do we really know it will have a major impact?
There are reasons that this should be done and I am not writing this to go into that discussion.
I don't want to see the caribou taken out of their natural habitat. But I also do not like our overdependence on foreign sources of petroleum.
But before we go into our corners and try to demonize each other, I do not think that we who believe in conservation and balance are far from the majority thought. But because anything that seems to help something like the eeeeevvvvviiiiilllll oil companies, or any company for that matter, and we are seen as sellouts.
Back to Yosemite.
We should be very grateful that people before us had the vision to realize that there are just some things that should not be developed. That there is something to be said about being good stewards of the earth and of God's creation. But today, there is an extremism that worries me about what this means to many people.
As for me, it is all about balance. And conservation is balance. And preserving a place like Yosemite recognizes both.