open questions

1. does it matter whether I use paper, plastic, or reusable bags? and other choices with ambiguous environmental impacts.

The gist of it: most choices suck, and our individual changes won’t really do much. Stick to the classic advice and reduce, reuse, and recycle, in that order.
Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have by Tatiana Schlossberg addresses this question well. Her concluding advice?
- We use things because we can, with little regard for consequences for environment, and other people
- Living in line with our personal values is important, even though it won’t fix everything (/anything). Our small sacrifices remind us of what’s at stake.
- Always better to know more to make better decisions re: consumption, but it’s also responsibility of corporations to be more transparent so that we can actually do this.
- Vote.
- Be angry and upset. Still stay engaged.
- Ask questions.
- Demand change.
Re: the bags… Paper bags are more energy-intensive to produce and often aren’t made out of recycled paper, but they can be recycled or composted at their end-of-life. Plastic bags are pretty efficient to make and can be recycled, but rarely are, and require petroleum to be produced. Reusable bags made of cotton are very energy and water-intensive to make, but can be reused a lot. The environmental impact of your bag therefore depends on on the specific material and how it was sourced, how many times it is re-used, and how it is disposed of. See here and here for some details.

“The Nature of Nature,” Grow by Gingko Bioworks, 2019

…when compared to crops domesticated by artifical selection?
…in the context of the American chestnut? The species is currently near extinction from a blight not “native” to North America. Crosses between blight-resistant Chinese chestnuts and the vulnerable American variety have been bred, but the resultant hybrids cannot be considered true American chestnuts. More recent efforts have introduced a singular wheat gene that confers resistance to the American chestnut, and the strain has thus far proven to fit identically into the ecosystem. So, which is more natural? What about compared to things like Roundup Ready corn?
…especially given how widespread gene transfer is in the history of life? Our mitochondria aren’t really “human”… We are able to develop placentae by “repurposing genes that an invading virus used to make a protective membrane around itself.” Thus, human-induced GMOs might really just be one instance of an entirely natural instance of life.

To be honest, I hate this question. It’s scary and confusing to think about. But I’ll try…
When thinking about each action in isolation, our lives seem to be fundamentally governed by our neurochemistry; by the physics, chemistry, and electromagnetic forces that dictate how certain molecules trigger action potentials and the release of other neurotransmitters and changes in gene expression. But taking a step back, there is so much more that happens before that: all the neurogenesis, synaptogenesis, pruning, development, neuroplasticity… the contributions of “nature” and “nurture” and stochasticity along with the physical forces. And all that is so complex, so chaotic and undefinable, that there must be some room for our own thoughts, our own “will” to influence the matter, however that may manifest.
I don’t know. Part of me thinks it’s pointless to go about things not believing we have any efficacy or control over our actions. Might as well pretend, and give myself the chance? I don’t know.

The first things that come to mind are language, sophisticated technology, complex societal structures (civilization)… and the ability to imagine, to plan and prepare for abstract and distant (physically, temporally, realistically?) situations. Imagination seems to encompass the rest of them, giving motivation and purpose to the technology, to society, to have written forms of information to transmit knowledge across time and space. Imagination underlays literature, philosophy, even science (the ability to get very meta about our existence and biology)…