I see this as a positive step.

if you look at environmental issues as a building where everybody comes in on the first floor and we’re trying to get us all to the roof, most of trumps actions have been along the lines on moving the entrance to the basement, or at least regrading the yard so that we now have a low porch with more steps.

anything that raises the floor is progress. Meanwhile, you just have to keep climbing and help the people behind you up a step. Sometimes we may have to rest on a landing, but as long as we don’t lie to ourselves and say it’s the roof, hopefully we’ll get there.

(also, to extend the analogy with a dose of reality, as flooding increases, more and more of the people on the bottom step will drown, so as a practical matter, the project gets easier. They’ll pull some of the people on the step above them into the water too, but if you’re already on the second floor, it shouldn’t really affect you.)

i have two “single use” plastic containers that I brought home from the food bank, diverting them and their contents from the dumpster. I wash them and take them to the store over and over to be refilled with deli meat (which is bad, but dh is going to eat it) saving about 52 plastic ziploc bags a year. dh said “the deli guy hates you.” I said “the deli guy smiles when he sees me coming.” Dh said “he is laughing at you.” I said “cool. I am saving plastic and adding amusement to the day of somebody with a low paying repetitive job.”

i cannot imagine that the water and energy use (including a tiny bit of soap and its production, packaging, and transportation) to clean a plastic bag exceeds the water and energy use to produce, package, and transport a new plastic bag plus transport and dispose of the old one. Also, the washing is part of an open cycle, where the use and disposal is a closed line.