2201 Wisconsin Ave NW, Suite 110, Washington, DC 20007 is the address for the Chinese embassy.  If you love planet earth, you should go there right now. My alarm forgot to go off and maybe I am not yet woke enough to understand the obsession with banning plastic straws.  (It seems like there are bigger fish to fry, but I am getting ahead of myself.)  Bacardi, the rum distiller and ocean activist group Lonely Whale have taken it further.  How, you ask? Well, the next logical and responsible step of course would be to ban emoji’s of plastic straws and single use plastic cups.  Now, for those who still prefer to use a flip phone, and may not know what an emoji is, it is an emotional symbol of something that is displayed on a smart device to reflect a mood, feeling or a material object.  Or more precisely, according to the always trustworthy Google, an emoji is “a small image, either static or animated, that represents a facial expression, an entity or a concept (among other possibilities) in digital communications.”  Let me cut to the bottom line: emojis are not real.

Trust me, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.  I am not that creative. Banning digital straws is just plain silly.  Maybe it was a joke or some slick marketing campaign, or maybe they are just another liberal group looking to pat themselves on the back for how virtuous they are.   But it does go to the thought process of ultra left activists. If they don’t like something, they don’t want to debate the issue, they don’t want to win you over to their side with impressive logic, compelling reasoning or details of the many ways your life will improve.  No, Big Brother seeks to eradicate unacceptable thoughts. That moves it from silly to scary. Maybe they think you can’t handle straw emojis and it will trigger snowflakes to melt? Do they think that if you see a straw emoji, you’ll run out and use one? By the way, you can buy 400 plastic straws for about $7.00 on Amazon, but that would be a mortal sin, so I am not recommending it and a little surprised that such a progressive company like Amazon still allows the sale of the evil straws.

The one image I remember about the Beijing Olympics from 2008 was not Michael Phelps winning medals, but the pictures of horrible air pollution and most citizens wearing breathing masks.  China’s pollution makes Los Angeles smog look like the clean air at the summit of Byers Peak.

CNBC reported that China’s pollution is at a hazardous level and every hour of exposure reduces your life expectancy by 20 minutes.  I am not sure how accurate that math is, but the point is, that it’s pretty bad. But it is not just air pollution. Plastic pollution is a huge problem in Asia, with the top offenders being China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka, with China at 5 billion pounds per year, far worse than any other country.  I suspect it is more than just plastic straws. I’d have a lot more respect for Bacardi and Lonely Whale if they forgot about digital straws and focused the biggest threat to our oceans: China’s pollution. Why aren’t’ they spending a week protesting outside of the Chinese embassy? Why aren’t they putting pressure on China to literally clean up its act?  Seems to me that is the real environmental threat. I guess digital straws and blaming the U.S. is more fashionable.