Call it "pollution" vs climate change

[el_bryanto]

1. It's problematic

Nobody is in favor of trash or pollution where they live, but in many parts of the country the public services are, well, segregated. If you live in a wealthy neighborhood you will get good service in trash removal (and a lot of other things, frankly). If you live in a poor neighborhood your trash won't be picked up as often.

Against this backdrop consider - your county wants to put up a trash incinerator - yes, there will be safeguards, but there's no getting around the fact that it will create a certain amount of air pollution. Where are they more likely to put this incinerator - in a well off neighborhood or a struggling neighborhood? We know the answer there. So when you focus on trash and local sources of pollution, you might well be able to motivate and mobilize people in that community (of course it helps if they have a certain lee way to attend meetings, to protest, and take other actions which, lets face it, wealthy and upper middle class folks have an easier time carving out time to do that compared to the working poor.

Finally it kind of ignores pollution problems that aren't easily sourced; we know what scientists are telling us about climate change effects everybody, but by focusing on concrete examples of it . . . well, a lot of those are harder to see (when I listened to Rush Limbaugh it always aggravated me how every cold day was proof that global warming was a myth, as if that were the argument people were making).

So while this approach might be beneficial in some areas, I don't think it works for a national strategy.

Bryant