No, the BP oil volcano in the Gulf of Mexico is not your fault, despite what many pundits will tell you. Back in the 1960s when the environmental movement got going, major US corporations responsible for much of the nation’s pollution decided to fight it by paying for television advertising that urged individuals not to litter, thus implying that pollution is produced by anarchic individuals rather than by organized businesses. It was a crock then and it is a crock now.
The argument is very important: effective environmentalism is not about guilt-tripping individuals, it's about policy. For example, it's not about recycling by households, it's about regulating the packaging of commodities.
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