The subject of that assembly still burns in my mind. I was in eighth grade, and the assembly was unique in the sense that it wasn’t welcoming us into the new school year, and it wasn’t scolding us for vaping in the bathrooms or drawing hateful symbols on the windows or calling people mean names. This assembly was all about straws. The presenter, a stern woman who spoke in a severe tone about what was happening to the turtles as infographics flashed on the screen behind her, left us all with a catchphrase, one that could have been a hashtag: skip the straw. I admit that I’d been swayed in the moment, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone; in 2018, turtles were able to change a lot of people’s minds. However, as persuasive as the facts of the presentation had been, they didn’t stick. I found that I had barely been using plastic straws in the first place, and even if I had been, what difference would it make if I stopped using them? What’s one person in a world of seven billion?

If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you like Earth. Nobody wants Earth to become uninhabitable because that would mean a lot of bad things for humans, including extinction and other negative side effects. Even if you’re a climate change denier and you’re reading this because you were expecting it to play into your misinformation feedback loop, I know you don’t hate Earth. You just think our planet isn’t in danger, which is wrong, but I won’t try to change your mind. If you like Earth, there’s a good chance you would be willing to take steps to help it in a time of need. Although this is a good mindset to have, it won’t help.

I’m here to tell you only one thing: you’re being manipulated. It’s becoming increasingly normal to see headlines about 2021 being the hottest year on record, catastrophic wildfires in California, or unprecedented flooding in Europe and feel some degree of guilt. You’re meant to think that maybe if you tried your best to always recycle, this wouldn’t have happened. Normal people having to bear the burden of climate change is all part of the plan. The people who actually have the power to do something about Earth’s current trajectory, including Jeff Bezos and other Very Rich Guys, choose to do nothing because money is more important than any global obligation, and global obligations tend to be costly. It’s easier for them to make heartfelt commercials highlighting all of the terrible consequences of climate change without actually making commitments, easier still to suggest that buyers upcycle copious leftover cardboard to make ugly furniture instead of wastefully throwing it away, and easiest of all to ignore the problem entirely despite having extensive knowledge of the ramifications of doing so. Of course, news corporations are also run by Very Rich Guys who don’t want you to see the lack of serious measures being taken, so instead they show you Joe Biden falling asleep at the COP26 climate summit just as an announcer calls it “one of the most important meetings in history.” Setting aside the obvious problems, why is it even Joe Biden’s job to stop climate change when the Very Rich Guys who also control the government are poised to stand in his way? What needs to happen is for every corporation to stop using oil to make plastic and stop cutting down trees to make paper, but that stands in direct conflict with not only their money but our daily life--we’ve already become so attached to these basic staples that society would be upended without them.

I won’t stop you from not using plastic straws, but if they’ve already been produced and you have access to them, the damage is done. You can donate to Team Seas if you want, but 30 million pounds of plastic removed from the ocean is nothing compared to the 17.6 billion pounds that are dumped into the ocean each year, unless canceling out four days’ worth of plastic means something to you. Go ahead and recycle, but it’ll just be used for low-quality plastic and won’t stop more of the plastic you’re used to from being made. If you want to really do something, the best advice I can provide is to talk about climate change without mentioning the usual methods embraced by the public, including recycling and paper straws, because the disheartening reality is that those won’t make a difference. If those who have money, power, and huge corporations understand that people are onto them, only then might they change. I could be wrong, and maybe nothing will change Earth’s current path, but finally putting on some pressure is the best shot our planet has.