I think you stand a much better chance to mobilize society against a million-times-worse problem they've never considered that happens invisibly, far from shore, on the seabed, if you first prime them to agree that the small problem is real.

It's possible that vested interests will try to twist the narrative once it begins to turn against them: "Do your part to sort plastics into bins, not the trash! Pay no attention to the single-use packaging manufacturers generating all that difficult-to-sort, difficult-to-process waste." "Freshwater is a resource that needs to be conserved! Turn the 1 gpm tap off while brushing your teeth. Ignore the 1000 gpm center-pivot industrial farm growing alfalfa in the California desert." etc. but that's risky.

I think that recognizing that invertebrates on the ocean floor can be victims of animal cruelty is step 1 in reducing trawling, pollution, and global warming that harms those animals.

When you solve part of a problem, and it is minuscule in scope, you have still solved part of the problem. Why let that demotivate you from wanting so solve more of the problem?

Nobody is motivated to solve the bigger problem. This theatre is masking an unwillingness to face global issues. It's a political gambit. "We did something! So quit bothering us until next session."

The problem then is not doing something, it's people not caring because they've done something. So I still don't understand why you take issue with this.

I remain motivated. I applaud all of the work that has been done so far and I also demand much more. Not only do I think this is a useful perspective, I think it's the only realistic path forward. To take the alternative perspective - that anything other than massive change is worthless - is a far more effective way to demotivate people and get them to give up and clock out.

This lays down the foundations that can be used to tackle the larger problems while gradually tightening the restrictions.

Implementing radical change overnight without the mechanism to enforce it will guarantee failure.

Gotta shift the public before you shift the public policy. Making the public think about other living creatures first, that's the way democracy works. They could set the laws but if unpopular with the public then they could pitch those people out and put ones in who will reverse the policy, unlike say in Russia or China who don't care about public opinion until it approaches the level of rebellion.