Within the larger context of plastic pollution and climate change, the role plastic straws play is rather minuscule. This is not to say that we should use five straws per drink or fill-up our bathtubs with them; if you don't need a straw, because some people actually do, obviously it's better if you don't use one. But because of all of this noise around plastic straws, we are losing sight of real dangers like ocean acidification and other (larger) plastic pollution.

Although some argue that refusing plastic straws might be "a gateway" to do more for the environment, the risk is too big to leave things to wishful thinking. Sure, it might lead to more impactful actions, but it also might lead to the exact opposite.

When it comes to acting responsibly about climate change, people tend to use self-licensing, using a good deed to negate a bad one, to justify their otherwise questionable actions. One research found that when people recycle, they feel entitled to use more resources and care less about how their non-recycling related actions affect the planet.

There is no concrete evidence that the hype around refusing plastic straws leads to similar self-licensing results, but we can't afford the chance that it does. In the video he posted on Instagram, Tom Brady says that refusing plastic straws is his commitment to tackling plastic pollution. Well, that commitment is not even close to being enough. If we stop at plastic straws we won't get anywhere. We need to think, talk and act more about climate change, not less.