actual causes of global warming rule
actual causes of global warming rule
414 comments
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This reply misunderstands the fundamentals of market economics. If we, the consumers, start making the global climate more of a factor in our purchasing decisions, that will directly affect what gets produced in a capitalist system. Not trying to absolve these corporations of responsibility for the problems they’ve caused, just saying that if enough people start taking the bus/train instead of driving or substituting meats for plant based foods, we can have a significant impact. Of course the best thing we can do is vote to get ignorant climate science deniers out of office.
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Choosing what to buy is a luxury most people don’t have. Companies need to be forced into changing because the market proves time and time again that it can’t regulate itself
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Chosing to eat chicken instead of beef impacts the whole chain from fertilizer to animal feed to clearing the Amazon for pasture to methane produced by cows.
You have more choice than you think, like which meat to pick or to use more eggs and cheese as replacement instead. This is just one of the obvious everyday choices. Not all fish is equal too, with sustainable aquaculture being the best choice for the world.
If the oil majors, or just one of them switch off the taps tomorrow we will just get Russian gas crisis x10 and make OPEC and friends insanely rich. We need to transition to something else, that's for sure, but blaming them for everything is super naive.
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The issue with that logic, voting with your money, which I once used as well, is that richer people get more of a vote than poor people. And as a bunch of the issues with global warming didn't really hit rich people, we shouldn't depend on them to fix it.
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In order to make an actual impact on the environment, we'd need to all go back to living without electricity in stone houses. Everyone in the world could take the bus and it would do fuck all. Society needs to change how we produce energy and how we construct things. That's stuff consumers cant do by changing their habits.
Here's a great video by Kurzgesagt
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Can't buy what doesn't exist, can't buy a healthier option if one isn't produced, can't buy a more sustainable product if one isn't produced, can't buy a solar powered utility vehicle if one isn't produced, can't buy wind power if it isn't produced, can't buy items without single use packaging unless they're produced.
Needs and wants may drive a market, but nothing is consumed before production.
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IIRC the study that the "X% of companies are responsible for X% emissions" is somewhat misleading. For example they use the combined output of everyone's car exhaust and attribute that to the major oil companies since they provide the gas. Not saying that large corporations and the wealthy in general contributing to climate change exponentially more than the average person, but its misleading to say that as an individual it doesn't matter if we try to use less energy.
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This exactly! We need to go after the corporations with policy changes but that doesn't mean that we, as individuals, are completely blameless or that individually actions are inconsequential. If nobody chooses to drive less or to take the bus then collectively we're telling the major oil companies to continue with business as usual at if nothing's wrong. The corporations are to blame but we're all active participants!
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I have some troubles with this line of thought.
For a big majority of people, there isn't simply a lot of options, or any options at all, to take the car less, or buy less over packaged items, or reduce the pollution footprint.
The corporations won't offer any alternative unless legislations make these alternatives the right choice business wise.
So toothless legislation is a problem and the governing bodies absolutely have the lion share of responsibilities and the personal efforts are worthless without the support of the governing bodies.
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This is one of the most shittiest takes I've ever seen, trying to absolve oneselves of taking responsibility.
Yeah, there are those companies that produce the bad shit but this tweet is right. If you stop eating meat, the companies that produce meat will produce less of it and there will be a real impact.
I don't know what the fuck the OP is thinking. Like, do they think that the corporations just produce pollution for fun? No, it's because you buy that shit. If you stop buying that shit, pollution will go down. CNN was 100% right and that fucker that responded is removed at best, but probably just braindead because what he posted doesn't make sense at all.
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Bro the big oil corporations spent decades at the beginning of the 20th century creating and forcing the demand and dependency on oil. Watch “How Big Oil Conquered the World” from James Corbett.
It’s not like WE chose this to be the way things are. The people who control industry, and marketing, and media and THE GOVERNMENT, all MADE us and it all this way.
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Stop buying what shit? Everything? Corporations lobby for policies that save them money at the cost of our environment. Yes there are things individual people can do to help but posts like this one from CNN shift the focus from the actual problem
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Yeah this is where taxing these negative externalities would help to curb the demand of wasteful products and thus lower waste produced by corporations.
We can't expect corporations to just do the right thing out of the goodness of their hearts, because the products would cost more and the masses would just purchase the cheaper more waste producing products. We need to level the playing field by taxing pollution and waste.
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I agree with you, but don't use ableist slurs when making arguments about social responsibility.
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I especially like the part where I prefixed this with “there’s no responsibility on the part of consumers whatsoever”
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Re read what he wrote. He said without including that or some form of. For example, Elon put a larger carbon footprint into the world in one week with his jet than most of us will over the course our lifetime. Does it mean we shouldn't do our part? No. We definitely need to do and be better. It would take only a few of the biggest contributors to make a big impact while it would take thousands, if not millions, of us.
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Not all changes are an improvement, but all improvements are a change. That applies to both our lifestyles, especially in rich countries, and corporations, what they do and how they operate.
Animal agriculture is the most obvious example to me, it's unjusifiable ethically let alone environmentally so no matter what people are gonna have to stop eating animals and their secretions, and most people can stop pretty easily and eat healthily (it's extremely easy to do better than the SAD) so start now and get ahead of the curve
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IMHO twitter OP's take basically amounts to climate change denial.
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There is the caveat of business practices which are often unknown to the consumer—think of all the times businesses have been busted and then(temporarily) boycotted for it. But, yeah, consumers consume and should be well aware of their consumption.
Demand controls supply.
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Go back to reddit, and type something no one will see, hipster wanna be.
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Ok CNN. I'll follow your lead and start using public transportation.
That just involves me leaving my house at 4am and driving 9 minutes to the local bus stop, then take a bus ride for 37 min, transfer from there to another bus for another 19 min ride, transfer to another bus and ride for an hour, then either call an Uber for a 3 min ride or I can walk for 30 minutes to reach my workplace.
Or... I can just drive and reach my workplace in 40min.
I would love to use public transportation, and when I lived in Japan that's all I ever used, which I much preferred to a car.
America first needs to get serious about establishing actual reliable and accessible transportation in order for more people to use it.
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To be fair the big three (Ford, GM, Chrysler) made some politicians very rich suppressing light and cross country high speed passenger rail, also public transit all across the nation.
The US (through its deeply corrupted electoral system) totally bought that ticket to ride that train... so to speak.
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Please, think of the oil companies and quit being selfish! /s
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You're right! How could I forget about the oil companies?
How ever would they make even MORE money now at the expense of Americans having better public transportation?!?
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Flying pigs are actually carbon neutral, lets just use them
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They’re not just wrecking the environment for no reason, they make products people consume
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The average person isn’t wrecking the environment for no reason either, and yet they always appear to be the target for “environmental sustainability” snipes presented by mainstream media as fact. There are an innumerable number of practices that large industries can practice to limit their carbon footprint, but it is never a priority.
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I like the whole "save water" bullshit. like in california. Or anywhere else being fed by lake mead. Like, "You need to take shorter showers! conserve water". the ten minute shower they're berating consumers for... is literally nothing compared to the water straight up wasted for California's agriculture. (and by wasted, I mean water lost before it even gets to the plants.)
Most of Lake Mead and the Colorado River aren't used by people. it's used by corporations that don't give two shits because nobody gives a damn about them wasting water- can't harm the jobs, now.
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Private companies aren’t going to do the right thing just for the sake of it, because any moral sacrifice on their part will give ground to other companies that won’t do the right thing. It has to be fixed through regulation, ushered in through representatives elected by average people.
But most average people don’t care. They want lower taxes and cheaper gas.
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I mean yeah for a whole host of reason we should shut down animal agriculture. But until we can make that happen people shouldn't support it. People don't support it for no reason but they do almost always support it for bad reasons like habit/tradition and sensory pleasure
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It's largely a problem of government that is exacerbated by the influence of the businesses themselves. It's the governments job to enact policy change that force business to address these issues and develop more sustainable production process and product offerings, but since the government has essentially been bought out by those same businesses, nothing happens at all.
We can't decouple business from government without policy changes that would place limitations on such influence, and we cannot enact those policies because of the influence from businesses. I don't see a solution unless people wise up and elect a lot of people in the same election cycle not beholden to these groups, but I don't know how that can be accomplished.
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Whoo, you saved me the effort of typing out a response!
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Exactly. Saudi Aramco is wrecking the environment because (among others) Dow Chemical keeps buying their oil. Dow Chemical keeps buying their oil because Sterilite keeps buying the plastic that Dow makes. Sterilite keeps buying Dow's plastic because people keep buying Sterilite bins to store all their junk. Ultimately if there wasn't a person consuming things at the end of the chain, the oil wouldn't be removed from the ground in the first place.
Ultimately it all comes down to people's lifestyles. When you buy something that's made of plastic or transported on a container ship, you're giving these companies money they use to wreck the environment. If instead of kiwi fruit, you buy melons from an Amish farmer who brought them to market using a horse-drawn carriage, that lifestyle choice has an impact on the environment.
Having said that, it's true that companies use lobbying to twist laws in their favour, and use sales and marketing to drive demand for their products. It's hard to know whether a product you're buying is damaging to the environment because the companies that damage the environment don't want you to know and will oppose any law that makes it clearer. It's hard to choose to purchase a less environmentally destructive item if you don't know it exists.
But, it's just ridiculous bullshit to pretend that nefarious companies are out there burning coal just for fun, while cackling evilly. Everything companies do is in service to making money, and virtually the only way they make money is to sell things that people want to buy.
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australian coal producers:
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Swap your car or plane ride for a bus or train
Kinda hard to do when there's nowhere near enough investment in public transit
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It's not actually about the transit; it's about the zoning. Both the reason we "need" transit in the first place and the reason it's too expensive per rider to be viable is that our homes and businesses are spread too far apart.
If you're not within easy walking distance of a grocery store, your town was built wrong.
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That too, but it's not like transit investment isn't also lacking
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"Just one more road, bro. I swear this time it'll work out, bro. Just one more lane in that 8-lane highway, bro"
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Yeah where I live, there's a bus every 2 hours that needs ~30 minutes to get to where I work. If I took that, I'd have to walk an additional 15 minutes to my actual workplace and I'd still be an hour too early.
And after work, I'd have to again walk 15 minutes to the bus stop and wait another 30 minutes for the bus home.So between leaving my house and coming back home, there'd be ~11.5 hours. When I use my car, that's ~9.5 hours.
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My old job was located out of the city and the times I worked there were no busses running (4am til whenever we were done) so I drove ~30 minutes to work, then work between 12 to 14 hours then drive back, which can take between 30 minutes to an hour if there was an accident. Then only being able to sleep like 3 hours a night then repeat the process was torture.
I'm so glad I was able to get a remote job where now I actually have time during my work days to do other things like actually go to gym everyday and be able to see my family more rather than just work and sleep.
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I literally cannot do either of these things. Haven’t ever been able to in my life. No town I have ever lived in had public transport available. Closest train station was literally a two hour walk away.
It’s a nice thought, but there isn’t enough infrastructure to play like it’s generally available.
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This is such a fucking stupid argument to make.
The reason airlines make x% of CO2 emissions is because people want to fly, they're an airline, and there is no emissions free way to power a plane.
The reason the plastic company makes x billions of plastic sporks every year is because I want a spoon to eat my Taco Bell Nachos in my car. They're not making all the plastic pollution because they just hate the Earth.
They're not cartoon villains like in Captain Planet that pollute just to make pollution.
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If it's that bad, then let's make a law that fixes the problem.
You can take this and just welp, plastic spoon is cheaper and all my concurrent are doing it so fuck it.
We want a greener industry? Make the fucking law reflect that otherwise, fuck off.
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It's almost as if regulations are needed because humans are incapable of doing the right thing to protect themselves. Fairly common thing I might add but you'd require a slightly larger government to do it and we can't have that either.
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Which is how this ends up being a chicken-egg problem.
Are people driving plastic usage or is capitalism driving policies that drive people to use more plastic?
And if so, why is industry writing policy instead of the public, or agents that are supposed to work for the public's interest?
None of this ends until enough "regular people" coordinate to take power back from industry so that we operate like an actual democracy again. If you want to preserve an environment on Earth fit for human habitation, you have to get loud about... Campaign finance reform : P. And then realized that as boring as that sounds, that that will be when things actually would get violent and scary bc real power would be threatened.
I am not optimistic we'll even get that far. Our population probably will take some very severe hits in our lifetime though. I'll cut down on meat where I can, but I am mostly just enjoying the good times we have left.
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It doesn't help that a sizable subset of Americans will removed and moan at any efforts to reduce the reliance on things like disposable plastic forks, plastic straws or plastic shopping bags because it's "woke".
For chrissake, remember when they sold Trump branded plastic straws?
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Tbh the best way to avoid that is to use marketing instead of force, make carrying a reusable spork cool, market it differently to people (like for the woke say it's green and one company that makes a certain spork is employee owned by gay people, for the trumpets say it's good for their prepping or because the microplastics are estrogenating the children or some shit and also this other spork brand are god fearin' christians unlike GaySporks, etc), until they become common like nalgene bottles were and then you can either just phase out the disposables or then pass your law with more support, or just let them be as emergency rations for if you lost your spork on the way to taco bell today or whatever and you need another.
Edit: shit, you could even have fast food and fast food+ style places rebrand a spork with their logo and sell them instead of giving away free disposables. Capitalism is the problem and it won't go away? Exploit it against itself and make it work for the enviornment. To some degree it's not only doable but probably easier than force through law.
You get a lot less support with "plastic straws are now illegal, go buy a metal one and some pipe cleaners to carry now" than if you figure out how to make the straws popular with everyone first.
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From what I understand, a lot of corporations have power over the options consumers have, the market isnt as free as this argument implies. For example, coal and fossil fuel lobbies do a lot to prevent sustainable alternatives from being adopted.
The US doesnt rely on oil and coal because thats what consumers want, or because its necessarily the cheapest, its because the people that run those corporations have the means to subvert democracy. They are not cartoon villains, but they are absolutely villains.
What you are saying is true for plastic straws and airlines, but I would guess it doesnt really apply to many of these 100 corporations
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there is no emissions free way to power a plane.
You can run it on biofuels. This is how Gates excuses his private jet, conveniently ignoring the possibility of combining biofuel AND comercial flights.
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Some airlines are trying to, and electric on shorter flights.
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Biofuel does emit around the same carbon output to the atmosphere (compared to storing it). Producing the amount necessary to replace most of petrol requires a ton of crop land, and alternatives means of production are not available quite yet, if ever.
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You're absolutely right. They aren't cartoon villains. They're just rational agents acting according to very real incentives.
But where do these incentives come from? They depend on how we choose to organize our economy, what guiding principles our society follows in how to distribute resources, and harvest them from the environment.
They come from our economic system. Our economic system is capitalism. And one of the many, many problems with capitalism — it can't fucking slow down. In the eternal chase for greater and greater quarterly profits, there is no room for questions such as "is this growth sustainable?" or "I know there's demand for this, but should we really be doing it?".
Pointing fingers and blaming people is, indeed, a waste of energy. Instead, it may be better to ask: "How do we incentivise people to change their behaviour? What about our system needs to change? And how quickly can we dismantle the oil companies?"
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We can't incentivize people to change their behavior because no one is going to deliberately lower their quality of life.
What politician is going to win on a platform of...
Let's make air travel so expensive that normal people can no longer regularly fly!
Vote for me I'm going to double your electricity bill!
You know that big SUV you love that is entirely impractical but you just like it because of how big it is... If you vote for me I'll make gas $7 a gallon so that you can't afford to have a giant SUV anymore.
You know how you like to eat your Taco Bell nachos in your car with a plastic spork... If you vote for me I'll replace the plastic spork with a cornstarch spork that starts to melt when you use it.
The only thing that is going to save us is technology. Like air travel being fueled by biofuels, electricity costs kept somewhat normal by building new nuclear generation, giant SUVs being powered by batteries charged by nuclear/renewable energy, actually recycling the plastic spork.
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Corporations create the heat and cooling, build the cars and airplanes, and raise the meat for... wait for it... consumers. These things go hand in hand. Asking people to make changes to their lifestyles that will help the environment IS demanding the corporations to stop producing so much pollution. No one wants to take the blame.
When the world is on fire, no one will care, but the idea that corporations are somehow a separate entity from the consumers/individuals that line their pockets with profits is equally irresponsible. It does come down to daily choice, because the corporations follow demand. But no one wants to suffer the inconvenience of changing their lifestyle, so we blame the corporations that we then buy gas, electricity, meat, and cars from. It's blindingly dumb from either direction.
Spiderman points at Spiderman.
Note that the IPCC acknowledges that no one is paying the true cost of energy or food. You could decapitate all corporate executives, and, if we truly wanted to pay the environmental costs of heating, cooling, and food, all prices would go up. If you think things are hard now, give it a decade. Prices for everyone for everything will go up. You could kill all the rich people on the planet, and it wouldn't change that fact, and it wouldn't suddenly make the environment sound. It truly does come down to fundamental lifestyle changes that none of us want to enact.
You cannot eat money.
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This is classic dog wags the tail and vice-versa. Is it the demand causing these corporations to make the product or are they creating the demand through plentiful supply and marketing?
If these entities were to make something with lower emissions and marketed that as a better alternative will nobody buy that something? I highly doubt it...
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I remember when the things we bought were extremely durable and could last for decades if taken care of, I'm talking about anything, from tools, to cars, to clothes.
Now, from the 2000s to present day, everything is made to be consumed extremely fast, products are made with cheaper materials and most likely designed to fall apart sooner, this increases consumption by A LOT on a shorter span of time meaning more money in less time, something corporations just drool at.
With things being replaced on a shorter span means more energy required for the factories, more materials, more waste, and yes, way more pollution.
A lot of the times the "consumers" were created artificially with this tactics. Many things that lead to the current state of nsumption by the common folk is engineered.
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I'm glad someone else understands this. Everytime I see the statistic about corporate emissions, I can't help but think about how it's so misleading. Exxon et al keep polluting because we keep collectively buying their product.
That doesn't absolve them from their efforts to discredit climate change research, but to suggest they are just some evil entity polluting at will is just ridiculous.
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You can't expect someone not ride a car if they need one for survival.
The same is true for the fast-food industry: a lot of people dont cook anymore and just go to McDonald's. Hell, a lot of people don't even make their coffee in the morning anymore.
If we want to get back on track, make a law that reflect this otherwise, fuck off.
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I think it's hard to estimate how much effort corporations put into getting us to do what they want. If you've ever looked at why the public transportation in the US is shit you'd know there's something suspicious going on with it.
US used to have cities that are great for public transportation, the grid design of the 1920s is excellent or public transportation. Some cities like NY still have that but cities like Detroit spent decades destroying that to build a highway going straight through the city. Suburbs in America are being built in a way that only suits car travel. And not just that, people have been conditioned to think that only poor people would use public transportation. Not only have been people made to believe they don't want public transportation, they couldn't have it even if they wanted to because it would be horribly inefficient.
Who benefits from those decisions? Definitely not the people who are now dependent on owning cars. But I'm pretty sure car manufacturers and oil companies are pretty happy because they get to sell more cars and oil. Now I can't point the finger at that those companies because there's no evidence they influenced this, at least none that I know of. But it's awfully convenient for them that when the car boom happened in the 50s the US government was happy to spend money literally rebuilding cities to make them more car dependent and keep at it, while the same thing was stopped in Europe pretty quickly.
I don't mind giving off some conspiracy theorist vibe, but I don't think it's far fetched that corporations are entities that put money above everything else and if needless polluting let's them make more money they will do it without hesitation. I wouldn't put it past them to deliberately build the narrative that somehow the people are to blame for this polluting. After all EXXON started the "is it even real?" and "is it even man made?" arguments that regular people used for decades to derail the climate change discussions, all with the purpose of shifting attention away from them. It's literally their MO.
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I agree with this entirely. Of course there are corporations responsible for way more than myself. But using it as a means to justify myself doing nothing to reduce my own consumption is just backwards and stupid. It's comparing a bad thing to another really bad thing but they're both still bad things. Should they stop doing what they're doing to contribute to this, yes. Should I also? Also yes lol. Plus like your comment said. These companies are driven by our own demand. It's our fault for supporting and relying on the way things are for sure.
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Thanks for your reply. I think the hard truth that we all need to look at is, regardless of who is to blame, we all need to make daily choices that work towards a common goal of salvaging this planet. And I think often those choices are annoying, inconvenient, or expensive. Some of us can shoulder the expense portion easier than others, but until we start acting every day like the world is worse than it was 100 years ago, we're only going to make it worse in the future. Things are not going to be easier going forward. The more of us that make things harder now, the less hard things will be in the future for the young. It truly is a daily choice.
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TL;DR:
Consumer choices can influence industries, but it is impractical to solely rely on this to drive ecological change due to factors such as lack of awareness, inconvenience, habits, price and limited to no alternatives. Government subsidies for ecologically detrimental industries and the lack of subsidies for ecologically beneficial industries worsen the effect. Improved legislation is necessary to address these issues by enforcing ecologically beneficial industry practises and guide consumers.
Verbose:
I agree with you partly. Yes, consumer choices do affect which companies get money and which don't. But I would say that consumers are not completely responsible for the practises of a company. If a company chooses to power their production based on fossil energy carriers there's not much a consumer can do about it. Sure, they can stop buying from them. But for that a lot of things must happen. First of all they must know about it. And if it's not printed fat on the packaging or news are screaming about it, there is a high probability that they will never know about it. They could ask the companies themselves. And even if companies would be transparent and honest about their response, there's only a small fraction of people who would do this. That's because it's inconvenient. As ugly as it sounds, people hate inconveniences. A lot of people don't want to spend their precious free time with writing or calling the hundreds of companies, whose products they use, to ask about their production practises. Finally, if consumers eventually learn about the ecological impact of their products, they still need to collect a significant amount of mental energy in order to make the conscious decision of not buying them and possibly looking out for alternatives. That's difficult, because people easily get used to stuff and it's psychologically hard to change habits. And they'd need to do this for every single product they use. Even worse, in a critical amount of cases there aren't even alternatives available to consumers. If you continue buying the wrong products (in an eco sense), because you don't have access to an (affordable) alternative, that will send the wrong signals. The market won't see an increased demand for ecologically friendly products in these (significant amount of) cases, but quite the contrary. I don't say that it's impossible, clearly humans seem to have the capacity of intelligence and can be educated to do better, but I claim it's impractical for the everyday life of the masses. Especially, we don't have the time to wait until the majority of people is able to change their consumption behaviour. That's why we need laws, such that law makers do the hard work of paving the way for ecologically beneficial industry practises, so the Jon or Jane Doe going to the grocery store after a long day of work doesn't have to worry about which products to buy.
Besides, in a lot of countries fossil based energy carriers are still cheaper than environmemtally friendy alternatives, sadly. If companies start to completely switch to green energy, this would increase the price. Increasing the price can lead to less consumers buying the products. Either because they can't afford it or because they want or need to save money. This again would turn the circle of environmental destruction once more, since the cheaper alternatives, which consumers are looking out for, are usually less beneficial or even detrimental to the environment.
Also let's not forget that also a lot of countries subsidise industries which are major contributors to greenhouse gases, e.g., the meat industry. Meanwhile there is a lack of sufficient subsidies for ecologically better industry segments. I live in a world where an organically grown cucumber is much more expensive than a pack of meat. That can't be right.
We need good laws and can't rely on the behaviour of consumers alone. There's no way around it.
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People demand goods and services. They very often do not care how those get to them. If they did, most corporations would go out of existence for using child and slave labor.
Your average person is not the one fighting against climate change regulation. It is the corporations throwing billions at government officials to not regulate them.
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The 100 corporations include oil companies you rely on to put gas in your car, so it's not like they are the one polluting directly.
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nah, sorry, we're on Reddit, so capitalism is to blame for everything and we individuals cannot do sh1t.
I mean, how stupid do you have to be to shift the blame for pollution from cars on car manufacturers and oil companies. But, no, no. It's corporations polluting and I as an individual cannot do anything about it.
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- We're not on Reddit.
- Those same manufacturers don't give a flying fuck if you drive. They'll still make fuel for airplanes, ships, industrial machinery, etc., and will still continue to blatantly ignore regulations in pursuit of profit.
- If you're gonna gargle corpo dick like bulldog on a firehose, at least be honest with yourself, son.
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Capitalism IS to blame for everything and we individuals CANNOT do sh1t.
Firstly, capitalists have convinced everyone they need to buy a lot of stuff.
Secondly, humans are selfish and in a capitalistic system it's difficult to achieve your goals without money. Imagine you're a young person, say late 20s or early 30s, who makes some money, but isn't rich by any means. Are YOU going to pay twice or thrice as much for everything you consume just so it'd be carbon neutral? No, because you're probably saving up for something, whether it's a home (because, y'know, capitalism - you need to pay out the ass for a place to live), retirement (because with the aging population in most western countries, the national pension schemes can't be trusted long term), or that foreign vacation you feel you deserve after 10 years of hard work.
Say you DO cut your carbon footprint by 90% or even 100%. I have bad news for you. 98-99% of the rest of people didn't, because they want to go on with their lives instead of worrying about the future, so your changes are meaningless. What's more, BP execs will smile at you for believing the whole carbon footprint thing they spread. Now you're living like you're in a 3rd world country, but everyone else around you keeps up their expensive polluting lifestyles, making your sacrifice meaningless. You can't have a negative amount of cars, but someone else CAN have 5.
The only thing that can change anything is political change - tax the companies to oblivion for CO2 production. Watch them scramble to reduce their CO2 footprint in any goods and services where it's possible, and stop offering goods and services that can't be optimized. The individual carbon footprint was invented precisely to prevent this - make climate activists blame other civilians (who for the most part won't stop consuming, thus having no negative effect on oil company profits) instead of politicians (who could actually effect some change). Yes, a carbon tax would affect end users and particularly poor people. But that's the only way forward, and government programs can help those who are affected the worst.
Individuals can NOT bear the full responsibility for something that affects all of us. It simply doesn't work, because humans don't work that way. There has to be government level effort. It's also why libertarianism doesn't work. "The free market will regulate itself, you can vote with your wallet". Well, if 99% of people don't care about being poisoned by their food, or their video games being overmonetized, or the planet dying... Guess what, the free market doesn't regulate itself, and no amount of awareness is going to make a dent in it.
So sure, make changes to your lifestyle. Tell your friends and family about the low-hanging fruit in their lives to reduce consumption, educate them. Spend tens of thousands on solar panels if you can afford it. These are all good things to do! But don't blame the individual for the failings of society. We're all playing the hand we're dealt, and unless you're born a millionaire, that hand is "shit is expensive, shit that pollutes less is even more expensive, I'mma do what I have to".
PS: Ya know what is the worst part? Capitalists want worker drones back in offices so that people would consume more and office space values wouldn't drop. 2020 was the ONE time in history we managed to curb our emissions, but that doesn't jive well with capitalism, so working from home is now considered "immoral" by billionaires.
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Exactly! It just takes everyone to choose to not murder people, then murder is not a problem. It is all a question of individual responsibility.
I abhor those leftist communists who always aim to regulate matters to death, when it's just so simple: Just individually choose to not murder people. Then we don't need all this communist "laws" and "regulations" crap! Because individuals have the power to do everything. Everyone just has to be a good person, and do the right thing! The solution to every problem in society is so simple! America! Fuck yeah! /s
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Who is this Reddit you speak of? I thought this was Lemmy
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You're right, individuals can do a lot. We can take all of our politicians, CEOs, and corporate shareholders, and throw them out to one of their private islands that they love so much. Then, build a society where you aren't pressured or even forced to drive, to replace tech every 3 years, or have a logistics system reliant on fossil fuels. Oh was that not the kind of public action you were talking about?
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I have electric though. Worst case is the pollutants gone into the mining of the lithium and manufacturing of the vehicle. But how much of that can be controlled for mining and manufacturing?
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And my favorite tidbit not included here is how much pollution the US military causes. We know it's off the charts BUT they're allowed to operate with zero oversight and accountability regarding the bugfuck amount of pollution and wrecked ecosystems that military exercises have caused. We don't even know for sure how bad they are but you just look at how much fuel an single idling M1 tank uses and it's insane
A tank will need approximately 300 gallons every eight hours; this will vary depending on mission, terrain, and weather. A single tank takes 10 minutes to refuel. Refueling and rearming of a tank platoon--four tanks--is approximately 30 minutes under ideal conditions. 0.6 miles per gallon.
It's pretty accepted that the US military is the worst polluter on earth, but this never gets brought up
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And on the other side of the coin military training areas in Germany are studied as potential nature reserves because just some limited amount of sane oversight goes a long way...
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The US spends millions of dollars buying up land around military facilities and permanently conserving it. There are Federal grant programs that work in partnership with nonprofit land trusts to accomplish the very thing. Every conserved property has a conservation values inventory completed as part of the protection process that documents natural communities (including rare and endangered species). This inventory serves as the baseline for enforcement of the conservation restrictions. I’m a reformed real estate attorney that works for a conservation land trust.
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That statistic is flawed it counts downstream combustion of coal oil and gas for energy purposes (this is 90% of the total company emissions in the metric) which means you can buy a fossil fuel car fill it with petrol and burn it and that will be counted as corporate emissions
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The statement is flawed because it takes the personal responsibility out of those corporate profits. Oil production burns a lot of fuel but it's profitable because I keep buying it. Cargo ships make a lot of emissions but it's profitable because I keep buying foreign goods. Cow farms produce tons of methane but they're so huge because I keep eating beef.
Corporations do not exist without the customer. Massive buyout conglomerations greatly misrepresent true pollution per industry production units. If I said ExxonMobil is the dirtiest company in the world, does that mean they're polluting worse than BP? No, not by itself. You have to look at tons of oil produced between the two and figure out a pollution per ton figure. Would it make sense to say Amazon is a very clean business because part of their business uses unconditioned warehouses? Not really, you'd probably want to separate out their trucking and delivery divisions from their storage and then compare it to UPS and FedEx via gallons per ton delivered. I've even seen people argue their single-item order from Amazon isn't wasteful because "the truck is coming by anyway". No! The truck is not an autonomous sushi conveyor belt swinging by. It's a business asset being routed to customers.
I'm not saying these corporations are good or clean. I'm not saying they don't cheat, lie, hide, and bribe governments to ignore their hazards. I'm just saying you can't take a 100% hands off view of the issue, either. I drive a cleaner car and drive less so Exxon makes less. I wait for my ordering needs to build up a little to improve efficiency of the delivery. I buy more local and national so I don't demand a cargo ship to carry my trinkets. Obviously it's not perfect and I have a very, very minor impact, but that's the whole point of being in a society. A community works together for the common good.
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Is that methodology also how the CDP works? I am looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_contributors_to_climate_change#All_cause_1+3_cumulative_emissions_[8] in particular, and the figures aren't looking ridiculously better still.
Or is that the difference between the Scope 1+3 tables and the All cause table in this page?
edit: Snopes has in fact written a fact check that corroborates the methodology used by CDP is potentially flawed for this exact reason. So it will not be accurate - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/corporations-greenhouse-gas/.
I'll defer to the following point by the original Twitter OP though, which I still think is valid: "The point I was trying to make is that any media coverage that reduces the issue to personal choices is incomplete, and [structural] issues should always be central to climate reporting," Johnson told us. "Individuals' choices are not unimportant. They just shouldn't be the focus of climate coverage."
tl;dr: Yes, personal responsibility and reducing one's carbon footprint is also very important, but there is chronic under-reporting on the other end of the equation.
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The question is: should we stop reporting on how personal responsibility plays a part just because people think it's unfair? Isn't that straight out whataboutism?
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still better than the opposite, where you're just trying to buy food but everything comes in some shitty packaging made of hydrocarbons and it will be counted as your individual contribution to the waste problem. regulation works (that's why they oppose it so hard) and it works a lot better than "voting with your wallet" which is what we would be supposed to do if it was up to us -- where certain people have a hell of a lot more votes than we do
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That's interesting I wasn't aware of this. Would you by chance have a source for this data? I'd be interested to see the true numbers.
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yeah its in like page 1 or 2 of the primary source the stat comes from one sec ill get it
Direct operational emissions (Scope 16 ) and emissions from the use of sold products (Scope 3: Category 11) are attributed to the extraction and production of oil, gas, and coal. Scope 1 emissions arise from the self-consumption of fuel, flaring, and venting or fugitive releases of methane. Scope 3 emissions account for 90% of total company emissions and result from the downstream combustion of coal, oil, and gas for energy purposes. A small fraction of fossil fuel production is used in non-energy applications which sequester carbon.
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Every time you suggest to meat eaters to eat less meat, they become violent.
Even if you suggest them cutting their 14 meat meals per week down to maybe 12 meat meals (skip one day), they flip their shit.
So ya, good luck suggesting to anyone to eat 30% less.
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It's meat wiring. I don't know what it is actually called, but that's what I call it.
I used to be a meat eater- nary a meal was made that didn't have meat as a main and the rest of the meal built around that.I would say that I didn't understand vegetarians- we need meat, we evolved to eat it. Then meat started getting expensive. Then meat started losing its quality. Then meat (especially chicken) started having a rubber texture to it and was like $15 a pound and I had enough and went pescatarian/vegetarian. It was hard at first, but we really couldn't afford meat anymore so we made it work.
After a while I noticed that the smell of meat is absolutely nauseating. The idea of meat is sickening and I am dropping eating fish now in favour of full on vegetarianism.
As I went through a meat "detox" phase ( I know it's not a detox but I don't know how else to put it) my brain changed how it felt about meat while I wasn't even paying attention. I was focusing on finding new, enjoyable veggie meals and my brain was working away purging all the want for meats.
Either they've convinced themselves they can't eat less/no meat, or they simply do not care to.
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That's interesting!
I am allergic to most meat, and the few types I can still eat I don't like to cook myself, because meat is something you need to make sure is cooked properly to be safe. So I end up rarely having it, and honestly, my life is no different. The rare times I do have it, it's great, I enjoy ribs, bacon, etc, but it's nothing I would get angry and defensive over.
I buy the beyond meat sometimes, and it's delicious as hell. I go to vegan restaurants, as I can guarantee my deathly allergy is not going to pop up there, and it's bomb ass food (usually. I find that some vegan places are -3/10, but others are 11/10 and their "meat" tastes 100% authentic and real, it's something you need to discover.).
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I had good friends to ply me with cheese and avocado. I still like meat but can eat it less frequently and with smaller portions.
But one of my dark secrets is patience. In the 70s, mom tried to quit red meat cold-turkey and didn't last one menstrual cycle, and I learned it's consistent among most women, that they are one period away from running down an elk in the woods in bloodlust.
So I'm only ever a week at most before someone nearby goes STEAK! TODAY! and we're feasting once again on the fresh, sautéd flesh of dead animals.
I have high hopes for cultured meat (lab-grown chicken is on the verge of hitting the restaurant supply market) which will serve the cruelty factor. Nutrition balancing is a whole 'nother matter.
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It's so strange to see all the comments here defending CNN of all things.
Imagine a game where you can buy sustainable, ethically sourced resources for $5 and unethically sourced resources for $3. The manual tells you it's nice of you to buy ethically sourced but there's no governmentally enforced consequences. Which ones are you going to buy as a consumer?
Now worse, which ones are you going to buy as a downstream corp CEO? Your shareholders demand maximum profit and you are required to give them maximum profit. Justifying that you're "doing your part" for the environment gets you thrown out as CEO.
At the end of this game, it's cheaper, and necessary, to buy the shit that kills us all.
People unironically saying we're all to blame. No shit, the system is designed so we are all complicit. It takes authoritative intervention to prevent corps from using and selling unethical and unsustainable products. You could also tax it for things like carbon emissions
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Exactly, corporation and individual behavior is predominantly emergent of the system. Theres some blame that can be passed on to the consumer or the corporation but only so much, it's not my fault I can't afford an electric car. It's not my fault installing solar panels on my house won't recoup the cost by the time I leave/sell.
If you want people to eat less meat you need to make it worth people's while to eat less meat. You don't need to outlaw meat, you just need to make it less attractive from a financial perspective.
If you want people to use less gas you don't need to outlaw gas cars you need to make it less attractive.
You could write individual incentives and disincentives but a carbon tax is simple and hits at the crux of the problem. Remove beef, oil, gas, solar, wind, hydro subsidies and implement a carbon tax. Boom, meat alternatives are now cost comparable. Green energy is now handily cheaper than oil and gas. Theres also a sizable amount of conservatives who are for a carbon tax since it's a "free market" solution instead of picking winners and losers.
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Yep. Taxing is the logical solution that fits within capitalism, and yet corporations are so vested in the machine they realize it's cheaper to spend money to lobby and advertise against it.
It's a busted system that needed correcting decades ago, and here we are.
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I heard with some things it's actually becoming cheaper to be green, as a result of engineering innovations leading to improved efficiency. Hopefully that trend continues.
Especially when some geniuses finally work out viable nuclear fusion. Real Engineering had a video on a US company working on some next-level fusion reactors, that seem really close to being actually ready.
Edit: of course, at the end of the day, the big oil companies won't go out quietly. So in addition to all that wholesome stuff, maybe we should partake in some classic literature, such as How to Blow Up a Pipeline.
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The fact that clean energy is cheaper without subsidies makes the whole corrupt apparatus even more apparent. Oil and gas beg congress to end subsidies for cleaner solutions because they're having to compete which is a bad woke thing.
Just look at how long it took coal to die. And now we have "cleaner" nat gas which turns out causes more acute warming than CO2. And rather than convert to a sustainable solution they double down and green wash.
Removing pipelines would just let them raise prices and get richer but honestly if it curbs consumption it's a net positive.
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Do all that and a single cruise ship will undo it in about 3 second
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Ban them. Private jets too.
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Swap your car or plane ride for a bus or train
Ok one sec lemme just book a train across the Atlantic ocean rq...
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Guys do you think he made it across ?
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That and all the rich that take a private jet instead of walking for 15 minutes
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There is less kerosene burned in all aviation in the world than is used in lamps and cookstoves in Africa and Asia. Aviation is really not the driver of climate change. Of all transport emissions aviation is 8% (in the US). 80% is cars and trucks.
Moreover, the aviation industry has a profit motive to reduce emissions because ever gallon of jet fuel saved is money saved.
The same applies to shipping (11% of global emissions), modern container ships are so fucking massive and slower than some wooden sailing ships from the 19th century because efficiency is the only real way they can make more money.
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Fuel burned near the stratosphere contributes several times more towards global warming than regular stoves. We don't need 70% of all flights while africa needs fuel to survive.
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Also disgusting that people think that paying for an innocent animal to die is somehow capitalisms fault
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You telling me I should be butchering my own meat? Cuz I’d do it if I was allowed and had access to the tools and space to do it.
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no. meat is murder https://watchdominion.org
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71% of corporations is the new climate denial were at the bargaining stage now: "well the drastic sacrifice were going to have to make doesnt matter because corporations need to do something before I even attempt to start living in line with earths resources"
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But these corporations have the power to change what we as consumers buy or use, they have and are still resisting any changes and lie continuesly.
And if these companies don't allow change it will not happen no matter what we do.
They own the media they own the politicians, without them we are doomed.
Some might say we are already doomed and the elite are squeezing the last out of us because they think they will somehow escape the consequences
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To what extent are we victims, and to what extent are we part of the system? This isn't a simple thing to answer, and there's not a single answer.
Corporations have too much power, but people fell into consumerism and fanboyism, defending their practices.
People talk about reducing electronic trash, but will buy the next shiny device at launch, before the last one stops working, will say that it's a "needed improvement" when someone criticizes things like phones removing audio jacks, and look at people using older stuff as if they're crazy. People talk about damaging production chains, but won't prioritize local small ones. There are so many examples, but this is enough to get the idea.
Somehow, people love brands and corporations.
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They don't remotely control the public as you might think. Let's imagine at Walmart going full vegan tomorrow. What do you think will happen?
I forecast bankruptcy. You, I guess, imagine half of the dumbfuckistan going vegan?
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It is a cyclical thing both consumers and producers are responsible in different ways in most cases the use of plastic in packaging is producers fault for example but eating animal products is a choice for 99% of people on the planet and going vegan is the single biggest way to reduce your carbon footprint (see joseph poore 2018)
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At some point in the past 20-30 years I started recycling. My town had just installed these new separate trash bins, I was just tryna "do my part" and be able to say I didn't contribute to the shit environment we will have in the future. Nowadays, I neither recycle, nor feel guilty about it. The illusion that I was doing anything productive with my time fell apart the time I saw the garbage guys pick up all the trash containers and dump them in the same truck. I asked them "hey, does the trash site have some way to sort the garbage?" thinking that maybe I was missing something. They said "nah" and moved on.
Nowadays I still watch the same trucks pick up the same trash cans in the exact same fucking way. In the meantime I've learned the company belongs to someone close to the mayor, so there's not even a chance this kinda shit will be reprimanded, ever.
You can build the best fucking bridge you want, if there's a corporation on the other side of the river, you'll find yourself swimming anyway.
So no, buddy. Blaming corpos for the results of their actions isn't just "the new climate denial". Some of us have been cynical for a while now, and this is just another area where we don't trust some shithead politician's empty slogans.
Also, there's no need to discredit all parties that disagree with you by aligning them with an obviously insane crowd, is there? Especially since that shit goes both ways - your post is also the type of post that a corporate shill would write. Should I label you as a corpo whitewasher, just cause your opinion is different than mine?
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At some point in the past 20-30 years I started recycling. My town had just installed these new separate trash bins, I was just tryna "do my part" and be able to say I didn't contribute to the shit environment we will have in the future. Nowadays, I neither recycle, nor feel guilty about it. The illusion that I was doing anything productive with my time fell apart the time I saw the garbage guys pick up all the trash containers and dump them in the same truck. I asked them "hey, does the trash site have some way to sort the garbage?" thinking that maybe I was missing something. They said "nah" and moved on.
Nowadays I still watch the same trucks pick up the same trash cans in the exact same fucking way. In the meantime I've learned the company belongs to someone close to the mayor, so there's not even a chance this kinda shit will be reprimanded, ever.
Not to diminish from your well written post, but there's also an external reason for this, and of course, it has to do with capitalism and profits.
Basically, there was a time when China was taking trash material that's recyclable and doing the recycling. That's when all the recycling craze happened here.
But then, China changed that, and they were no longer accepting recycling material.
But now here in the US we have the full infrastructure for accepting recyclable material, but nowhere to send the material to, to get recycled at a large and cheap quantity.
So no political personal will want to tell you they're not doing it anymore because of costs, because China won't do it cheaply anymore, so you get scenarios like what you described.
that describes this.
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What an absolutely tonedeaf argument from CNN.
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It's both really.
Finger pointing at corporations while doing nothing may not be as bad as corps finger pointing at us while doing nothing. But it's still bad.
Everyone needs to make an effort on this.
Hoping corporations will somehow grow a conscience isn't accomplishing anything.
Imagine if nearly everyone was using public transit instead of voting out politicians because gas prices got a little too high. That might make the corps think there was more money in green energy than drilling up more oil.
Corporations are not going to fix the problem out of the goodness of their hearts no matter how much people whine about it. It's only going to happen when voters (and consumers) demand it.
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Most voters support climate change policy. The problem is the select few that block everything (mainly due to corporate lobbying).
This is more of a case of our leaders not listening to those they represent
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To add to this, corporations are made of people and selling to people, and most of us are either working for them, buying from them, or both. Everyone needs to change and put social pressure on everyone else to change, this is how groups of people will change, including companies and the governments that will only change as the result of the voters' pressure.
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Those things still help though, and we have no control over what big ass corporations do
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You can divest.
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We SHOULD be telling people to use planes less though.
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Do you think people use planes for fun? Only way I can see my family is by plane. Well, I can go by ferry but that means I will have to spend about 20x money and it'll take about 48 hours on the ferry, instead of 1.5 hours on the plane.
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"We should use planes less" is not "you mustn't use planes ever". Not every plane journey can easily be replaced. That's okay. Near me there's a flight that takes off to go a few hundred miles to the country's capital each morning, and there are similar ones going much shorter distances all over the country. That journey could and should be a high speed train journey with suitable infrastructure
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I'm sorry but telling people not to is a stupid and futile plan. At least here in the US (idk if anywhere else does this) I say we need to regulate the airlines to run those "unprofitable" flights as they do now, but without the subsidy money. The airlines, being unable to change the frequency or cost of those flights, will turn to the obvious solution: make flying more expensive across the board to subsidize those actually unprofitable but regulated routes. I put unprofitable in quotes earlier because that's the excuse the corps will cry with; their cries mean nothing though. Raising the cost of air travel will reduce demand and will also free up lots of tax dollars for better causes, at least one hopes lmao. Same thing for meat; telling people to go vegan/vegetarian won't work. Ceasing subsidization and increasing regulations (e.g. forcing more humane living standards for the animals) will raise prices letting the market do it's thing which is the best we can really do given the current economic structure of our society. This myth of "personal responsibility" in cases like this is harmful because people's actions are defined by systems, institutions and society at large.
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another tool is taxation. example: single use plastics are a bad thing and we don't need them in most of the ways they're used. taxing them will make them economically untenable and companies will look for alternatives.
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I agree with the general prescription, but cultivating a sense of personal responsibility is useful for the moment when harsh regulations are going to be set in place. Voters are far more likely to agree with high carbon taxes if they have already started to try reducing their emissions.
I'm definitely not defending the stance of liberal media on this: climate change isn't an issue of personal responsibility, but personal responsibility should be promoted on top of systemic change. I'm not telling anyone to live the life of a Tibetan monk, but to put some effort into having virtuous decisions and habits, leading by example, and also use that to claim: "We are doing our part already, but capitalism cannot fix the problem".
Reducing the discussion to "actually, it's corporations only which should change how they work" is going to lead to a pretty large reactionary backslash when people find out that a sustainable economy does also, in fact, require to change our relation with the economy.
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Strange how people can be so oblivious as to the role they play in the consumption of energy and materials...
I've recently started to believe that the only way climate change is going to end is if a very, very large percentage of the human population dies off very quickly... like... 70-80% or more. One billion people still seems like too many.
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India could produce 8x more CO2 and still have less per capita than the US
The number of humans is not the main factor in pollution, it's what those humans are consuming that is important.
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That was the plot to the first kingsmen movie
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Have we tried to kill all the poor?
I'm not saying do it. I'm saying run it through the computer, see if it would work.
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Too late. That idea is already in progress
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“I didn’t realise it was only cold hearted pragmatism that prevents you from pumping gas into Lidl!”
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Canada is already doing that. What do you mean you cannot afford a 1.8 million dollar crack shack and $15 loaf of bread? Probably because you don't want to work at a call center for $15 per hour. Oh, and our requirements are that you have 3 college or university degrees, btw! (actual job application and requirements)
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also don't forget to pee in the shower guys
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This is just a fact, and since media outlets never mention it you can tell who they are in the pocket of (the large corp advertisers)
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BUT MAH PROFITS!! WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF MAH CORPORATE PROFITS????
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I mean... I'll contribute and do my part because I do care, and that's the type of person I am, but we do need regulation in place for the top contributors to global warming and pollution, which are corporations and celebrities.
Plus, it's bullshit to say that you should take a bus or train or bike or whatever instead of a car when you have disgusting car-centric infrastructure that forces you to drive.
I'd be happy to switch to a smart thermostat if they weren't all so privacy-invading. Nest, the most popular one, is owned by Google, and there's no Google in my home. I'm completely deGoogled and will keep it that way.
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I live in a city where the train passes once every 55 minutes, and the bus has a very high chance of skipping runs and feel like its going to dismantle with a breath of air.
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And they are just burning that shit into nothing for no reason. Not my fault the world is burning, it's the evil corps forcing us to buy shit.
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Maybe they aren't forcing us to buy shit directly, but a lot of the things they sell, particularly oil and gas are things we depend on because that's how society is built.
A lot of these completely blameless companies you are defending hire lobbyists to make it harder for individuals who are trying hard to make a difference to have any real effect on government policy. This ensures said companies can keep operating in the way they currently are to maximise profits.
Yes, we could all be doing more, but it's hard when huge multinational corporations are not only not working together with us to help, but spending billions of dollars to oppose legislation that could help because it would hurt their bottom line.
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So I replaced my car with a train, but now it doesn't fit in my garage. Am I doing this wrong?
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You need ultralightrail, and rolling stock from your house to wherever you need to go.
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Adam Johnson is way off base here.
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Big brain time: Using a bike or my own feet to go everywhere 🧠🚴♂️👣
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Okay great, if I live anywhere besides NYC, where's my damn train for transport? Oh right its nonexistent. I'd love to take a train but the people that run this shithole say its too expensive and continue to pave more roads! Wow I love living here where my government continues to listen to big oil and destroy the planet in the process!!
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That is a very ignorant comment. The world does not revolve around the US.
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I look up train routes (and sometimes bus)everytime I'm going more than 80 miles or so. Guess how many times I've found one that will get me where I'm going? I'll give you a hint, it's zero.
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the oceans are rising, and so are we!
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Nah it's the sudden decline of our lovable swashbuckling seafaring pirates
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Uh, wrong.
Banning wood and coal fired pizza in the city is going to single handedly refreeze the polar ice caps and produce no less than 72% more sea ice YOY than we currently see.
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- They arnt banning coal/wood fired pizza ovens.
- They are restricting particulate emissions not Co2 emissions. It's not a climate change thing it's an air quality thing. The pizzareias need to filter out the particulate, not get rid of their pizza ovens.
- Even if they were banning coal/wood fired pizza ovens it wouldn't effect pizza. Pizza ovens get up to 900f and the pizza cooks in 90 seconds. There is no time for any smoke flavor to penitrate the pizza. A natural gas or electric oven is going to yield the same result so long as they hit that 900f temp.
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- They can get fucked.
- They can get fucked.
- They can... Get. Fucked.
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I just had to reply to this one again at the audacity of claim #3 when we're discussing wood fired NY Pizza vs a fucking electric oven, of which, our power plants are natural gas.
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Please remember that the corporations are polluting to provide services to the populace at large. You might as well accuse your pizza delivery driver for polluting after he gives you your order.
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Thing is, it's not like consumers choose to use plastic packaging. It's not like we choose to release forever chemicals into the water supply instead of dealing with them responsibly.
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Let the person who has never improperly disposed of their batteries throw the first stone.
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I mean, in a city it shows up on a bike or scooter. I think Amazon is a better example. They provide a great service that is nothing but fast delivery and wasteful packing because that's what we want. My answer is that it should be regulated and taxed to show the real cost this convenience has on the world. Another instance is single use utensils. They should not be so cheap to produce that they are being practically thrown away with takeout. Major polluting items need to be artificially made more expensive so that culturally it makes sense to carry our own for or chopsticks with us. That's what regulation is for, creating parameters that companies need to work within, because their motivations are to give us what we want as cheaply as possible to gain market share
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Let's start on pushing for thermally neutral building materials and reducing food waste. If buildings weren't concrete heat sinks it wouldn't take so much energy to keep them cool and food waste is a large contributor to pollution and spreads disease.
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removed those companies are emitting to subsidize your fucking lifestyle.
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Those companies are emitting to subsidize your lifestyle.
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It's CNN. Need I say more?
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They charge me for plastic bags and when I say I need one they chastise me using their boilerplate line supplied by their corporate.
Then a loader truck came to unload things, with huge stack of things covered in styrofoam and wrapped in plastic sheets.
I wish I could repeat the line back. However, I am a known government employee in the area, so I decided to not fuck around and find out.
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Yes, climate change can only be tackled of it requires no personal sacrifice from me. 🤡
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SEO. We live in a world of pure SEO internet.
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This has been reposted so many times, good lord.
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Definitionally not journalistic malpractice because words have meanings. Carry on.
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For me, I only drive 1-2 days a week, tops.
Yeah, we do the smart thermostat thing... but also...
We put up solar panels. We generate enough of our own electricity to cover the house and feed back credits to the grid.
Our electric bill is about $13 a month now to cover taxes and fees.
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Can you imagine what would happen if you... stopped buying those products that those companies are selling that are responsible for the emissions? Nah, that's crazy talk.
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