For one, by far the most polluting companies are state owned coal companies in China and India. Then other state owned fossil fuel companies and then private fossil fuel companies.
So all those companies are just power generation. So it’s not like they can just stop, people need the electricity.
And it’s not like nothing is being done either. Like by far the biggest polluter is China’s coal industry, making up 25% of global emissions, but China is also THE global leader on clean energy investment. They are currently building more nuclear power plants than the entire rest of the world has, they are making the biggest most powerfull wind turbines in the world, etc.
And if people would stop consuming cheap, disposable shite from China, then they wouldn’t use so much electricity, so would burn less coal and also you wouldn’t make a bunch of shit that’s just going to end up in a landfill.
Power companies in Georgia, US are building more coal power plants. Consumers in Georgia, US don’t have a lot of choice in how the electricity they can buy is produced.
Why are the people not on the hook for electricity usage but they are for cheap crap? The corporations reselling the cheap crap are far more culpable. The problem is still capitalism.
Okay, we’ve identified the problem is capitalism. Now what? Are you not at fault when you buy cheap crap from China you don’t need or take your car somewhere you could have walked, because the problem is capitalism?
When crops are failing due to drought and kids are starving to death is pointing the finger at capitalism going to save them?
I agree so very much.
People around me fly on holidays by plane like two, three times a year, still eat meat, shower twice a day and buy shit they don’t need from Amazon, because they can. This needs to stop! Will it save us? Of course not, but who else is going to stop the global suicide machine? Trump? The fossil destroyers? Do you want to protest another 70 years or go blow up a pipeline?
We are billions, we have the power of “No, thanks, I don’t want that” every fucking day but the endless consumption of stuff is too tempting. Instead, we sit at home, comfortably warm, well fed and lonely, in front of our seethrough plexiglas RGB LED computers and point fingers at corporations that are exactly as greedy, selfish and irresponsible as every single one of us.
NO THANKS! This could be the easiest global movement, no violence, no riots, yet corporations would be powerless. But you’d need to change, and you don’t want that.
Edit: If you downvote, please tell me where I’m wrong and what’s your counter-proposal in this actual situation right now.
Where you are wrong is that the majority of humans don’t have access to those luxuries of choice since around 50% of the world is still below the extreme poverty level. Where else you’re wrong is people like me that have solar panels, and electric transportation and access to mass transit that I use regularly. We also don’t have much of a choice, because we don’t make the markets those companies do.
Those companies are the only ones that have a choice because they control so much market share that no one else has enough power to make a change.
I already eliminated my carbon footprint, and it hasn’t done shit, because Starbucks has their own private jet that the CEO is using 3 times a week to fly between San Francisco and Seattle, because fuck the plebes.
The only solution I see at this point is mass protest and starting to assassinate CEOs, shareholders, and boards of directors, in self defense.
The point is that if everyone did what you (and I) do, we’d actually get somewhere. Seems like we’re in the minority though, unfortunately. That doesn’t make the person you replied to wrong, it just means most people continue to just blindly consume, and when they can’t consume as much as they want they blindly vote for asswipes promising them even more. That’s the cultural problem at the heart of this all. I’m running out of individual actions I can do too, but that doesn’t mean those were not helpful.
People aren’t blindly consuming though, they’re consuming mostly as a necessity, without much choice in the impact of what they consume. Us down here at the bottom of the class hierarchy don’t have a lot of wiggle room. In general, the lower and middle classes much more rarely consume for pleasure, but even still, why shouldn’t I get to take a plane for vacation once or twice a year, sucking the farts of the 300 other peasants in the economy class seats, while CEOs take single-passenger trips in their private jets every day? Do you see how that’s frustrating? My footprint is already incredibly low because on top of just not consuming all that much in the first place (compared to a billionaire), I do try to be as responsible as I reasonably can. Billionaires aren’t even trying.
I think the big point is, it would be magnitudes easier to get the 100 richest people to lower their carbon footprint than the 1 billion poorest (do you understand how monstrously difficult it is to convince 1 billion, or even 1 million people to work towards some common goal?), and it would probably have a bigger impact on the environment to boot. I’m getting tired of people continuing to advocate for individual action when actions by billionaires would be so much more impactful, for so much less sacrifice on their part. Work smarter, not harder, you know?
Obviously, the best solution is to do both, to tackle the problem from both sides. But in my personal opinion, I think we should start with the billionaires and see where that gets us first. They owe us at least that much.
Yes, there is a difference between the elite and the lower class, but it’s only in resources and opportunities. If both sides switched positions the lower class people would go for exactly the same fun as the elite is having right know. Because that’s the way we are born and raised, greedy and selfish. Purging a couple of assholes and replacing them with fresh soon-to-be assholes won’t solve this. Our mindset needs to change. We need to agree on what is important, what is enough and what’s obscene.
Purging a couple of assholes and replacing them with fresh soon-to-be assholes won’t solve this
I’m not suggesting a purge, I’m suggesting we change the behavior of the billionaire class. That can be achieved with taxes, policy, and financial incentives just as easily as with violence (probably easier tbh).
Our mindset needs to change.
Dawg, we’ve been trying to change the mindset since (at least*) the 90s, and it’s just not enough. You and I can reuse our sustainably sourced reusable hemp shopping bags all we want, reduce our consumption all we want, recycle all we want, it doesn’t change the fact that Kroger is shipping in produce from half a planet away on a daily basis. We need to go further, and make the upper class take their share of responsibility for the damage they do to the environment.
We need to agree on what is enough and what’s obscene.
Agreeing on what’s enough is hard, but agreeing on what’s obscene is much much easier, and I think it’s safe to say that nearly every billionaire in the world exceeds what we can agree is obscene. That’s a much easier problem to solve, one we have the tools to solve now. Let’s tackle that first, while we work through the harder problem of figuring out what’s enough.
China weighs in at 14.5% for coal. Another 1-point-some-odd for their Petro Chem. The issue is that there are a lot of companies that make up the remainder.
Demand definitely plays a role in all of this, but I don’t think pushing green initiatives is a bad thing from the consumers and one of the only ways we can encourage these companies to do their part
Really? I didn’t see the racist overtones you did apparently. I read that as ‘China is the largest pollution source, but only because of X Y and Z, and they’re doing more to mitigate it than anyone else’.
I hear your point there, you’re not wrong, but it does lay the blame at their feet then sort of back away from the stance.
The fact is, most people won’t read it all. They’re just going to see “blame India and China!”
“Phew, at least I’m off the hook.”
I don’t even like to admit the idea of the above but based on the last month (and let’s face it, very long time before that), people are willing to jump to all sorts of conclusions.
Hell, maybe I did about it sounding racist! But I don’t know the intent behind every message I read. I’m just feeling very skeptical and cautious.
Obviously they should and do, but pretending the average human creates anything compared to oil and gas companies, coal plants, big tech, etc is boot-lickingly ludicrous
My point is, why do you think those oil and gas companies or big tech exist? Because there is a market for it because of consumer behaviour.
A profitable oil company is never going to just close itself down for the sake of morals. And even if they did, a different oil company is just going to take over their market share.
The only way we stop oil companies is by making them unprofitable, either through voting for legislators that will tax them or sanction them, or by taking away their demand.
And while your individual demand is tiny, the same as you single individual vote in an election. It won’t have an affect by itself, but if lots of people band together we can make change.
People in hospitals will die without that electricity. You can be all sickened and uppity on your electronic device if you want, but the only realistic solution is replacing infrastructure.
You are asking people to let Gam Gam die so some random person they’ll never meet will live. “Just stop” is never. going. to. happen. Even the pockets of humanity left after the bulk of climate change will continue high energy use per capita.
Honestly I’m starting to hate this narrative
For one, by far the most polluting companies are state owned coal companies in China and India. Then other state owned fossil fuel companies and then private fossil fuel companies.
So all those companies are just power generation. So it’s not like they can just stop, people need the electricity.
And it’s not like nothing is being done either. Like by far the biggest polluter is China’s coal industry, making up 25% of global emissions, but China is also THE global leader on clean energy investment. They are currently building more nuclear power plants than the entire rest of the world has, they are making the biggest most powerfull wind turbines in the world, etc.
And if people would stop consuming cheap, disposable shite from China, then they wouldn’t use so much electricity, so would burn less coal and also you wouldn’t make a bunch of shit that’s just going to end up in a landfill.
Power companies in Georgia, US are building more coal power plants. Consumers in Georgia, US don’t have a lot of choice in how the electricity they can buy is produced.
What kind of politicians are people voting for at the state level in GA? Separately, they’re also blowing ass loads of money on nuclear.
Why are the people not on the hook for electricity usage but they are for cheap crap? The corporations reselling the cheap crap are far more culpable. The problem is still capitalism.
Okay, we’ve identified the problem is capitalism. Now what? Are you not at fault when you buy cheap crap from China you don’t need or take your car somewhere you could have walked, because the problem is capitalism?
When crops are failing due to drought and kids are starving to death is pointing the finger at capitalism going to save them?
I agree so very much.
People around me fly on holidays by plane like two, three times a year, still eat meat, shower twice a day and buy shit they don’t need from Amazon, because they can. This needs to stop! Will it save us? Of course not, but who else is going to stop the global suicide machine? Trump? The fossil destroyers? Do you want to protest another 70 years or go blow up a pipeline?
We are billions, we have the power of “No, thanks, I don’t want that” every fucking day but the endless consumption of stuff is too tempting. Instead, we sit at home, comfortably warm, well fed and lonely, in front of our seethrough plexiglas RGB LED computers and point fingers at corporations that are exactly as greedy, selfish and irresponsible as every single one of us.
NO THANKS! This could be the easiest global movement, no violence, no riots, yet corporations would be powerless. But you’d need to change, and you don’t want that.
Edit: If you downvote, please tell me where I’m wrong and what’s your counter-proposal in this actual situation right now.
Where you are wrong is that the majority of humans don’t have access to those luxuries of choice since around 50% of the world is still below the extreme poverty level. Where else you’re wrong is people like me that have solar panels, and electric transportation and access to mass transit that I use regularly. We also don’t have much of a choice, because we don’t make the markets those companies do.
Those companies are the only ones that have a choice because they control so much market share that no one else has enough power to make a change.
I already eliminated my carbon footprint, and it hasn’t done shit, because Starbucks has their own private jet that the CEO is using 3 times a week to fly between San Francisco and Seattle, because fuck the plebes.
The only solution I see at this point is mass protest and starting to assassinate CEOs, shareholders, and boards of directors, in self defense.
The point is that if everyone did what you (and I) do, we’d actually get somewhere. Seems like we’re in the minority though, unfortunately. That doesn’t make the person you replied to wrong, it just means most people continue to just blindly consume, and when they can’t consume as much as they want they blindly vote for asswipes promising them even more. That’s the cultural problem at the heart of this all. I’m running out of individual actions I can do too, but that doesn’t mean those were not helpful.
People aren’t blindly consuming though, they’re consuming mostly as a necessity, without much choice in the impact of what they consume. Us down here at the bottom of the class hierarchy don’t have a lot of wiggle room. In general, the lower and middle classes much more rarely consume for pleasure, but even still, why shouldn’t I get to take a plane for vacation once or twice a year, sucking the farts of the 300 other peasants in the economy class seats, while CEOs take single-passenger trips in their private jets every day? Do you see how that’s frustrating? My footprint is already incredibly low because on top of just not consuming all that much in the first place (compared to a billionaire), I do try to be as responsible as I reasonably can. Billionaires aren’t even trying.
I think the big point is, it would be magnitudes easier to get the 100 richest people to lower their carbon footprint than the 1 billion poorest (do you understand how monstrously difficult it is to convince 1 billion, or even 1 million people to work towards some common goal?), and it would probably have a bigger impact on the environment to boot. I’m getting tired of people continuing to advocate for individual action when actions by billionaires would be so much more impactful, for so much less sacrifice on their part. Work smarter, not harder, you know?
Obviously, the best solution is to do both, to tackle the problem from both sides. But in my personal opinion, I think we should start with the billionaires and see where that gets us first. They owe us at least that much.
Yes, there is a difference between the elite and the lower class, but it’s only in resources and opportunities. If both sides switched positions the lower class people would go for exactly the same fun as the elite is having right know. Because that’s the way we are born and raised, greedy and selfish. Purging a couple of assholes and replacing them with fresh soon-to-be assholes won’t solve this. Our mindset needs to change. We need to agree on what is important, what is enough and what’s obscene.
I’m not suggesting a purge, I’m suggesting we change the behavior of the billionaire class. That can be achieved with taxes, policy, and financial incentives just as easily as with violence (probably easier tbh).
Dawg, we’ve been trying to change the mindset since (at least*) the 90s, and it’s just not enough. You and I can reuse our sustainably sourced reusable hemp shopping bags all we want, reduce our consumption all we want, recycle all we want, it doesn’t change the fact that Kroger is shipping in produce from half a planet away on a daily basis. We need to go further, and make the upper class take their share of responsibility for the damage they do to the environment.
Agreeing on what’s enough is hard, but agreeing on what’s obscene is much much easier, and I think it’s safe to say that nearly every billionaire in the world exceeds what we can agree is obscene. That’s a much easier problem to solve, one we have the tools to solve now. Let’s tackle that first, while we work through the harder problem of figuring out what’s enough.
I agree again.
9% of the global population is in extreme poverty not 50%
It’s a multifaceted issue, but don’t kid yourself
http://amp.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change.
China weighs in at 14.5% for coal. Another 1-point-some-odd for their Petro Chem. The issue is that there are a lot of companies that make up the remainder.
Demand definitely plays a role in all of this, but I don’t think pushing green initiatives is a bad thing from the consumers and one of the only ways we can encourage these companies to do their part
It’s possible there’s a very specific tinge of racism and/or jingoism present in the comment previous to yours.
Multinational companies are to blame, not just India and China.
Really? I didn’t see the racist overtones you did apparently. I read that as ‘China is the largest pollution source, but only because of X Y and Z, and they’re doing more to mitigate it than anyone else’.
I hear your point there, you’re not wrong, but it does lay the blame at their feet then sort of back away from the stance.
The fact is, most people won’t read it all. They’re just going to see “blame India and China!”
“Phew, at least I’m off the hook.”
I don’t even like to admit the idea of the above but based on the last month (and let’s face it, very long time before that), people are willing to jump to all sorts of conclusions.
Hell, maybe I did about it sounding racist! But I don’t know the intent behind every message I read. I’m just feeling very skeptical and cautious.
You make some very good points. Being sceptical and cautious are important skills to have in this modern world :/
I hate the narrative too. Just people avoiding responsibility and complaining instead of doing what they can and should.
Obviously our individual actions matter.
My mate whinge all day about bad companies ruining the planet and drinks that Danone smart water bullshit.
Well soon he will be smart enough to stop drinking it.
Obviously they should and do, but pretending the average human creates anything compared to oil and gas companies, coal plants, big tech, etc is boot-lickingly ludicrous
These companies exist and pollute because people are buying what they sell.
No. They exist because people buy what they sell. They pollute because they lack meaningful regulations on their practices.
My point is, why do you think those oil and gas companies or big tech exist? Because there is a market for it because of consumer behaviour.
A profitable oil company is never going to just close itself down for the sake of morals. And even if they did, a different oil company is just going to take over their market share.
The only way we stop oil companies is by making them unprofitable, either through voting for legislators that will tax them or sanction them, or by taking away their demand.
And while your individual demand is tiny, the same as you single individual vote in an election. It won’t have an affect by itself, but if lots of people band together we can make change.
And the first step of that is acknowledging it.
I don’t know about you guys but Id rather have a habitable planet with breathable air than electricity.
It sickens me how convenience is valued over everything else.
People in hospitals will die without that electricity. You can be all sickened and uppity on your electronic device if you want, but the only realistic solution is replacing infrastructure.
People are already dying from the effects of climate change so I dont understand the point you are trying to make
You are asking people to let Gam Gam die so some random person they’ll never meet will live. “Just stop” is never. going. to. happen. Even the pockets of humanity left after the bulk of climate change will continue high energy use per capita.
The only realistic solution is greener energy.
Gam Gam’s life shouldn’t be worth more than “some random person”