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this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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I wasn't even alive in the 1970's when Exxon knew about climate change and lied about it to the entire world. Those rich fucks have been exploiting the climate for their personal gain for many decades before either of us were likely even born. I won't be giving up the few small liberties I have so that the rich can continue doing whatever they want.
And good luck getting every single consumer to agree with you. I suspect you're going to be waiting a long time for your plan to work.
Instead, we should be punishing the individuals responsible for 40% of the climate change problem. Not punishing the rest of the world who did not profit from exploiting the climate problem.
As horrible as those people are, it's not like they're just belching carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for fun. They're fulfilling demand. That 40% wouldn't disappear just by spreading ownership of the factories to more people. That's not to say that individual action is the only thing that works. Regulations need to be put in place to curb emissions, incentives should reward producers for investing & transitioning to more sustainable practices, and yes, monopolies need to get split up.
But the fact remains that some products are just bad for the environment. As as long as people continue buying those products they'll keep being produced. And when animal agriculture accounts for about as many emissions as the entire transportation industry, this seems like one of the easier steps to make.
The "my actions won't end this problem so I don't need to do anything" mentality never comes up in any other field (politeness, crimes, social change, voting). Yeah, choosing to never hold open doors for others wouldn't noticeably affect the global rate, but I doubt you'd use that logic to justify being rude.
To say Exxon was just, "fulfilling demands" makes them seem like good people. They KNEW they were causing climate change 50 years ago. They suppressed the information. Many Americans are dependent on their oil. It's all part of the design of our roads, infrastructure, jobs, etc. These corporations only care about their revenue streams, not the streams of water and how clean they are. Hoping the majority of consumers band together to do the right thing simply will not work. The corporations and the executives need to be held accountable or we will continue to flounder on climate change.
Unfortunately it goes back further than that. We knew anthropogenic climate change was a thing in the late 1800s, and the oil companies started doing the research in the early 1900s. They knew by 1910 that they were flirting with disaster. Which just allows everyone to say, "nope, not changing anything personally, because those decisions were made before I was born."
I agree that it's unfair that we have to modify our consumption when it makes so little impact. Hopefully meat in vats is actually better for the environment, but I'm not counting on it for the first generation. It is finally being served in a couple restaurants so that's a first step
It has nothing to do with fairness. Modifying consumption at an individual level doesn't help and isn't even a step to solving the problem. It's literally propaganda to shift blame and make sure nothing is ever done to address the issue.
If you're relying on individuals you may as well just give up. There needs to be systemic change forced by legislation.
Modifying consumption at the individual level unintentionally creates boycotts that the local consumer isn't even aware they are involved in. This compounds when the local consumer happens to be an upper manager, because they will carry their biases against corporations, such as Nestlé, into the corporate world, and continue their own boycott of services that are undesirable.
Again, totally unfair to the individual since we carry so little responsibility, but we also carry the ability to crush corporations that refuse to follow the people's will. Look a bit deeper into why Enron, or Sears-Roebuck collapsed. You'll find that your real power is burying corporations that have no value.
Modifying individual consumption is literally the only viable solution. It just cannot be voluntary.
That was sort of my point. I guess it would be better stated as putting the decision making at the individual level doesn't help, or something like that.
Then it isn't propaganda meant to shift blame.
Blaming "the top x%" of corporations is effective propaganda that does shift blame.
People are going to fight carbon taxation, even with a dividend, and if they think "just go after the rich" will help, we'll never get it.
To say they're filling demand is a morally neutral, and objectively correct, standpoint.
This is the actual problem to solve, and why you should support carbon tax-and-dividend.
I'm not defending fossil-fueled energy production. When the product is energy it's inexcusable to produce it in such a grossly irresponsible manner.
But if "coal energy" specifically was the product, and consumers overwhelmingly directly choose it rather than available renewable energy, then yeah I'd cut companies a bit more slack. When the harm isn't in method but the product, and people are choosing that product instead of alternatives, then much of the blame rests on them.
No, it's all because America 'needs' to be competitive with the world on a military level. This means that whatever will make us progress the fastest is the route we're going to take.
Operating without oil will severely hinder US military progression, which is why we don't do it. It's the same reason why no nation does it that has a stake in world affairs. Slowing down to save the environment gives your enemies an advantage.
Thats because we all have been raised to be polite and hold doors open. We have also been raised to consume anything and everything to satisfy our greed because it is our right as rulers of earth. It is the standard and noone criticizes you for it, so why not keep that privilege? It is apparently very hard and takes a long time to get rid of this mentality in the whole population, especially since the most influential ones fight for keeping it.
Do you really only do good things when you've been conditioned to do so? You don't ever try to grow past what society tells you? I'm not asking you to solve everything. I'm asking you not to be a part of the problem. Defending your behavior by pointing to that of others has not been a historically sound position.
Totally agree. I wasnt trying to defend that attitude, just setting some context.
Ah, sorry. I sometimes forget to check for name continuity.
The reason why we will fail when it comes to the climate: we can’t even agree on who to blame and who to punish and how to change the situation to solve the problem.
We are f’d!
There is no need to agree on who to blame. We all need to fight together and do our best.
Trying to shift blame away from ourselves is the actual problem thats keeping us from making change.
Noone is saying we shouldnt punish corporations. We should, but how does that give us a free pass to keep exploiting the environment? How can you demand change from others when you decline changing yourself from the start?
One thing that has always bothered me about veganism is how freaken privileged it is. Cooking without animal products is more work and just has less reward. It is a privilege of the rich or at the least a full-time homemaker. I am upper middleclass now but I have been poor. Animal products are a hit of happiness with low effort.
The goal is to reduce emissions. If you want to reduce emissions significantly, you must massively reduce or eliminate meat consumption.
And so any solution, no matter where it comes from, will result in meat being either banned or becoming absurdly expensive. So why not get ahead of that and learn to live without meat?
Yet you drive a car and continue to eat meat.
It's anyone's fault but yours.
I don't have a car, but yes I'm a little bit at fault. I never said I wasn't.
But only an idiot would think I'm just as bad as people who made millions of dollars making the climate problem substantially worse. I didn't get rich by fucking our planet. I'm just trying to get by unlike the executives exacerbating climate change so they can make a couple million more.
Yeah, I definitely don't think you're just as bad.
The powers that be have a vested interest in making sure we're depending on making them richer.