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this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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But who buys their products? It always comes back to us and our actions
This response is frustrating. A company can have pressure put on and change actions more than "can everyone just spend 5 minutes". To put pressure back on a consumer who does not have the ability to purchase time (via more employees) to handle the load of "5 more minutes" means that only the crazy will think they can make a difference.
Your response is generated from a successful captain planet propaganda campaign that successfully brainwashed a generation. You are technically right that no supply = no demand. You are technically right that "if 100% of humans stopped using and correctly educated themselves on further green washing pivots" then the 100 companies would stop.
Your comment is even more frustrating.
There is no collective will to "put pressure on companies" if people don't individually recognize that their cultural consumption practices, behaviors, and expectations are not sustainable and that, INDIVIDUALLY, their behaviors must change.
For example, the only real way to put pressure on companies is through government action through something like a carbon tax.
If we, collectively and individually, don't realize that such an action will have significant impact on your day to day behaviors that action is politically untenable and will immediately get voted out.
If there is no government pressure or individual pressure (since we refuse to acknowledge individuals as participants in climate change), then the companies who are most willing to reduce their costs and increase their profits will thrive and the climate is fucked.
Even on a very essential level of "it requires government action" requires vast amounts of individuals to work and sacrificial to make that a reality. How much are you willing to sacrifice to help candidates who will take this seriously? If you don't believe you have an culpability, probably nothing.
I am about 75% sure that "It's all the companies emitting" is an immensely clever astroturfing campaign that preys on people's desire for their to be a big bad and to not believe that they should suffer even the slightest inconvenience.
Guess what? A large majority of what you would need to do to survive in a "there is external pressure on companies" world are things most can do today. Start spending money in companies today who are at least attempting to make sustainable practices work. Reduce your regular consumption today. Start spending money today to support research and development for solutions. Stop eating meat today. Start looking into alternative sources of energy personally, today. Look into increasing your home insulation today. Start organizing, talking, supporting, volunteering, today.
Stop pretending that you are not part of the problem. You are.
The real irony with that statement is that even if 70% is some "disconnected from the reality of our consumption and economic practices and can simple be shut of magically", that still leaves an enormous amount of carbon emissions that are individual, and guess what, those still count and are just as real.
Some facts:
17% of emissions in the US are light road vehicles (aka cars). Aircraft are another 8%. Are you advocating in your city for true alternatives?
6% is residential. Are you supporting and seeking smaller, highly efficient homes, financially? Homes built with more sustainable materials?
10% is agricultural, the large majority of this is meat. Are you eating less meat?
We could keep going.
It goes both ways. You've heard of the personal carbon footprint, right? Invented by oil companies so environmentalists would call people out for not doing enough, frustrating said targets of environmentalist ire to a point where a lot of people are intentionally polluting more, while also driving people into a sentiment of "I've done enough, now it's everyone else's fault" when they've reduced their own footprint to a minimum.
The only way for change to happen is political. Regulations work, telling people to stop eating meat and walk to work doesn't, because you'll never get more than maybe 1% of people to go along with it. Who wants to restrict themselves when other people don't?
Basically as an individual, the only way your efforts mean anything is if you decide to go for some good old eco-terrorism. But it has to be enough for fossil company CEOs and board members to be legitimately scared to the point nobody wants to run those companies anymore.
Or if you're a dictator selling gas, you can start a war and some of your customers will stop buying from you. That reduces gas consumption for a while until they find new sources, and might make some governments reconsider their foreign fossil fuel dependency.
Did you bother to look at exactly which 100 companies these are?
Spoiler alert, they are oil energy production companies.
Got rid of your petroleum-burning car? Great! But I hope you don't ever buy literally anything, because shipping still runs on petroleum. Fun fact, most semis get around 6 MPG.
Oh, also, don't use the internet. Even if your local power is renewable, the electric grid on the whole runs on fossil fuels. Your house electric could be green, but the majority of the switches, routers, servers and miscellany of the rest of the internet sure don't.
It's unrealistic to expect everyone to completely disentangle their lives from using our nation's energy production systems. Sure, if we all went completely off-grid, we'd generate less greenhouse emissions. Of course, millions would starve due to the impossibility of scaling small-scale agriculture to feed us all.
All of us are supported by a huge infrastructure based on burning fossil fuels. Without regulating that industry, the only choice we can make is to leave society entirely.
Good idea. New plan: don’t buy anything. Don’t even buy food. We did it boys, we saved the planet.
Carbon footprint is a term coined by the petroleum industry to move the responsibility from them to the end users
What is a better term that places responsibility on them?
You can not individualise a problem like climate change.
It requires collective action from governments.
You have to regulate the common use of fossil fuels out of existence (among other major changes) for us to have any hope.
They could, you know, stop making them...
They could. And then someone else would just make more to fill the gap.
We need a change in governance and economic structure. That said, individual actions do also have an impact, collectively.