6 ms·

Address it how? Stop buying goods from those companies?

SwellJoe 8y ago
That doesn't seem like a realistic answer. It requires a lot more knowledge on the part of consumers than consumers have or can readily obtain, and puts the onus on those least able to affect the behavior of those companies and puts the cost of making the change on those who have little responsibility for the choices that led us here. We have environmental regulations, they just aren't strong enough and they often have loopholes specifically for the worst offenders (e.g. animal agriculture and shipping both externalize tremendous environmental costs on everyone). There's also differences between nations that make it possible to outsource environmental impact, which needs to be balanced. It's not realistic to tell consumers, "Don't buy products made overseas", because for most people in most parts of the world, most of the products they need are made overseas. I don't think it's a bad thing for manufacture to flow to where it is most efficient, but it is a bad thing when environmental impact explodes because of it. There needs to be pressure on the companies hauling those goods, from every nation they ship to, to reduce emissions dramatically. And, while I've been vegetarian or vegan for 24 years, and I encourage everyone to do so, both to reduce suffering and to reduce environmental impact, it turns out asking people to become vegetarian or vegan doesn't actually work. There have been organizations encouraging plant-based diets for decades, and yet only a small percentage of people eat a plant-based diet. The industry has to be made to internalize those costs, so they change their practices. It'll also raise prices to more realistic levels, which would shift consumption to plant-based alternatives which have orders of magnitude lower environmental impact (though still high, when talking about feeding a few billion people, but certainly more sustainable than feeding a few billion people beef).

That doesn't seem like a realistic answer. It requires a lot more knowledge on the part of consumers than consumers have or can readily obtain, and puts the onus on those least able to affect the behavior of those companies and puts the cost of making the change on those who have little responsibility for the choices that led us here. We have environmental regulations, they just aren't strong enough and they often have loopholes specifically for the worst offenders (e.g. animal agriculture and shipping both externalize tremendous environmental costs on everyone). There's also differences between nations that make it possible to outsource environmental impact, which needs to be balanced. It's not realistic to tell consumers, "Don't buy products made overseas", because for most people in most parts of the world, most of the products they need are made overseas. I don't think it's a bad thing for manufacture to flow to where it is most efficient, but it is a bad thing when environmental impact explodes because of it. There needs to be pressure on the companies hauling those goods, from every nation they ship to, to reduce emissions dramatically. And, while I've been vegetarian or vegan for 24 years, and I encourage everyone to do so, both to reduce suffering and to reduce environmental impact, it turns out asking people to become vegetarian or vegan doesn't actually work. There have been organizations encouraging plant-based diets for decades, and yet only a small percentage of people eat a plant-based diet. The industry has to be made to internalize those costs, so they change their practices. It'll also raise prices to more realistic levels, which would shift consumption to plant-based alternatives which have orders of magnitude lower environmental impact (though still high, when talking about feeding a few billion people, but certainly more sustainable than feeding a few billion people beef).