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Climatic, there is nothing you can do. The vast majority of pollution comes from corporations, not individuals. Try to rally a change in laws, but don't focus y

Climatic, there is nothing you can do. The vast majority of pollution comes from corporations, not individuals. Try to rally a change in laws, but don't focus your efforts on changing individual people's habits, it's a drop in the bucket.

defterGoose 7y ago
I agree with you in general, and I believe that if we are to begin really fixing the pollution epidemic, change will come first from regulation of big companies. But I also know that we as individuals will have to eventually exist in world where producing pounds of plastic refuse and driving our cars everywhere is not considered normal; so I try to adapt my current lifestyle to that, bits and pieces at a time. I have a hard time reconciling these two attitudes but at the end of the day, I don't believe supply and demand are going away so we have to push the bigger polluters out of existence with our wallets.
maxander 7y ago
I thought the "climate change is really produced by a dozen CEOs, all we need to do is eat them" idea was restricted to cheap memes. Now it's on HN? Yes, corporate activities produce the bulk of human carbon emissions. But they're not doing it out on an island for their own amusement- they're doing it to produce things that individuals buy. (Or that other corporations buy to produce still other things, but it always grounds out in things-made-for-humans in the end.) Saying that oil companies are to blame for, e.g., automotive emissions, instead of motorists, is bizarre.
ntlk 7y ago
I understand the sentiment, but there is still a lot an individual could do. Use green energy, fly less, etc. These things all create relevant market pressures. For example: five years ago it was hard to find more than a single vegan meal option at any given London food place. Fast forward to today, and tons of places have dedicated vegan menus or multiple choices, because of the increase in people willing to pay for them. I’m not saying it’s a silver bullet, but these things do count, and sometimes changes driven by economic pressures happen very quickly.
- sergiotapia 7y ago
  All of the things you listed do _nothing_ but lower your quality of life.
  - ntlk 7y ago
    That depends what for you constitutes quality of life. For me switching energy suppliers saved me money. Becoming vegan introduced habits that are proving to have a positive effect on my health. Cycling to work keeps me doing cardio regularly and it halves my commute time.
- gatherhunterer 7y ago
  Vegan meals do not help to stall climate change, especially those consisting of soy-based alternatives. This is a marketing ploy by soy producers who profit by shifting public focus to meat and away from monocropping and agricultural emissions from monocrop cultivation. In addition to the fact that very few people have even seen, much less worked with, livestock being grazed and harvested outside of a CAFO and you have an effective marketing strategy that is “natural” enough to justify selling a single meal for more than most people make in an hour.
- username90 7y ago
  Do you honestly believe it is possible to solve this from the consumer side? We can't even make people stop eating themselves to death! You might get a small fraction to consume less but that wont save the environment. "Every little bit counts", no it really doesn't, it might buy us a few years and let the rest pollute even more before things are so bad that we start enforcing laws to stop them but ultimately those laws will be there, so all you achieved was making life a bit cushier for people who don't care.
  - ntlk 7y ago
    No, on its own these things aren’t a solution, but collectively we are able to add to pressures on businesses to adapt their behaviours.

defterGoose 7y ago

I agree with you in general, and I believe that if we are to begin really fixing the pollution epidemic, change will come first from regulation of big companies. But I also know that we as individuals will have to eventually exist in world where producing pounds of plastic refuse and driving our cars everywhere is not considered normal; so I try to adapt my current lifestyle to that, bits and pieces at a time. I have a hard time reconciling these two attitudes but at the end of the day, I don't believe supply and demand are going away so we have to push the bigger polluters out of existence with our wallets.

maxander 7y ago

I thought the "climate change is really produced by a dozen CEOs, all we need to do is eat them" idea was restricted to cheap memes. Now it's on HN? Yes, corporate activities produce the bulk of human carbon emissions. But they're not doing it out on an island for their own amusement- they're doing it to produce things that individuals buy. (Or that other corporations buy to produce still other things, but it always grounds out in things-made-for-humans in the end.) Saying that oil companies are to blame for, e.g., automotive emissions, instead of motorists, is bizarre.

ntlk 7y ago

I understand the sentiment, but there is still a lot an individual could do. Use green energy, fly less, etc. These things all create relevant market pressures. For example: five years ago it was hard to find more than a single vegan meal option at any given London food place. Fast forward to today, and tons of places have dedicated vegan menus or multiple choices, because of the increase in people willing to pay for them. I’m not saying it’s a silver bullet, but these things do count, and sometimes changes driven by economic pressures happen very quickly.

sergiotapia 7y ago
All of the things you listed do _nothing_ but lower your quality of life.
- ntlk 7y ago
  That depends what for you constitutes quality of life. For me switching energy suppliers saved me money. Becoming vegan introduced habits that are proving to have a positive effect on my health. Cycling to work keeps me doing cardio regularly and it halves my commute time.
gatherhunterer 7y ago
Vegan meals do not help to stall climate change, especially those consisting of soy-based alternatives. This is a marketing ploy by soy producers who profit by shifting public focus to meat and away from monocropping and agricultural emissions from monocrop cultivation. In addition to the fact that very few people have even seen, much less worked with, livestock being grazed and harvested outside of a CAFO and you have an effective marketing strategy that is “natural” enough to justify selling a single meal for more than most people make in an hour.
username90 7y ago
Do you honestly believe it is possible to solve this from the consumer side? We can't even make people stop eating themselves to death! You might get a small fraction to consume less but that wont save the environment. "Every little bit counts", no it really doesn't, it might buy us a few years and let the rest pollute even more before things are so bad that we start enforcing laws to stop them but ultimately those laws will be there, so all you achieved was making life a bit cushier for people who don't care.
- ntlk 7y ago
  No, on its own these things aren’t a solution, but collectively we are able to add to pressures on businesses to adapt their behaviours.