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individual-scale action is not a substitute for collective action. You can plant trees and sort your recycling every day for the rest of your life and it won't
by paulmd 6y ago
individual-scale action is not a substitute for collective action. You can plant trees and sort your recycling every day for the rest of your life and it won't make the tiniest fraction of the difference that raising fuel economy standards or implementing a carbon tax or whatever would do.
individual action is often presented as a sop precisely because industry wants to divert discussion from the forms of collective action that actually make a difference.
- jlengrand 6y agoEntirely correct. And that's infuriating Though it does not stop us from acting at local level. Let us all stop replacing our phones every year, and there will be a shift in consumption models. We collectively, as a sum of locals, have the power to make things change.
- paulmd 6y agoNot saying don't do those things, but we need society-level action to really make an impact. To plagiarize the saying about the internet and censorship, capitalism is a self-correcting system designed to route around any "errors" like individual ethics/behavior that produce non-optimal profits according to "the rules" of the system. If you reduce the demand for coal because everyone chooses to pay the extra for solar energy, someone is going to scoop up that cheap coal and find a way to use it. You have to "change the rules of the game" to make any impact, and that's society/collective level action.
- jlengrand 6y agoThat's an interesting point you're making (though scary). Didn't think about it that way. Thanks.