6 ms·

I see a lot of dialog online, passing the buck of responsibility with climate change to the rich and the "corporations". What people need to accept is that even

by mcntsh 6y ago

I see a lot of dialog online, passing the buck of responsibility with climate change to the rich and the "corporations". What people need to accept is that even their average western lifestyle has a hugely negative impact on the earth. We need to stop trying to pin the blame on one group and take responsibility all together.

perfunctory 6y ago
> We need to stop trying to pin the blame on one group and take responsibility all together. Any specific proposals on how to do it?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
_Microft 6y ago
Problem is that no matter how much good you want to do, you're limited by the amount of emissions you are having right now. No chance to avoid 5t of carbon when your yearly footprint is at 4t already. It's a lot easier to emit an additional 5t of carbon by jetting to the other side of the planet and back again, though. Now think about someone who is taking such trips bi-weekly (as I know someone) and their job isn't even making them at least net-positive for the world either.
- mcntsh 6y ago
  The average carbon footprint of someone in the US is 16 tons, in Germany it's 9,5 tons.
  - _Microft 6y ago
    It looks like using numbers obscured the argument that I wanted to make. The problem I wanted to point out is that personally achievable reductions are limited while the potential harm that an individual could do by excessive consumption or travel does not have a hard cap.
    - esarbe 6y ago
      That's a good point to make.
    - mcntsh 6y ago
      The people flying in those planes can make personally achievable reductions themselves. Everyone has to make the effort together.
      - _Microft 6y ago
        I'd also wish that everyone were more environmentally conscious but I think we need solutions that are robust enough that they will even work despite people's bad attitudes and not just when people have good attitudes.
        mcntsh 6y ago
        Sure, I just think it's funny how people blame the "evil corporations" for the problems while humans are simultaneously unwilling to solve the problems themselves.
gherkinnn 6y ago
The rich, the Chinese, the West, Brasil, what have you. Pinning the blame of climate change is an excellent way to give a disliked party another kick. And you get to feel morally superior. If only it fixed the actual problem.
lagzi 6y ago
> We need to stop trying to pin the blame on one group and take responsibility all together. Even if you go vegan, thrift all your clothes and minimize your consumption, you have such a tiny footprint compared to corporations that naturally value profit over the environment. Blaming people for what corporations should be held accountable for is counterproductive and distracting. We should focus on enacting laws to protect us from the damage corporations are doing to the planet.
- mcntsh 6y ago
  > Even if you go vegan, thrift all your clothes and minimize your consumption, you have such a tiny footprint compared to corporations that naturally value profit over the environment. If more people thrifted, went vegan, and minimised their consumption, it would shrink the footprint of these corporations as well. These things don't all exist in a vacuum. Shipping/manufacturing companies pollute the earth shipping/manufacturing things for consumers. Now, it's not to say that these businesses shouldn't be held accountable, but people need to take some personal responsibility too. Once regulatory action passes, and corporations are forced to abide by environmentally conscious laws, consumers will be forced to be less consumeristic just by force of economics. It'll come down to consumers in one way or another.
  - KozmoNau7 6y ago
    It comes down to consumption in general. The modern materialistic society is born from decades of advertising, product placement and the idea that to get ahead in life, you have to outspend and outconsume your peers. You have to flaunt your material goods, because that is the only thing equating to status in our current society. This mindset and ideal was created almost entirely by big corporations. They haven't simply satisfied existing demands for decades, they have created and planted those demands via advertising, in order to sell their products. Add the factors of planned obsolescence and lack of repairability on top of that, and you have a recipe for constant consumption and endless waste creation. Then they tried to foist recycling on us as an end-all be-all solution to the pollution we're creating, but it not even close to being enough, by several orders of magnitude. We need to increase quality, reduce quantity and make do with much much less. And the start of that is to do something about the 100 corporations that are responsible for ~70% of all emissions. Tax all emissions hard, as a start.
pjc50 6y ago
Every time I worry about individual responsibility, the Exxon plant twenty-five miles away turns on its flare and I'm reminded of how little difference my actions make compared to a hundred-meter column of burning gas.

by mcntsh 6y ago

perfunctory 6y ago

> We need to stop trying to pin the blame on one group and take responsibility all together. Any specific proposals on how to do it?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

_Microft 6y ago

Problem is that no matter how much good you want to do, you're limited by the amount of emissions you are having right now. No chance to avoid 5t of carbon when your yearly footprint is at 4t already. It's a lot easier to emit an additional 5t of carbon by jetting to the other side of the planet and back again, though. Now think about someone who is taking such trips bi-weekly (as I know someone) and their job isn't even making them at least net-positive for the world either.

mcntsh 6y ago
The average carbon footprint of someone in the US is 16 tons, in Germany it's 9,5 tons.
- _Microft 6y ago
  It looks like using numbers obscured the argument that I wanted to make. The problem I wanted to point out is that personally achievable reductions are limited while the potential harm that an individual could do by excessive consumption or travel does not have a hard cap.
  - esarbe 6y ago
    That's a good point to make.
  - mcntsh 6y ago
    The people flying in those planes can make personally achievable reductions themselves. Everyone has to make the effort together.
    - _Microft 6y ago
      I'd also wish that everyone were more environmentally conscious but I think we need solutions that are robust enough that they will even work despite people's bad attitudes and not just when people have good attitudes.
      - mcntsh 6y ago
        Sure, I just think it's funny how people blame the "evil corporations" for the problems while humans are simultaneously unwilling to solve the problems themselves.

gherkinnn 6y ago

The rich, the Chinese, the West, Brasil, what have you. Pinning the blame of climate change is an excellent way to give a disliked party another kick. And you get to feel morally superior. If only it fixed the actual problem.

lagzi 6y ago

> We need to stop trying to pin the blame on one group and take responsibility all together. Even if you go vegan, thrift all your clothes and minimize your consumption, you have such a tiny footprint compared to corporations that naturally value profit over the environment. Blaming people for what corporations should be held accountable for is counterproductive and distracting. We should focus on enacting laws to protect us from the damage corporations are doing to the planet.

mcntsh 6y ago
> Even if you go vegan, thrift all your clothes and minimize your consumption, you have such a tiny footprint compared to corporations that naturally value profit over the environment. If more people thrifted, went vegan, and minimised their consumption, it would shrink the footprint of these corporations as well. These things don't all exist in a vacuum. Shipping/manufacturing companies pollute the earth shipping/manufacturing things for consumers. Now, it's not to say that these businesses shouldn't be held accountable, but people need to take some personal responsibility too. Once regulatory action passes, and corporations are forced to abide by environmentally conscious laws, consumers will be forced to be less consumeristic just by force of economics. It'll come down to consumers in one way or another.
- KozmoNau7 6y ago
  It comes down to consumption in general. The modern materialistic society is born from decades of advertising, product placement and the idea that to get ahead in life, you have to outspend and outconsume your peers. You have to flaunt your material goods, because that is the only thing equating to status in our current society. This mindset and ideal was created almost entirely by big corporations. They haven't simply satisfied existing demands for decades, they have created and planted those demands via advertising, in order to sell their products. Add the factors of planned obsolescence and lack of repairability on top of that, and you have a recipe for constant consumption and endless waste creation. Then they tried to foist recycling on us as an end-all be-all solution to the pollution we're creating, but it not even close to being enough, by several orders of magnitude. We need to increase quality, reduce quantity and make do with much much less. And the start of that is to do something about the 100 corporations that are responsible for ~70% of all emissions. Tax all emissions hard, as a start.

pjc50 6y ago

Every time I worry about individual responsibility, the Exxon plant twenty-five miles away turns on its flare and I'm reminded of how little difference my actions make compared to a hundred-meter column of burning gas.