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This doesn’t make sense to me. Having concern for the environment and being conscious of your consumption isn’t some kind of mentally debilitating guilt that sh

This doesn’t make sense to me. Having concern for the environment and being conscious of your consumption isn’t some kind of mentally debilitating guilt that should keep you from functioning normally on a day-to-day basis. What’s the worst that environmental consciousness could do to you? Make you buy an electric over a gas-powered vehicle when electric vehicles finally become widely available? Avoid buying oily junk food and sugary drinks in non-recyclable plastic packaging? Properly segregate your waste? These aren’t “tiring” and “horrifying” things. We all should be apologetic of our choices that are environmentally harmful and actively avoid as much of those choices as we can, because that collective individual disregard for nature is precisely what creates the “market demand” whom “people with actual power” would claim to be simply fulfilling. You’re passing all the blame on one side of the equation when, really, everyone across the board has a part to play here.

goldenchrome 5y ago
Those changes you listed aren't nearly enough to stop the environmental onslaught. It seems our current trajectory is inevitable since there's so much short term profit to be made from mass consumption. Perhaps we'll turn it around once our actions cause resource scarcity, but that time isn't now.
- 3grdlurker 5y ago
  Of course it's not enough, but isn't that such a trivial, impractical point to make? What small act is ever enough to make an impact on a large complex systemic effect? That's why you need an aggregate of counteractions--and you will never have that aggregate when you have too many individuals being defeatist and actively choosing to do nothing about a problem that threatens their very own survival. And sure, short-term profits drive people towards a certain behaviors, but no collective behavior is set in stone and people's tastes are actually changing, which is why more and more companies are publicly positioning themselves to be sustainable even if it's just woke theater for many of them. Being cynical and defeatist about not compounding to the problem of environmental pollution is such a valueless position. It's really not impossible to make the reverse politically viable.
  - krageon 5y ago
    The point is that for almost every metric, consumers changing their habits will have a negligible impact on global aspects of this disaster. Even if everyone changes, companies are so extremely polluting that it will not change the fact that everything will turn to shit. What needs to change is companies.
    - 3grdlurker 5y ago
      I agree, yes. I’m just reacting to what seems to be an excuse for what can be done at the individual level.
      - goldenchrome 5y ago
        It's not an excuse. I'm already actively limiting my own pollution by being frugal. I'm observing humanity-level trends and making conclusions. If you're definitely going to lose, being defeatist is also being realistic.
        3grdlurker 5y ago
        You don’t know that you’re going to lose, and trends can be reversed. They have been before. We’re doing the same thing to the global pandemic now with all these vaccines.
tnecio 5y ago
Most people on the planet cannot afford the time and money to change their lifestyles to be environmentally-friendly. And among those few who do, most have other priorities. It is naive to believe that a collective change in consument behaviour will scale up as the solution to Earth's environment problems. I don't think the parent commenter meant the producers of goods as the "people with actual power". It is just as unreasonable to believe that businesses will suddenly start caring about environment, since that would put them at a disadvantage on the market. (Though I imagine the whole narrative that it is the consumer's responsibility to fix the environment is very convenient for some of the less-environmentally friendly corporations who might be afraid of additional burdens on them so there's an incentive to push that message) In my opinion the root of the problem is that damaging the environment is not associated with an inherent cost. In my opinion, scalable solutions are those which "use the free market to regulate itself", i.e. things like carbon taxes (to make CO2 emission a cost), shifting cost of garbage utilisation to packaging producers (to make non-recyclable packaging a cost) etc. (+ corresponding change to social programs to lessen the impact of this change on consumers who would not afford increase in the price of goods). But for this to happen there needs to be a political will. For this reason I think that the most environmentally conscious things those of us who live in democracies can do is to vote for environmentally conscious representatives who understand the issue well.
- 3grdlurker 5y ago
  No disagreement here, we seem to just be interpreting the parent comment differently.

goldenchrome 5y ago

Those changes you listed aren't nearly enough to stop the environmental onslaught. It seems our current trajectory is inevitable since there's so much short term profit to be made from mass consumption. Perhaps we'll turn it around once our actions cause resource scarcity, but that time isn't now.

3grdlurker 5y ago
Of course it's not enough, but isn't that such a trivial, impractical point to make? What small act is ever enough to make an impact on a large complex systemic effect? That's why you need an aggregate of counteractions--and you will never have that aggregate when you have too many individuals being defeatist and actively choosing to do nothing about a problem that threatens their very own survival. And sure, short-term profits drive people towards a certain behaviors, but no collective behavior is set in stone and people's tastes are actually changing, which is why more and more companies are publicly positioning themselves to be sustainable even if it's just woke theater for many of them. Being cynical and defeatist about not compounding to the problem of environmental pollution is such a valueless position. It's really not impossible to make the reverse politically viable.
- krageon 5y ago
  The point is that for almost every metric, consumers changing their habits will have a negligible impact on global aspects of this disaster. Even if everyone changes, companies are so extremely polluting that it will not change the fact that everything will turn to shit. What needs to change is companies.
  - 3grdlurker 5y ago
    I agree, yes. I’m just reacting to what seems to be an excuse for what can be done at the individual level.
    - goldenchrome 5y ago
      It's not an excuse. I'm already actively limiting my own pollution by being frugal. I'm observing humanity-level trends and making conclusions. If you're definitely going to lose, being defeatist is also being realistic.
      - 3grdlurker 5y ago
        You don’t know that you’re going to lose, and trends can be reversed. They have been before. We’re doing the same thing to the global pandemic now with all these vaccines.

tnecio 5y ago

Most people on the planet cannot afford the time and money to change their lifestyles to be environmentally-friendly. And among those few who do, most have other priorities. It is naive to believe that a collective change in consument behaviour will scale up as the solution to Earth's environment problems. I don't think the parent commenter meant the producers of goods as the "people with actual power". It is just as unreasonable to believe that businesses will suddenly start caring about environment, since that would put them at a disadvantage on the market. (Though I imagine the whole narrative that it is the consumer's responsibility to fix the environment is very convenient for some of the less-environmentally friendly corporations who might be afraid of additional burdens on them so there's an incentive to push that message) In my opinion the root of the problem is that damaging the environment is not associated with an inherent cost. In my opinion, scalable solutions are those which "use the free market to regulate itself", i.e. things like carbon taxes (to make CO2 emission a cost), shifting cost of garbage utilisation to packaging producers (to make non-recyclable packaging a cost) etc. (+ corresponding change to social programs to lessen the impact of this change on consumers who would not afford increase in the price of goods). But for this to happen there needs to be a political will. For this reason I think that the most environmentally conscious things those of us who live in democracies can do is to vote for environmentally conscious representatives who understand the issue well.

3grdlurker 5y ago
No disagreement here, we seem to just be interpreting the parent comment differently.