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Companies motivated purely by capital are the only ones truly responsible for all this, and are subsequently the ones who can make the biggest changes to undo w

Companies motivated purely by capital are the only ones truly responsible for all this, and are subsequently the ones who can make the biggest changes to undo what they've done. Consumers have much less control over all of this than you seem to think.

KingOfCoders 5y ago
[Edit] Voting me down gives me so much pleasure, it proves my world view. Thanks to all the downvoters, you've made my day. And don't we all just want to feel validated. Consumers have all of the control. Don't eat meat. Switch to a green energy provider. Buy small car. Move to a smaller house. Buy used clothes. Use your phone longer. Consume less! With all of this there is no climate crisis. Growing up in Germany, I understand your opinion. No one wants to take personal responsibility. After WW2 no one in Germany was responsible for anything. WW2 just happened. The others did it. I followed orders. This opinion changed when people grew up who were born after WW2 which lead to a cultural revolution. The same will happen with the climate crisis. Children born now will hold current consumers responsible in the future - and they will be angry with their parents and grandparents.
- klipt 5y ago
  No really, corporations consume way more than individuals. I work for one and their consumption per employee is easily higher than my individual consumption. If you want to change the world, change the incentives. Tax CO2 released from fossil fuels appropriately (enough to offset the effects completely) and everything will adjust thanks to the magic of the market.
  - KingOfCoders 5y ago
    "No really, corporations consume way more than individuals" Which ones? What corporations consume more energy that do not produce things consumers buy? If you buy a car, the corporation is using up energy, but for you, to build your car. They don't consume the energy for themselves. Facebook uses energy? Yes so you can consume Facebook.
    - II2II 5y ago
      I suspect the point is that consumers have very little control over how corporations consume energy. In the case of the production of cars, consumers can only decide to buy a car or to not buy a car. They do not have the power to modify the design or manufacturing process. (It is also worth noting that this is true regardless of the mode of transportation the consumer chooses.) A similar thing can be said for the web. A consumer can choose to use Facebook or not to use Facebook. They do not have the power to modify Facebook's operations to reduce its environmental impact. It's also worth noting that consumers rarely have the data necessary to compare the environmental impact of products or services being offered. For example: are ebooks or print books more environmentally friendly? It's easy to pretend the former since it looks cleaner. No trees are being chopped down to make pulp. No diesel belching trucks to deliver physical goods. On the other hand, there was a time when the semiconductor industry was seen as clean since it lacked the belching smokestacks of traditional industries. (The mining of rare materials was unseen. The dumping of hazardous chemicals was unseen. Ewaste wasn't even acknowledge until the mid to late 90's.)
      - klipt 5y ago
        > It's also worth noting that consumers rarely have the data necessary to compare the environmental impact of products or services being offered. Exactly, and this is the kind of problem that's solved by taxing externalities appropriately. Then the impact shows up in the price, and the common consumer behavior of preferring cheaper products naturally leads to preferring lower environmental impact products.
      - KingOfCoders 5y ago
        Every consumer can choose a green energy provider. A minority does. Every consumer can buy a smaller car that uses half the the steel and consumes half the gas. A minority does. Every consumer can eat less meat. A minority does. Consumerism trumps everything. Consumerism is ten thousands years old when people started to produce for other - and the strongest force to predict people behaviour. Consumerism killed East Germany and it brought down the Soviet Union and it will consume capitalism.
      - 5y ago
- adrianN 5y ago
  No, if you do all of those you're still quite far from carbon neutral. For example I live in a small flat, I don't own a car, I only eat meat when invited somewhere, I pay for "green" electricity and I wear my clothes until they fall apart. Yet my apartment is still heated with oil, the food I buy is farmed with machines burning Diesel and the steel in my bicycle is still made with coke. The "green" electricity I buy is still mostly lignite in reality. Consumers can only slow down climate change. It is impossible for consumers to implement the systemic changes needed to reach carbon neutrality.
  - KingOfCoders 5y ago
    "No, if you do all of those you're still quite far from carbon neutral." The climate crisis is not because we're not carbon neutral, but because produce so much CO2/methane/[..]. Carbon neutral is the wrong concept. Raising cows and eating them can be done carbon neutral, but converting CO2 into methane still leads to a climate crisis. Humanity hasn't been carbon neutral for at least 5000 years, not being carbon neutral is not the problem.
    - adrianN 5y ago
      No, you're wrong. Not being carbon neutral is the problem. Global warming is proportional to the amount of GHG is the atmosphere. A good fraction of the CO2 once emitted (and Methane once oxidized back to CO2) stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years and traps heat until geological processes sequester it. We probably could go back to 17-th century amounts of coal burning and still run into a climate crisis eventually. It would just take much longer than at current rates of emission.
      - KingOfCoders 5y ago
        No you are wrong, humanity hasn't been carbon neutral for 5000 years at least.
        adrianN 5y ago
        I don't claim that humanity has been carbon neutral. I claim that we have to become carbon neutral to stop heating up the planet.
- ahurmazda 5y ago
  Lot of truth in there. We need to consider not only the supply-side of CO2 reduction but the demand-side of it as well[1]. The latter unfortunately gets dwarfed for various reasons. At the end of it all, we as individuals have to make tough choices in the coming decades (years in even). How much of it is forced up on us by nature vs our collective initiative remains an open question. [1]https://climate.leeds.ac.uk/news/demand-side-potential-needs-proper-attention-to-mitigate-climate-change/ https://climate.leeds.ac.uk/news/demand-side-potential-needs...
k_ 5y ago
This. I agree about the changes individuals should take (and I do it myself: almost no meat, never owned a car, only used planes a couple times when I had no choice (for work), etc. though I know there are still things I could do better), but a lot of over-consumption comes from greedy companies that force new "needs" onto consumers. Nobody needs an SUV, nobody needs a new iPhone every time a new model comes out, etc. But companies make them think they do.

KingOfCoders 5y ago

[Edit] Voting me down gives me so much pleasure, it proves my world view. Thanks to all the downvoters, you've made my day. And don't we all just want to feel validated. Consumers have all of the control. Don't eat meat. Switch to a green energy provider. Buy small car. Move to a smaller house. Buy used clothes. Use your phone longer. Consume less! With all of this there is no climate crisis. Growing up in Germany, I understand your opinion. No one wants to take personal responsibility. After WW2 no one in Germany was responsible for anything. WW2 just happened. The others did it. I followed orders. This opinion changed when people grew up who were born after WW2 which lead to a cultural revolution. The same will happen with the climate crisis. Children born now will hold current consumers responsible in the future - and they will be angry with their parents and grandparents.

klipt 5y ago
No really, corporations consume way more than individuals. I work for one and their consumption per employee is easily higher than my individual consumption. If you want to change the world, change the incentives. Tax CO2 released from fossil fuels appropriately (enough to offset the effects completely) and everything will adjust thanks to the magic of the market.
- KingOfCoders 5y ago
  "No really, corporations consume way more than individuals" Which ones? What corporations consume more energy that do not produce things consumers buy? If you buy a car, the corporation is using up energy, but for you, to build your car. They don't consume the energy for themselves. Facebook uses energy? Yes so you can consume Facebook.
  - II2II 5y ago
    I suspect the point is that consumers have very little control over how corporations consume energy. In the case of the production of cars, consumers can only decide to buy a car or to not buy a car. They do not have the power to modify the design or manufacturing process. (It is also worth noting that this is true regardless of the mode of transportation the consumer chooses.) A similar thing can be said for the web. A consumer can choose to use Facebook or not to use Facebook. They do not have the power to modify Facebook's operations to reduce its environmental impact. It's also worth noting that consumers rarely have the data necessary to compare the environmental impact of products or services being offered. For example: are ebooks or print books more environmentally friendly? It's easy to pretend the former since it looks cleaner. No trees are being chopped down to make pulp. No diesel belching trucks to deliver physical goods. On the other hand, there was a time when the semiconductor industry was seen as clean since it lacked the belching smokestacks of traditional industries. (The mining of rare materials was unseen. The dumping of hazardous chemicals was unseen. Ewaste wasn't even acknowledge until the mid to late 90's.)
    - klipt 5y ago
      > It's also worth noting that consumers rarely have the data necessary to compare the environmental impact of products or services being offered. Exactly, and this is the kind of problem that's solved by taxing externalities appropriately. Then the impact shows up in the price, and the common consumer behavior of preferring cheaper products naturally leads to preferring lower environmental impact products.
    - KingOfCoders 5y ago
      Every consumer can choose a green energy provider. A minority does. Every consumer can buy a smaller car that uses half the the steel and consumes half the gas. A minority does. Every consumer can eat less meat. A minority does. Consumerism trumps everything. Consumerism is ten thousands years old when people started to produce for other - and the strongest force to predict people behaviour. Consumerism killed East Germany and it brought down the Soviet Union and it will consume capitalism.
    - 5y ago
adrianN 5y ago
No, if you do all of those you're still quite far from carbon neutral. For example I live in a small flat, I don't own a car, I only eat meat when invited somewhere, I pay for "green" electricity and I wear my clothes until they fall apart. Yet my apartment is still heated with oil, the food I buy is farmed with machines burning Diesel and the steel in my bicycle is still made with coke. The "green" electricity I buy is still mostly lignite in reality. Consumers can only slow down climate change. It is impossible for consumers to implement the systemic changes needed to reach carbon neutrality.
- KingOfCoders 5y ago
  "No, if you do all of those you're still quite far from carbon neutral." The climate crisis is not because we're not carbon neutral, but because produce so much CO2/methane/[..]. Carbon neutral is the wrong concept. Raising cows and eating them can be done carbon neutral, but converting CO2 into methane still leads to a climate crisis. Humanity hasn't been carbon neutral for at least 5000 years, not being carbon neutral is not the problem.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    No, you're wrong. Not being carbon neutral is the problem. Global warming is proportional to the amount of GHG is the atmosphere. A good fraction of the CO2 once emitted (and Methane once oxidized back to CO2) stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years and traps heat until geological processes sequester it. We probably could go back to 17-th century amounts of coal burning and still run into a climate crisis eventually. It would just take much longer than at current rates of emission.
    - KingOfCoders 5y ago
      No you are wrong, humanity hasn't been carbon neutral for 5000 years at least.
      - adrianN 5y ago
        I don't claim that humanity has been carbon neutral. I claim that we have to become carbon neutral to stop heating up the planet.
ahurmazda 5y ago
Lot of truth in there. We need to consider not only the supply-side of CO2 reduction but the demand-side of it as well[1]. The latter unfortunately gets dwarfed for various reasons. At the end of it all, we as individuals have to make tough choices in the coming decades (years in even). How much of it is forced up on us by nature vs our collective initiative remains an open question. [1]https://climate.leeds.ac.uk/news/demand-side-potential-needs-proper-attention-to-mitigate-climate-change/ https://climate.leeds.ac.uk/news/demand-side-potential-needs...

k_ 5y ago

This. I agree about the changes individuals should take (and I do it myself: almost no meat, never owned a car, only used planes a couple times when I had no choice (for work), etc. though I know there are still things I could do better), but a lot of over-consumption comes from greedy companies that force new "needs" onto consumers. Nobody needs an SUV, nobody needs a new iPhone every time a new model comes out, etc. But companies make them think they do.