4 ms·

I see this point over and over again about how carbon footprint is a scam forced on citizens by companies, and it doesn't make any sense to me. Companies are ma

I see this point over and over again about how carbon footprint is a scam forced on citizens by companies, and it doesn't make any sense to me. Companies are made of people. If people didn't use a company's products, the company wouldn't exist. Seems like the folks making this point are just more invested in avoiding collective accountability, like they want some mythical powerful government to step in and force all the companies to solve the citizens problems for them while the citizens keep consuming whatever they want. It just seems totally backwards to me.

rdm_blackhole 4y ago
I'm sorry but your are wrong on this one. The carbon footprint is a scam because it is not made to change things but simply shift the blame on citizen Lamda when in fact citizen Lambda has nothing to do with it. Its been proven time and time again that recycling as it has been sold to the world is a scam. To understand that you only need to look at the years 2019/2020 when China decided to not accept anymore plastic material for recycling. The reason is obvious, it does not work. But its not news really. Governments and companies have known for decades that we were heading down the wrong path yet chose not to act. If you want to stop climate change, there is a simple and easy solution. Ban fossil fuels. But that will send our civilization back to the dark ages. What we should have done is make a plan and start the transition early but instead as always governments have waited and waited even though countless reports warned over the years that we were making things worse. Alas, governments all around the world were just too happy to collect taxes on petrol/fuel and even encourage citizens to embrace technologies that turned out to have deadly side effects on the local population(see the Diesel scandal in France). All the while the governments have been pocketing the money in their coffers never to be seen again and the investments in renewable energy have been delayed and/or cancelled(see Germany circa 2010 in response to Fukushima) It's only in the last few months that most of Europe started waking up to the fact that burning fossil fuels was not going to be the way to go forward. Mind you, not because they all suddenly realized that we should really push renewable energy, no, it's only because the main supply of gas is about to be cut off. Yet, somehow we see governments and companies turning around and say: You need to watch your electricity usage, you need to stop using plastic wrappers, plastic straws and what not, you need to drive less. As if people have choice... But people will make due with what they have. If we don't want people to use plastic straws, then lets ban them. Alas, once again the big companies are against that. Mc Donald's famously rejected a ban on plastic straws when they could have been at the forefront of this fight and show the way, instead it chose it's bottom line. Governments could have not incentivized car usage by building better and denser neighborhoods but instead we now have urban sprawl and god help you if you live on the country side and if you don't have a car. So to sum it up I reject the fact that it is somehow my fault that climate change is happening. I reject the fact that I should try to calculate my own carbon footprint while airlines, car companies and governments just sit by and continue to spew more and more carbon in the atmosphere while I need to feel guilty because I bought some food in a plastic container. You talk about collective accountability, I am more than happy to do my part when everyone does their part including big companies and governments.
- phphphphp 4y ago
  The attitude presented here is very fatalist and not aligned with reality. The behaviours we engage in are as important for their direct outcomes as they are for their signals and influence. Recycling an individual plastic bottle may do very little to benefit the world directly by keeping that plastic out of landfill, but the influence the act of recycling has on your own behaviour and the behaviour of others can bubble up to bring about real change. Progress comes about when people push for change, when they act according to their principles and desire, when people lead the way. If you sincerely care about a cause, if something really matters to you, then you should be willing to expend some of your energy on it. You can pick any example of human progress and apply your line of thinking to it. “Why should I bother washing my hands when nobody else is?” “Why should I stop painting my house with lead when everybody else is painting their house with lead?” Collective accountability doesn’t mean everybody takes accountability, collective accountability means everyone has accountability. You choose whether or not to take accountability. You’re choosing not to, so be it, but own that decision, don’t pretend that it’s the fault of someone else.
  - rdm_blackhole 4y ago
    >> The attitude presented here is very fatalist and not aligned with reality. No offense to you but Europe is in the middle of a heat wave currently and temperature records have been broken fairly recently. So no, I am not fatalist, I am a realist. I call a spade a spade. It is not debatable that all the issues that we are having now have been known for a least a few decades. So this isn't a lack of foresight or that we were not warned. We knew and did nothing or almost nothing. >> but the influence the act of recycling has on your own behavior and the behavior of others can bubble up to bring about real change. Unless you can back up that claim, then there is nothing to say. Plastic recycling does not work because it is uneconomical. It is cheaper to produce plastic than to recycle it. Until that changes then plastic recycling is a waste of time and simply a feel good act that has been implemented to make people feel like they had an impact. >> if you sincerely care about a cause, if something really matters to you, then you should be willing to expend some of your energy on it. I care about the cause whether you think I am or not. What I don't care about is pretending to do something when we are not actually doing anything. >> You can pick any example of human progress and apply your line of thinking to it. “Why should I bother washing my hands when nobody else is?" I bother to wash my hands because it has an tangible effect on my quality of life by keeping me and my family safe from diseases. Recycling a plastic bottle or taking a shorter shower is not going to save the world when governments around the world are dragging their feet and the biggest polluters out there can pollute as much as they want without consequences. >> You’re choosing not to, so be it, but own that decision, don’t pretend that it’s the fault of someone else. Give me a cheap electric car that I can buy second hand and make it easy to charge it at night and then I'll drive an EV. Unless you live in Norway or unless you own your own home, there is no way for someone who rents to charge their car on the street if they don't have a garage. Force energy companies to sell a minimum at least 50% renewable energy and I'll be buying it. Force the city councils around the world to improve the reliability and availability of public transport even on the country side, and I'll stop using my car. This is a give and take situation. At the moment most citizens in the developed world are being hammered by inflation and a rising cost of living. Yet according to you, it seems only fair that we should shoulder most of the cost of the energy transition. I don't think that's fair. Not when the various governments around the world are still subsidizing petroleum products, not when shipping companies can use the dirtiest fuel around to power their ships. If you want people to change and people to make better decisions for the planet, people need to have options. At the moment those options are few and far between and mostly onerous. Not every one can afford a model 3!

rdm_blackhole 4y ago

I'm sorry but your are wrong on this one. The carbon footprint is a scam because it is not made to change things but simply shift the blame on citizen Lamda when in fact citizen Lambda has nothing to do with it. Its been proven time and time again that recycling as it has been sold to the world is a scam. To understand that you only need to look at the years 2019/2020 when China decided to not accept anymore plastic material for recycling. The reason is obvious, it does not work. But its not news really. Governments and companies have known for decades that we were heading down the wrong path yet chose not to act. If you want to stop climate change, there is a simple and easy solution. Ban fossil fuels. But that will send our civilization back to the dark ages. What we should have done is make a plan and start the transition early but instead as always governments have waited and waited even though countless reports warned over the years that we were making things worse. Alas, governments all around the world were just too happy to collect taxes on petrol/fuel and even encourage citizens to embrace technologies that turned out to have deadly side effects on the local population(see the Diesel scandal in France). All the while the governments have been pocketing the money in their coffers never to be seen again and the investments in renewable energy have been delayed and/or cancelled(see Germany circa 2010 in response to Fukushima) It's only in the last few months that most of Europe started waking up to the fact that burning fossil fuels was not going to be the way to go forward. Mind you, not because they all suddenly realized that we should really push renewable energy, no, it's only because the main supply of gas is about to be cut off. Yet, somehow we see governments and companies turning around and say: You need to watch your electricity usage, you need to stop using plastic wrappers, plastic straws and what not, you need to drive less. As if people have choice... But people will make due with what they have. If we don't want people to use plastic straws, then lets ban them. Alas, once again the big companies are against that. Mc Donald's famously rejected a ban on plastic straws when they could have been at the forefront of this fight and show the way, instead it chose it's bottom line. Governments could have not incentivized car usage by building better and denser neighborhoods but instead we now have urban sprawl and god help you if you live on the country side and if you don't have a car. So to sum it up I reject the fact that it is somehow my fault that climate change is happening. I reject the fact that I should try to calculate my own carbon footprint while airlines, car companies and governments just sit by and continue to spew more and more carbon in the atmosphere while I need to feel guilty because I bought some food in a plastic container. You talk about collective accountability, I am more than happy to do my part when everyone does their part including big companies and governments.

phphphphp 4y ago
The attitude presented here is very fatalist and not aligned with reality. The behaviours we engage in are as important for their direct outcomes as they are for their signals and influence. Recycling an individual plastic bottle may do very little to benefit the world directly by keeping that plastic out of landfill, but the influence the act of recycling has on your own behaviour and the behaviour of others can bubble up to bring about real change. Progress comes about when people push for change, when they act according to their principles and desire, when people lead the way. If you sincerely care about a cause, if something really matters to you, then you should be willing to expend some of your energy on it. You can pick any example of human progress and apply your line of thinking to it. “Why should I bother washing my hands when nobody else is?” “Why should I stop painting my house with lead when everybody else is painting their house with lead?” Collective accountability doesn’t mean everybody takes accountability, collective accountability means everyone has accountability. You choose whether or not to take accountability. You’re choosing not to, so be it, but own that decision, don’t pretend that it’s the fault of someone else.
- rdm_blackhole 4y ago
  >> The attitude presented here is very fatalist and not aligned with reality. No offense to you but Europe is in the middle of a heat wave currently and temperature records have been broken fairly recently. So no, I am not fatalist, I am a realist. I call a spade a spade. It is not debatable that all the issues that we are having now have been known for a least a few decades. So this isn't a lack of foresight or that we were not warned. We knew and did nothing or almost nothing. >> but the influence the act of recycling has on your own behavior and the behavior of others can bubble up to bring about real change. Unless you can back up that claim, then there is nothing to say. Plastic recycling does not work because it is uneconomical. It is cheaper to produce plastic than to recycle it. Until that changes then plastic recycling is a waste of time and simply a feel good act that has been implemented to make people feel like they had an impact. >> if you sincerely care about a cause, if something really matters to you, then you should be willing to expend some of your energy on it. I care about the cause whether you think I am or not. What I don't care about is pretending to do something when we are not actually doing anything. >> You can pick any example of human progress and apply your line of thinking to it. “Why should I bother washing my hands when nobody else is?" I bother to wash my hands because it has an tangible effect on my quality of life by keeping me and my family safe from diseases. Recycling a plastic bottle or taking a shorter shower is not going to save the world when governments around the world are dragging their feet and the biggest polluters out there can pollute as much as they want without consequences. >> You’re choosing not to, so be it, but own that decision, don’t pretend that it’s the fault of someone else. Give me a cheap electric car that I can buy second hand and make it easy to charge it at night and then I'll drive an EV. Unless you live in Norway or unless you own your own home, there is no way for someone who rents to charge their car on the street if they don't have a garage. Force energy companies to sell a minimum at least 50% renewable energy and I'll be buying it. Force the city councils around the world to improve the reliability and availability of public transport even on the country side, and I'll stop using my car. This is a give and take situation. At the moment most citizens in the developed world are being hammered by inflation and a rising cost of living. Yet according to you, it seems only fair that we should shoulder most of the cost of the energy transition. I don't think that's fair. Not when the various governments around the world are still subsidizing petroleum products, not when shipping companies can use the dirtiest fuel around to power their ships. If you want people to change and people to make better decisions for the planet, people need to have options. At the moment those options are few and far between and mostly onerous. Not every one can afford a model 3!