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> each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. I have to disagree here. This idea of a consumer-level pers

> each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. I have to disagree here. This idea of a consumer-level personal responsibility for the fossil energy industry's externalized costs is a lot like the plastic producers shifting blame for waste by saying that it's the consumers' fault for not recycling. It's transparent blame-shifting. The fossil energy industry pulls the carbon out of the ground and distributes it globally. Then it buys and sells politicians and, through mass media, votes, to ensure they maintain the industry's hegemony. You only have to look at the full-blown slide of the US into a despotic petrostate to understand the causes of the climate crisis.

deleted 8mo ago
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SJC_Hacker 8mo ago
Its a case of prisoner's dilemma. Individuals making the proposed lifestyle changes in order to make a genuine dent in AGW amount to jumping on the tracks in order to stop a freight train. This is the one issue where I feel some sympathy with the right. I hate "Virtue signaling" about as much as they do. I'm sorry, but if you are going to snap at people over eating beef, while you fly/drive all over the country/world unnecessarily, you are absolute full of shyte.
- iinnPP 8mo ago
  Don't forget buying mountains worth of crap that gets used for a month or less and trashed.
  - brightball 8mo ago
    Right to Repair and some type of incentives that actually rewarded it would probably do more globally than most other consumer level solutions.
  - wilgertvelinga 8mo ago
    Spot on! It's probably the stuff you buy that has the biggest impact on the planet. Fill in this test to find out for yourself: https://myhiddenimpact.com/en/ https://myhiddenimpact.com/en/
- Simbio 8mo ago
  Prisoner's dilemma is a bad reference here. Prisoner's dilemma is about situation when optimal outcome requires cooperation from all participants. In the situation with climate change, personal decisions of 99% of Earth population do not really matter.
  - Mordisquitos 8mo ago
    You are correct that this is not a prisoner's dilemma, it is a tragedy of the commons[0]. However, if a wizard could magically control the "personal decisions of 99% of Earth population" and make them optimal for reducing CO2 emissions then, believe me, climate change could be trivially solved. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
  - smadge 8mo ago
    It is a classic cooperation problem. Perhaps not prisoners dilemma. Perhaps not at individual scale. Probably tragedy of the commons. Cooperation is not consuming fossil fuels. Defection is consuming fossil fuels. If you cooperate and other defects you suffer climate impact and expensive energy (expensive everything, worse economic growth than others). If you defect and other cooperates you suffer climate impact but at least you get cheap energy (cheap everything, more economic growth than others). People, nations, corporations, etc don’t stop using fossil fuels because they incur a penalty against their competitors if they volunteer to and their competitors don’t.
    - AnthonyMouse 8mo ago
      The assumption here is that fossil fuels are actually cheaper. But an electric car pays back the higher upfront cost in fuel savings in significantly fewer miles than most cars will have put on them. Solar generates power at a lower cost per kWh than coal. The fossil fuel industry has to be actively sustained through subsidies and government regulation hostile to alternatives. Maybe that wasn't true 50 years ago before the alternatives got viable and cheap, but if it's not true now then why did we stop subsidizing electric cars while we still subsidize oil companies?
  - 8mo ago
- bwestergard 8mo ago
  I am not a vegan. My social world in D.C./NYC has many secular, left-wing, vegans. Many of them are friends or loved ones. They demonstrably speak their mind in front of me on countless issues on which we disagree. I have dined with them countless times at restaurants where they order vegan and I don't. I have never once been "snapped at" about my dietary decisions. Some of these people have dedicated years of their life to non-human animal rights activism. So I am very skeptical that this shaming occurs at any appreciable scale. I suspect it is mostly psychological projection: one doubts the morality of one's decisions, judges oneself harshly, but experiences this as the judgement of others.
  - jounker 8mo ago
    Thank you for articulating this so succinctly.
Gud 8mo ago
There is nothing g to “disagree” about. Of course systemic changes are required. But if the individual improve their actions it will have a meaningful impact too
- pousada 8mo ago
  Without systemic change the impact of individuals wont be meaningful. Maybe on a spiritual level but they won’t contribute meaningfully to the climate change (or non-change)
- ggggffggggg 8mo ago
  It won’t and believing it will is part of ensuring nothing changes. All energy you spend on personally changing should be instead spent lobbying, organizing, and otherwise working politically to effect systemic change. There is no value in individual change. It’s worse than doing nothing.
rapnie 8mo ago
It is still everyone's responsibility, just not to equal extent. That petrolstate also rose to power through democratic elections.
- dylan604 8mo ago
  Mainly because petrolstate's money was considered free speech and allowed to speak louder than citizens when it comes to influencing representatives.
- triceratops 8mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_denial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_deni... it also influenced those elections.
Synaesthesia 8mo ago
Americans use a lot of power. Buying big houses means they have higher heating and cooling costs. All this makes a big difference.
WhompingWindows 8mo ago
If everyone chose to eat veggie burgers and seitan steaks instead of using beef, the climate's trajectory would immediately improve. For all the responsibility of industry, many individual world citizens could, and many have, changed their lifestyle due to the moral issue of climate-changing emissions.
rtpg 8mo ago
While arguments can be made at the futility of individual action against a system action, it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash. There are consumers of what is being produced! Society’s choices and lifestyles are the cause of fossil fuel consumption, at a very high level. The plastic bag exists because it has users. There are quantitative arguments against many silly consumer-focused initiatives. In aggregate tho companies aren’t burning fossil fuels for fun. Burning fossil fuels costs money, and a lot of people would rather not spend that money!!
- delusional 8mo ago
  This presupposes that consumers have infinite capacity to ingest the minute details of every single product they come into contact with. Yes, the plastic bag has users. Do you really expect every single shopper to investigate how the bag at <grocery co> was made and if the plastic is recycled? What if they also have to do the same for every single thing they interact with every single day? It's much easier to ask the people that work with the minutia of plastic bags every day, namely the people who make them, to maybe fix this problem.
- timschmidt 8mo ago
  > it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash Sure they do. You even mention one in the venerable plastic bag. Is it the best bag? No, of course not. Is it a good bag? Absolutely not. Is it the cheapest bag to produce? You betcha. Consumers are often presented the least expensive option with the worst outcomes. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
  - filoeleven 8mo ago
    I remember when that switch at grocers from paper to plastic was taking hold, and you could choose. "Paper or plastic?" was the question asked. Some comedian (probably) had a good one liner: "That'll be 42.39. Kill a tree or choke a fish?"
    - 8mo ago
Mordisquitos 8mo ago
I agree with you that consumer-level personal responsibility is absolutely not the way to go. To a certain extent I try to non-dogmatically "do the right thing", but I know it's simply a cute hobby. The only solution is systemic. The incentives need to be in order for businesses and consumers to do the right thing not because it is the right thing, but because it's cheaper or more convenient. That can only be implemented via legislation and investment of public resources, hence from the political level. And what determines whether the politicians in charge are ones who will implement the changes needed to mitigate the problem, rather than ones who will keep alive the system which is intensifying it? Well, we're back to square one: each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions.
- quantified 8mo ago
  Moving from fossil is less convenient, not more. So, we're stuck.
  - goatlover 8mo ago
    For how long though? Solar and wind are very competitive now, electric cars have been good enough to transition to for over a decade, other industries can be decarbonized with the right incentives and enough investment. It's not like there aren't any ideas for how to farm or produce steel cleanly. And nuclear reactors can be made safer and cheaper now. Seems more like a lack of political will with powerful lobbying interests opposing it and misleading the public. Fossil fuel companies could have listened to their scientists in the 1970s and changed their business models for a transition to cleaner tech a lot sooner.
    - short_sells_poo 8mo ago
      For a long time to come. The energy density of fossil fuels is very high (about 50x higher than that of lithium ion batteries), there's a ton of infrastructure for handling and transporting them and a ton of infrastructure for using them. They get turned into plastics and energy, two things which civilization feeds on voraciously. It's not just inertia that keeps them going.
femto 8mo ago
Andrew Forrest, a well connected billionaire, puts the blame on a group of 1000 "captains of industry". https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/inside-andrew-twiggy-forrest-s-urgent-global-climate-campaign-20231026-p5efbc.html https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/inside-and...
quantified 8mo ago
If you drive a fossil fuel vehicle, you have chosen to buy into this. If you drive it 3 blocks when you could walk, you've chosen to go the way the fuel company wants you to. That's you. Plastic is a bit different, you didn't choose the packaging. And you probably don't have the option to recycle anyway. Putting in a special bin doesn't change the fact that it's probably going to a landfill anyway. Some of it's consumer level. Do what you can. Don't whatabout it.
- throw310822 8mo ago
  Plastic is a fantastic material, that's why it's chosen for the packaging. I also don't see the problem sending it to a landfill as long as it stays there.
j2kun 8mo ago
> consumer-level personal responsibility Indeed, the biggest personal responsibility is to make this a top political priority when deciding who to elect. Nothing will change until we consistenly fire leaders who refuse to act decisively on this.
DonnyV 8mo ago
The 2 biggest contributors to climate change are ... - US Military - Cargo Ships You fix those 2 things and like 60% of pollution goes away.
- iamnothere 8mo ago
  It’s funny that this is always ignored or downvoted when consumers are a relatively small part of the problem. Surely shaming people harder will fix the problem, this time.
- jhgb 8mo ago
  Merchant shipping contributes around 3% to CO₂ emissions. That is smaller than, e.g., electricity and heat generation, road transportation, manufacturing, construction, and agriculture.
vaylian 8mo ago
Hank Green did a good short video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvAznN_MPWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvAznN_MPWQ TL;DW: It is important that individuals show that there is a real problem and that they perform actions that address the problem. This demonstrative behaviour leads to social dynamics where more people feel encouraged to perform actions and to drive larger change. You need to start somewhere.
- XorNot 8mo ago
  While true we did that years ago and the other side is simply ignoring it. Worse, the people we sold the idea too are stuck on it: they're convinced the solution must and totally be the performance, not the result.
- CobrastanJorji 8mo ago
  That puts recycling on the "I'm helping to spread awareness by temporarily adding a note to my Twitter bio" tier of action. It's better than nothing, but it's only a little better.
  - Zambyte 8mo ago
    Doing a little better than nothing becomes a big deal when everyone is doing it.
    - lumost 8mo ago
      Does it really? Or does it become a panacea to make people feel like they’ve done something when they haven’t? Perhaps if these non-solutions didn’t exist to appease our fears then there would be more pressure for real solutions.
    - dwb 8mo ago
      It becomes moderately better than nothing when “everyone” (not even close to everyone) does it. And there are some decisions (taking fewer/no flights, no fossil-fueled car, etc) that are a lot more effective than others. Personally I try to do my best! But in general, individual actions are dwarfed by systems bigger than them. Even being able to shun cars is only feasible if you live in a city with good public transport, for instance.
throw310822 8mo ago
I never understood this. The companies sold you fossil fuel, you burnt it and got benefits out of it: transportation, energy, heating, constructions, fertilizers and food, etc. You want them to pay for the negative consequences of your fossil fuel consumption while you keep all the generated benefits?
- aaronbrethorst 8mo ago
  Neat, I’ve never seen a fossil fuel company exec on hacker news before. Welcome!
  - aoeusnth1 8mo ago
    I'm an environmentalist and I agree with this framing. The solution is going to be painful and must increase prices on products and services that fossil fuels are currently the cheapest solution for. If you're not willing to personally sacrifice anything to reduce fossil fuel consumption you can see why carbon taxes are not popular, right? France's protests against them, for example, are a good example of a populist reaction against attempts to regulate the economy to have less emissions.
- thesuitonym 8mo ago
  The amount of fossil fuels that a working class individual burns are a rounding error compared to what big companies burn. How many private jets are in the air right now? Even if you drive the most energy inefficient truck ever produced, run your home HVAC at max, and buy gasoline just to burn in your back yard, you will never measure up. It's like saying we need to dry the oceans, so you should stop peeing in it.
  - throw310822 8mo ago
    > if you drive the most energy inefficient truck ever produced Sorry, but how was that truck produced? Where did the energy to make it come from? How was your home built, where did the energy come from? Where did the materials come from? How did the workers come to the job? What did they eat, and what do you eat? Do you go to an office? How was it built? How do you and your colleagues get there? Do your children go to school? Do you go to hospitals when you're sick? Etc.
EGreg 8mo ago
It’s actually a lot more systematic than you think: https://magarshak.com/blog/government-and-industry-distract-us-from-solving-systemic-problems/ https://magarshak.com/blog/government-and-industry-distract-...
marginalia_nu 8mo ago
Problem is that we if we all stand in a circle and point fingers at the next guy who is to blame, that doesn't really move us toward any sort of solutions. In fact the reason it's so easy to find others to blame is that the responsibility is a shared one. Holding consumers responsible doesn't absolve producers, or governments for their participation. All have to be held responsible for their actions. That's the only way forward.
- dylan604 8mo ago
  > Problem is that we if we all stand in a circle and point fingers at the next guy who is to blame, that doesn't really move us toward any sort of solutions. Because of the power of lobbyists and their war chests full of cash, even if we made that circle surrounding our congress critter so everyone was pointing at them, we'd still have no effect. Our shame circle would only be uncomfortable for a short time which would quickly be assuaged by the soothing feeling of another large donation from a lobbyist.
beloch 8mo ago
Corporations do whatever is in their financial interest, provided it is legal. They're neither good or evil. (If they were DnD characters their alignment would be "lawful greedy".) What is legal is determined by governments, who are elected by individuals like you. This is why people need to be reminded of the impact and causes of climate change. You can't just say, "Oil corporations are evil" and absolve yourself of responsibility. That's how nothing gets done. Corporations are not going to stop being "evil" of their own accord. They're going to obey the laws and regulations set forth by the governments they operate under. Americans elected a president who openly campaigned on bringing back coal and said, "Drill baby drill!". Oil executives made campaign donations but, ultimately, this is the fault of Americans. They're not educated enough and they tolerate too much money in their politics. Scapegoating oil companies does nothing to solve these problems.
tech_ken 8mo ago
I hear what you're saying but also have lately felt a lot of frustration with this framing. I definitely agree that large corporations share an outsized portion of the blame; they have misled and misdirected us past the brink of crisis in pursuit of profit. And as you point out, one of the special cruelties of their system is that it prearranges individual consumer options so that we have the illusion of choice, but ultimately wind up complicit no matter what we choose. Thus its incumbent on us (collectively) to make a decision that's not on the menu we've been handed. But (critically) its still going to be individuals making that choice. It's not enough to merely topple Big Oil at a social scale, we will also have to give up our F-450s and sprawling SFH tracts with four car garages. It's not necessarily fair, and it's not necessarily our fault, but it's still our responsibility (because it's ultimately our future that's at risk).
xnx 8mo ago
I have to disagree here. Companies would stop doing anything in the face of a unified boycott. We love to blame companies, private equity, capitalism, government, anyone really. It's us. They lie to us because we want to be lied to.
leptons 8mo ago
I gave up driving in the 1990s because I knew back then the situation was untenable for the climate. I chose to try to live a life that contributes less to the destruction of life as we know it. Life without a car has brought sacrifice, but I'm glad I did it. No, my single sacrifice won't save the planet, because far too many people are addicted to cheap energy, and free movement. Blaming the oil industry is like blaming the cows because you ate too much cheese. Now there are electric cars, but unless you are charging it up every day from solar/battery (along with your house), then you're still only helping a little. Suppose the fossil fuel lobby disappeared tomorrow, along with government subsidies and any hegemony you think exists - people are still going to be addicted to cheap energy. Only when the forms of energy they currently rely on really starts costing what it would cost to save the planet from climate change will you and others realize that every decision has a consequence. You want to drive 2+ hours in traffic every day? That has a real cost for the environment to do it with fossil fuel. Maybe try changing your life so that you don't spend 2+ hours every day driving around in traffic. That's what I did, I got a job locally, got rid of my car, and started riding my bike everywhere. If it was far, I planned ahead take the bus/train. I do this in Los Angeles, since the 1990s - not exactly a bike-centric place to live, but it is entirely possible to do. Of course it's more difficult to do this in rural areas, but maybe that should be the exception.
cassepipe 8mo ago
Most people would agree that drug dealers hold more moral responsibility for delivering a product that they know is highly addictive but on the other hand no one would absolve an addict of any responsibility. Even you think addiction is a illness, we still expect people to help themselves by deciding to get help/seek treatment to fight the addiction.
- dangus 8mo ago
  This sounds sensible in isolation, but the real analogy is that the drug dealers have spent billions of dollars convincing the general public that drugs are healthy and better than the alternative of sobriety. And also, when I go to the store to buy my daily needs like food and soap, they’re all packaged in the drugs. Oh and I have to consume the drugs to get to the store because there’s no safe way to get there on foot or on a bike, and there’s no bus or train service because someone at GM/Ford paid my representatives to not fund that. Then when I take my used drugs to the drug recycling center, they don’t actually get recycled because it isn’t profitable. But my recycling agency tells me that all my drugs get reused. Seriously, just watch a paper towel ad or something. They act like it’s impossible to clean up a spill with something reusable.
  - cassepipe 8mo ago
    Enjoyed reading your comment but the fact that it's more environmental than it is biological (is it though ? Isn't comfort appreciation biological too ?) doesn't change the moral calculation of my analogy which imho still holds: Quitting drugs is hard but it needs the addict's involvement
conductr 8mo ago
It’s government’s fault for not regulating it properly. You can’t give individuals choice and then blame them. Just like you can’t give industry the ability to mass produce these things that are so inherently bad for current but especially future humans. Only governments are responsible for playing that kind of long game.
- mmooss 8mo ago
  > It’s government’s fault for not regulating it properly. Who is government responsible to and responsive to? Individuals. > You can’t give individuals choice and then blame them. That is exactly how the world and responsibility works. You have the choice to do right or wrong, and are responsible for the consequences - in Abrahamic religions, it goes back to Eden. You personally have endless choices every day where you can do wrong with no penalty to you. Unless you are sociopathic, you generally do the right thing.
  - conductr 8mo ago
    This was a tailored response to this context. You trying to apply it generally is quite ridiculous. Governments exist so that individuals can function as a society. Your point is circular (Government<->Individual). Governments are responsible to a collection of individuals, a society. We enable our governments to oversee safety of toys, vehicles, toxic materials, etc. because it is quite inconvenient to make those evaluations at a individual level on a daily basis. We are also human who have short-term value systems, governments are supposed to force us to act with a longer-term outlook. Eg. caring about the next generation.
mmooss 8mo ago
It's another claim of powerlessness, which is exactly what the 'fossil energy industry' wants people to say - it's demoralizing, paralyzing, and like any disinformation it's a distraction from actually doing something; now we're debating this stuff instead of doing something. So is the victim debate - who is at fault, assessing blame, etc. Nobody, as a single human being, can accomplish much in any field. Every significant thing humanity does happens in large groups. The good news is, we are hardwired to work in groups - you see it all over, all the time. People naturally organize and work together; think of FOSS projects, for example. And that is what democracy is, and democracy is the most dynamic, effective, changeable method of government in human history. Let's stop wasting time debating it and get to work. A simple thing to do is to reduce personal climate output. Again, you can't have much effect alone, but humans act together, and we all can do our part. That's why there isn't trash covering the streets - one person can't prevent that, but everyone is putting their garbage in the bin. I am responsible for the consequences of my actions and words, and for my community - we all are, of course. The victim / blame perspective is the opposite of that - victimhood is a justification / rationalization for a lack of responsibility, for inaction. As anyone with experience of decent management knows, that is the last thing you do. The problem needs to be solved.
myrmidon 8mo ago
Every industry ever is going to externalize all the costs you allow it to externalize. The individual responsibility is to vote for representatives that prevent such externalization through regulation, and to stand behind such regulation even if it is slightly inconvenient (plastic drinking straws) or somewhat costly (gas, flights). The biggest problem is that a significant part of the global population is not willing to make even the smallest sacrifice in lifestyle towards such a goal (=> this is often difficult to see if you are in a more left/green bubble, but i absolutely true of the average citizen). We, as voters, have expressed so little care for climate and environment sustainability that politicians don't even bother catering towards that niche any more. In the US there was an super obvious choice 25 years ago in the US between genuine, ambitious sustainability and some generic politician not even half as competent as his father, and we all saw the outcome; politicians since barely even bother pretending to be concerned about climate sustainability because voters just don't care.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

SJC_Hacker 8mo ago

Its a case of prisoner's dilemma. Individuals making the proposed lifestyle changes in order to make a genuine dent in AGW amount to jumping on the tracks in order to stop a freight train. This is the one issue where I feel some sympathy with the right. I hate "Virtue signaling" about as much as they do. I'm sorry, but if you are going to snap at people over eating beef, while you fly/drive all over the country/world unnecessarily, you are absolute full of shyte.

iinnPP 8mo ago
Don't forget buying mountains worth of crap that gets used for a month or less and trashed.
- brightball 8mo ago
  Right to Repair and some type of incentives that actually rewarded it would probably do more globally than most other consumer level solutions.
- wilgertvelinga 8mo ago
  Spot on! It's probably the stuff you buy that has the biggest impact on the planet. Fill in this test to find out for yourself: https://myhiddenimpact.com/en/ https://myhiddenimpact.com/en/
Simbio 8mo ago
Prisoner's dilemma is a bad reference here. Prisoner's dilemma is about situation when optimal outcome requires cooperation from all participants. In the situation with climate change, personal decisions of 99% of Earth population do not really matter.
- Mordisquitos 8mo ago
  You are correct that this is not a prisoner's dilemma, it is a tragedy of the commons[0]. However, if a wizard could magically control the "personal decisions of 99% of Earth population" and make them optimal for reducing CO2 emissions then, believe me, climate change could be trivially solved. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
- smadge 8mo ago
  It is a classic cooperation problem. Perhaps not prisoners dilemma. Perhaps not at individual scale. Probably tragedy of the commons. Cooperation is not consuming fossil fuels. Defection is consuming fossil fuels. If you cooperate and other defects you suffer climate impact and expensive energy (expensive everything, worse economic growth than others). If you defect and other cooperates you suffer climate impact but at least you get cheap energy (cheap everything, more economic growth than others). People, nations, corporations, etc don’t stop using fossil fuels because they incur a penalty against their competitors if they volunteer to and their competitors don’t.
  - AnthonyMouse 8mo ago
    The assumption here is that fossil fuels are actually cheaper. But an electric car pays back the higher upfront cost in fuel savings in significantly fewer miles than most cars will have put on them. Solar generates power at a lower cost per kWh than coal. The fossil fuel industry has to be actively sustained through subsidies and government regulation hostile to alternatives. Maybe that wasn't true 50 years ago before the alternatives got viable and cheap, but if it's not true now then why did we stop subsidizing electric cars while we still subsidize oil companies?
- 8mo ago
bwestergard 8mo ago
I am not a vegan. My social world in D.C./NYC has many secular, left-wing, vegans. Many of them are friends or loved ones. They demonstrably speak their mind in front of me on countless issues on which we disagree. I have dined with them countless times at restaurants where they order vegan and I don't. I have never once been "snapped at" about my dietary decisions. Some of these people have dedicated years of their life to non-human animal rights activism. So I am very skeptical that this shaming occurs at any appreciable scale. I suspect it is mostly psychological projection: one doubts the morality of one's decisions, judges oneself harshly, but experiences this as the judgement of others.
- jounker 8mo ago
  Thank you for articulating this so succinctly.

Gud 8mo ago

There is nothing g to “disagree” about. Of course systemic changes are required. But if the individual improve their actions it will have a meaningful impact too

pousada 8mo ago
Without systemic change the impact of individuals wont be meaningful. Maybe on a spiritual level but they won’t contribute meaningfully to the climate change (or non-change)
ggggffggggg 8mo ago
It won’t and believing it will is part of ensuring nothing changes. All energy you spend on personally changing should be instead spent lobbying, organizing, and otherwise working politically to effect systemic change. There is no value in individual change. It’s worse than doing nothing.

rapnie 8mo ago

It is still everyone's responsibility, just not to equal extent. That petrolstate also rose to power through democratic elections.

dylan604 8mo ago
Mainly because petrolstate's money was considered free speech and allowed to speak louder than citizens when it comes to influencing representatives.
triceratops 8mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_denial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_deni... it also influenced those elections.

Synaesthesia 8mo ago

Americans use a lot of power. Buying big houses means they have higher heating and cooling costs. All this makes a big difference.

WhompingWindows 8mo ago

If everyone chose to eat veggie burgers and seitan steaks instead of using beef, the climate's trajectory would immediately improve. For all the responsibility of industry, many individual world citizens could, and many have, changed their lifestyle due to the moral issue of climate-changing emissions.

rtpg 8mo ago

While arguments can be made at the futility of individual action against a system action, it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash. There are consumers of what is being produced! Society’s choices and lifestyles are the cause of fossil fuel consumption, at a very high level. The plastic bag exists because it has users. There are quantitative arguments against many silly consumer-focused initiatives. In aggregate tho companies aren’t burning fossil fuels for fun. Burning fossil fuels costs money, and a lot of people would rather not spend that money!!

delusional 8mo ago
This presupposes that consumers have infinite capacity to ingest the minute details of every single product they come into contact with. Yes, the plastic bag has users. Do you really expect every single shopper to investigate how the bag at <grocery co> was made and if the plastic is recycled? What if they also have to do the same for every single thing they interact with every single day? It's much easier to ask the people that work with the minutia of plastic bags every day, namely the people who make them, to maybe fix this problem.
timschmidt 8mo ago
> it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash Sure they do. You even mention one in the venerable plastic bag. Is it the best bag? No, of course not. Is it a good bag? Absolutely not. Is it the cheapest bag to produce? You betcha. Consumers are often presented the least expensive option with the worst outcomes. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
- filoeleven 8mo ago
  I remember when that switch at grocers from paper to plastic was taking hold, and you could choose. "Paper or plastic?" was the question asked. Some comedian (probably) had a good one liner: "That'll be 42.39. Kill a tree or choke a fish?"
  - 8mo ago

Mordisquitos 8mo ago

I agree with you that consumer-level personal responsibility is absolutely not the way to go. To a certain extent I try to non-dogmatically "do the right thing", but I know it's simply a cute hobby. The only solution is systemic. The incentives need to be in order for businesses and consumers to do the right thing not because it is the right thing, but because it's cheaper or more convenient. That can only be implemented via legislation and investment of public resources, hence from the political level. And what determines whether the politicians in charge are ones who will implement the changes needed to mitigate the problem, rather than ones who will keep alive the system which is intensifying it? Well, we're back to square one: each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions.

quantified 8mo ago
Moving from fossil is less convenient, not more. So, we're stuck.
- goatlover 8mo ago
  For how long though? Solar and wind are very competitive now, electric cars have been good enough to transition to for over a decade, other industries can be decarbonized with the right incentives and enough investment. It's not like there aren't any ideas for how to farm or produce steel cleanly. And nuclear reactors can be made safer and cheaper now. Seems more like a lack of political will with powerful lobbying interests opposing it and misleading the public. Fossil fuel companies could have listened to their scientists in the 1970s and changed their business models for a transition to cleaner tech a lot sooner.
  - short_sells_poo 8mo ago
    For a long time to come. The energy density of fossil fuels is very high (about 50x higher than that of lithium ion batteries), there's a ton of infrastructure for handling and transporting them and a ton of infrastructure for using them. They get turned into plastics and energy, two things which civilization feeds on voraciously. It's not just inertia that keeps them going.

femto 8mo ago

Andrew Forrest, a well connected billionaire, puts the blame on a group of 1000 "captains of industry". https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/inside-andrew-twiggy-forrest-s-urgent-global-climate-campaign-20231026-p5efbc.html https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/inside-and...

quantified 8mo ago

If you drive a fossil fuel vehicle, you have chosen to buy into this. If you drive it 3 blocks when you could walk, you've chosen to go the way the fuel company wants you to. That's you. Plastic is a bit different, you didn't choose the packaging. And you probably don't have the option to recycle anyway. Putting in a special bin doesn't change the fact that it's probably going to a landfill anyway. Some of it's consumer level. Do what you can. Don't whatabout it.

throw310822 8mo ago
Plastic is a fantastic material, that's why it's chosen for the packaging. I also don't see the problem sending it to a landfill as long as it stays there.

j2kun 8mo ago

> consumer-level personal responsibility Indeed, the biggest personal responsibility is to make this a top political priority when deciding who to elect. Nothing will change until we consistenly fire leaders who refuse to act decisively on this.

DonnyV 8mo ago

The 2 biggest contributors to climate change are ... - US Military - Cargo Ships You fix those 2 things and like 60% of pollution goes away.

iamnothere 8mo ago
It’s funny that this is always ignored or downvoted when consumers are a relatively small part of the problem. Surely shaming people harder will fix the problem, this time.
jhgb 8mo ago
Merchant shipping contributes around 3% to CO₂ emissions. That is smaller than, e.g., electricity and heat generation, road transportation, manufacturing, construction, and agriculture.

vaylian 8mo ago

Hank Green did a good short video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvAznN_MPWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvAznN_MPWQ TL;DW: It is important that individuals show that there is a real problem and that they perform actions that address the problem. This demonstrative behaviour leads to social dynamics where more people feel encouraged to perform actions and to drive larger change. You need to start somewhere.

XorNot 8mo ago
While true we did that years ago and the other side is simply ignoring it. Worse, the people we sold the idea too are stuck on it: they're convinced the solution must and totally be the performance, not the result.
CobrastanJorji 8mo ago
That puts recycling on the "I'm helping to spread awareness by temporarily adding a note to my Twitter bio" tier of action. It's better than nothing, but it's only a little better.
- Zambyte 8mo ago
  Doing a little better than nothing becomes a big deal when everyone is doing it.
  - lumost 8mo ago
    Does it really? Or does it become a panacea to make people feel like they’ve done something when they haven’t? Perhaps if these non-solutions didn’t exist to appease our fears then there would be more pressure for real solutions.
  - dwb 8mo ago
    It becomes moderately better than nothing when “everyone” (not even close to everyone) does it. And there are some decisions (taking fewer/no flights, no fossil-fueled car, etc) that are a lot more effective than others. Personally I try to do my best! But in general, individual actions are dwarfed by systems bigger than them. Even being able to shun cars is only feasible if you live in a city with good public transport, for instance.

throw310822 8mo ago

I never understood this. The companies sold you fossil fuel, you burnt it and got benefits out of it: transportation, energy, heating, constructions, fertilizers and food, etc. You want them to pay for the negative consequences of your fossil fuel consumption while you keep all the generated benefits?

aaronbrethorst 8mo ago
Neat, I’ve never seen a fossil fuel company exec on hacker news before. Welcome!
- aoeusnth1 8mo ago
  I'm an environmentalist and I agree with this framing. The solution is going to be painful and must increase prices on products and services that fossil fuels are currently the cheapest solution for. If you're not willing to personally sacrifice anything to reduce fossil fuel consumption you can see why carbon taxes are not popular, right? France's protests against them, for example, are a good example of a populist reaction against attempts to regulate the economy to have less emissions.
thesuitonym 8mo ago
The amount of fossil fuels that a working class individual burns are a rounding error compared to what big companies burn. How many private jets are in the air right now? Even if you drive the most energy inefficient truck ever produced, run your home HVAC at max, and buy gasoline just to burn in your back yard, you will never measure up. It's like saying we need to dry the oceans, so you should stop peeing in it.
- throw310822 8mo ago
  > if you drive the most energy inefficient truck ever produced Sorry, but how was that truck produced? Where did the energy to make it come from? How was your home built, where did the energy come from? Where did the materials come from? How did the workers come to the job? What did they eat, and what do you eat? Do you go to an office? How was it built? How do you and your colleagues get there? Do your children go to school? Do you go to hospitals when you're sick? Etc.

EGreg 8mo ago

It’s actually a lot more systematic than you think: https://magarshak.com/blog/government-and-industry-distract-us-from-solving-systemic-problems/ https://magarshak.com/blog/government-and-industry-distract-...

marginalia_nu 8mo ago

Problem is that we if we all stand in a circle and point fingers at the next guy who is to blame, that doesn't really move us toward any sort of solutions. In fact the reason it's so easy to find others to blame is that the responsibility is a shared one. Holding consumers responsible doesn't absolve producers, or governments for their participation. All have to be held responsible for their actions. That's the only way forward.

dylan604 8mo ago
> Problem is that we if we all stand in a circle and point fingers at the next guy who is to blame, that doesn't really move us toward any sort of solutions. Because of the power of lobbyists and their war chests full of cash, even if we made that circle surrounding our congress critter so everyone was pointing at them, we'd still have no effect. Our shame circle would only be uncomfortable for a short time which would quickly be assuaged by the soothing feeling of another large donation from a lobbyist.

beloch 8mo ago

Corporations do whatever is in their financial interest, provided it is legal. They're neither good or evil. (If they were DnD characters their alignment would be "lawful greedy".) What is legal is determined by governments, who are elected by individuals like you. This is why people need to be reminded of the impact and causes of climate change. You can't just say, "Oil corporations are evil" and absolve yourself of responsibility. That's how nothing gets done. Corporations are not going to stop being "evil" of their own accord. They're going to obey the laws and regulations set forth by the governments they operate under. Americans elected a president who openly campaigned on bringing back coal and said, "Drill baby drill!". Oil executives made campaign donations but, ultimately, this is the fault of Americans. They're not educated enough and they tolerate too much money in their politics. Scapegoating oil companies does nothing to solve these problems.

tech_ken 8mo ago

I hear what you're saying but also have lately felt a lot of frustration with this framing. I definitely agree that large corporations share an outsized portion of the blame; they have misled and misdirected us past the brink of crisis in pursuit of profit. And as you point out, one of the special cruelties of their system is that it prearranges individual consumer options so that we have the illusion of choice, but ultimately wind up complicit no matter what we choose. Thus its incumbent on us (collectively) to make a decision that's not on the menu we've been handed. But (critically) its still going to be individuals making that choice. It's not enough to merely topple Big Oil at a social scale, we will also have to give up our F-450s and sprawling SFH tracts with four car garages. It's not necessarily fair, and it's not necessarily our fault, but it's still our responsibility (because it's ultimately our future that's at risk).

xnx 8mo ago

I have to disagree here. Companies would stop doing anything in the face of a unified boycott. We love to blame companies, private equity, capitalism, government, anyone really. It's us. They lie to us because we want to be lied to.

leptons 8mo ago

I gave up driving in the 1990s because I knew back then the situation was untenable for the climate. I chose to try to live a life that contributes less to the destruction of life as we know it. Life without a car has brought sacrifice, but I'm glad I did it. No, my single sacrifice won't save the planet, because far too many people are addicted to cheap energy, and free movement. Blaming the oil industry is like blaming the cows because you ate too much cheese. Now there are electric cars, but unless you are charging it up every day from solar/battery (along with your house), then you're still only helping a little. Suppose the fossil fuel lobby disappeared tomorrow, along with government subsidies and any hegemony you think exists - people are still going to be addicted to cheap energy. Only when the forms of energy they currently rely on really starts costing what it would cost to save the planet from climate change will you and others realize that every decision has a consequence. You want to drive 2+ hours in traffic every day? That has a real cost for the environment to do it with fossil fuel. Maybe try changing your life so that you don't spend 2+ hours every day driving around in traffic. That's what I did, I got a job locally, got rid of my car, and started riding my bike everywhere. If it was far, I planned ahead take the bus/train. I do this in Los Angeles, since the 1990s - not exactly a bike-centric place to live, but it is entirely possible to do. Of course it's more difficult to do this in rural areas, but maybe that should be the exception.

cassepipe 8mo ago

Most people would agree that drug dealers hold more moral responsibility for delivering a product that they know is highly addictive but on the other hand no one would absolve an addict of any responsibility. Even you think addiction is a illness, we still expect people to help themselves by deciding to get help/seek treatment to fight the addiction.

dangus 8mo ago
This sounds sensible in isolation, but the real analogy is that the drug dealers have spent billions of dollars convincing the general public that drugs are healthy and better than the alternative of sobriety. And also, when I go to the store to buy my daily needs like food and soap, they’re all packaged in the drugs. Oh and I have to consume the drugs to get to the store because there’s no safe way to get there on foot or on a bike, and there’s no bus or train service because someone at GM/Ford paid my representatives to not fund that. Then when I take my used drugs to the drug recycling center, they don’t actually get recycled because it isn’t profitable. But my recycling agency tells me that all my drugs get reused. Seriously, just watch a paper towel ad or something. They act like it’s impossible to clean up a spill with something reusable.
- cassepipe 8mo ago
  Enjoyed reading your comment but the fact that it's more environmental than it is biological (is it though ? Isn't comfort appreciation biological too ?) doesn't change the moral calculation of my analogy which imho still holds: Quitting drugs is hard but it needs the addict's involvement

conductr 8mo ago

It’s government’s fault for not regulating it properly. You can’t give individuals choice and then blame them. Just like you can’t give industry the ability to mass produce these things that are so inherently bad for current but especially future humans. Only governments are responsible for playing that kind of long game.

mmooss 8mo ago
> It’s government’s fault for not regulating it properly. Who is government responsible to and responsive to? Individuals. > You can’t give individuals choice and then blame them. That is exactly how the world and responsibility works. You have the choice to do right or wrong, and are responsible for the consequences - in Abrahamic religions, it goes back to Eden. You personally have endless choices every day where you can do wrong with no penalty to you. Unless you are sociopathic, you generally do the right thing.
- conductr 8mo ago
  This was a tailored response to this context. You trying to apply it generally is quite ridiculous. Governments exist so that individuals can function as a society. Your point is circular (Government<->Individual). Governments are responsible to a collection of individuals, a society. We enable our governments to oversee safety of toys, vehicles, toxic materials, etc. because it is quite inconvenient to make those evaluations at a individual level on a daily basis. We are also human who have short-term value systems, governments are supposed to force us to act with a longer-term outlook. Eg. caring about the next generation.

mmooss 8mo ago

It's another claim of powerlessness, which is exactly what the 'fossil energy industry' wants people to say - it's demoralizing, paralyzing, and like any disinformation it's a distraction from actually doing something; now we're debating this stuff instead of doing something. So is the victim debate - who is at fault, assessing blame, etc. Nobody, as a single human being, can accomplish much in any field. Every significant thing humanity does happens in large groups. The good news is, we are hardwired to work in groups - you see it all over, all the time. People naturally organize and work together; think of FOSS projects, for example. And that is what democracy is, and democracy is the most dynamic, effective, changeable method of government in human history. Let's stop wasting time debating it and get to work. A simple thing to do is to reduce personal climate output. Again, you can't have much effect alone, but humans act together, and we all can do our part. That's why there isn't trash covering the streets - one person can't prevent that, but everyone is putting their garbage in the bin. I am responsible for the consequences of my actions and words, and for my community - we all are, of course. The victim / blame perspective is the opposite of that - victimhood is a justification / rationalization for a lack of responsibility, for inaction. As anyone with experience of decent management knows, that is the last thing you do. The problem needs to be solved.

myrmidon 8mo ago

Every industry ever is going to externalize all the costs you allow it to externalize. The individual responsibility is to vote for representatives that prevent such externalization through regulation, and to stand behind such regulation even if it is slightly inconvenient (plastic drinking straws) or somewhat costly (gas, flights). The biggest problem is that a significant part of the global population is not willing to make even the smallest sacrifice in lifestyle towards such a goal (=> this is often difficult to see if you are in a more left/green bubble, but i absolutely true of the average citizen). We, as voters, have expressed so little care for climate and environment sustainability that politicians don't even bother catering towards that niche any more. In the US there was an super obvious choice 25 years ago in the US between genuine, ambitious sustainability and some generic politician not even half as competent as his father, and we all saw the outcome; politicians since barely even bother pretending to be concerned about climate sustainability because voters just don't care.