Not my OC but what I’ve believed for years: there’s no conflict between reducing your own environmental impact and holding corporations responsible. We hold corps responsible for the environment by creating a societal ethos of environmental responsibility that forces corporations to serve the people’s needs or go bankrupt or be outlawed. And anyone who feels that kind of ethos will reduce their own environmental impact because it’s the right thing to do.
Thoughts?
People don’t vote with their wallets for the best option, they vote with their wallets for what they can afford.
Everyone would like a Tesla model geewiz with zero emissions, but what they can afford is a 30 year old shitbox that burns as much oil as it does gas. They’d love to buy your supergreen organic carbon neutral groceries, but they can afford pb&j and ramen. They’d love to buy widgets made by fat happy employees that earn a living wage in a 100% renewable powered factory, but they can afford chinesium widgets made in a smelly ass factory that dumps it’s waste out the back door full of workers paid a dollar a week…
People can’t afford for their needs to dictate how society is structured. The structure of society dictates the needs of a huge majority of people. The exact inverse of what you’re suggesting is what the simple reality is.
indeed. that’s why we need to focus our energy on systemic solutions, not individual solutions.
Yup.
The flip side of this, is, of course, that voting with your wallet means that people with bigger wallets get more votes, and that results in the rich always getting their way.
Everyone would like a Tesla model geewiz with zero emissions
But that’s exactly the problem! That right there is illustrative of the whole problem! Cars are not the solution, electrical or otherwise (electrical cars are still bad for the environment for a myriad of reasons)! And yet, instead of wanting more walkable and bikable cities, with more public transports, most people just want electrical vehicles; a “solution” that doesn’t require them to change anything about their lives, or requires any actual systematic change.
And as for “supergreen organic carbon neutral groceries”:
Anywhere I know of, most greens are cheaper than meat, and yet 2 things are true in a lot of the developed world:
- A very large (often more than half) percent of the population is overweight
- People eat a crap ton of meat
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that most people could eat less meat than they do - especially red meat, which is worse - but they don’t. They actively chose to keep consuming, and overconsuming, even when they don’t have to. If they can walk, they’ll make excuses to take the car. If they can take public transport, they’ll still make excuses to take the car. The philosophy of “I don’t have to do anything, it’s the corporations and government who have to act” just enables that behaviour, and also raises two questions:
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What will those people do when policy comes in to place that requires actual change from them? Will they be OK with it, or will they end up taking the system down and electing someone who undoes everything?
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If people truly care so much, why aren’t all countries around the world electing more environmentally aware parties that enact more effective change?
I think convincing people pollution is morally wrong and to avoid it as much as possible in their own lives, will not only make the systematic change easier, it will also cause those people to actively fight for better and more effective changes when they realize they are being limited by the system itself. As opposed to now, where they just keep doing their thing, electing the same people, and just hope someone sorts it out without bothering them.
Agreed. It’s simply lip service to absolve people of their own part of the responsibility for the problems of the world. It’s highly disingenuous. If you can’t act with any level of personal responsibility, how can you be a good advocate for corporate responsibility?
I disagree. It isn’t lip service.
It is NOT your personal decisions that are ruining the planet. Only collective action can do that and so only collective action can address it.
The term carbon footprint was invented by British Petroleum to fracture and confuse people who desired a more beautiful and sustainable world. It worked like hell. Insanely effective. Still showing continuing efficacy even when British Petroleum behaves with such ruinous irresponsibility they had to change their goddamn name to try and make people forget who they really are.
You should be a responsible consumer to the degree you can. You should make choices to signal your own preferences to the world, to remind people that a better life is possible, and to reward the businesses that behave well. You should not be shaming and gatekeeping people who fail to behave their best by holding them to incredibly unfair standards like “if you can’t act with any level of personal responsibility, how can you be a good advocate for corporate responsibility”. You absolutely, 100% can be an a good advocate for corporate and collective responsibility without having good personal behaviors and we NEED the people who behave exactly like this if we want the planet to have a future. Because we need their votes. And people who gatekeep and shame others for their perceived bad behaviors drive them away instead of calling them in.
You absolutely, 100% can be an a good advocate for corporate and collective responsibility without having good personal behaviors
Frankly I disagree. Someone like that can say all the right things and vote the right way as long as their personal behaviors aren’t impacted. But what will keep them advocating for corporate responsibility once the stuff they want to buy becomes more expensive?
Telling people you can support corporate responsibility and keep consuming the way you do today is a lie. Because corporate responsibility means producing less means consumption becomes more expensive means your standard of living goes down. And anybody who supports good environmental policy as long as their personal behaviors aren’t impacted will at that point reverse course.
No, I think a true environmental movement has to start with the personal and moral. People need to believe reduced consumption is a moral good for both people and corporations. And then they vote their values and accept the consequences and the personal becomes political.
It is the opposite.
The way people vote affects the regulations and markets. It directly impacts their personal behaviors.
Telling people you can support corporate responsibility and keep consuming the way you do today is a lie.
It’s also not something I nor anyone else here has said. It’s a total strawman. The point is that you can advocate for systemic changes that will even affect your own behaviors without being a leader in those behaviors.
People need to believe reduced consumption is a moral good for both people and corporations.
Yes. To get them to vote and act collectively. You don’t need every single person to be a leader held to some invisible and impossible standard and told to GTFO if they can’t hit that standard. You need them to vote.
It’s also not something I nor anyone else here has said. It’s a total strawman.
It’s not just about this place, it’s about the average person. Every time this topic comes up, people always get very defensive and take it personally, often times even going on about “I already do all this, and that, and some other things, what else can I do?”. Well, chances are the criticism is not directed at you, then.
The criticism is directed at the people who base a big part of their diet on red meat; it’s directed at people who make excuses to drive when they could have easily walked or taken a bike but thought driving was more convenient and comfortable; it’s about people who have access to public transports but don’t want to take them because they’d have to walk five minutes to or from the station, or don’t want to “smell other people”, or just want “the privacy of my own car”. It’s directed at people who could do more, but actively chose not to, and then blame the system and say policy needs to change.
Policy would mean not subsiding red meat, therefore making it more expensive; it would mean raising prices of gas and forcing those people to walk more or ride more public transports; it would mean anything made of plastic would be a lot more expensive, and anything that needs to be shipped somewhere would be too.
How many people do you think would actually be okay with those policies, when they won’t even do it out of their own free will when given the option? How long until they regret it and vote for someone who undoes all the policies?
Even if we ignore all that and say that voting is the most important thing, how many green and ecological parties do you see winning elections around the world?
No matter how you measure it, it’s clear most people are not pushing that hard for change. The average person is choosing convenience and comfort over everything else, and just hopes someone else will sort out the problems - in a way that doesn’t really affect them or their choices. It’s also the reason there’s such a large push from the average “environmentally aware” person for electrical vehicles (even though they’re still bad for the environment) instead of more transports; it would mean not having to change anything in their lives.
More people would walk, bike, or take transit if these options were less shitty. If the car weren’t formally preferred by the state and given priority over other options.
More people would eat fresh produce over fast food hamburgers if that produce were available as conveniently as the fast food dive instead of a supercenter you have to drive to at the edge of town.
Fewer disposable plastic goods will be used when the major companies stop handing them out left right and center.
This is all big “YET YOU LIVE IN A SOCIETY, CURIOUS!” energy. People can want to make their world more sustainable without adopting a full-on crunchy lifestyle. People can advocate for change knowing it will help others in the future even if it doesn’t match with how they currently live. I’m sick and tired of lefty types and environmentalists treating the “average person” like a simpleton who’s incapable of having complex thoughts or feelings. Who’s incapable of doing anything but acting in their own selfish, shortsighted interest. It’s not individual consumers behaving selfishly that got us here.
No matter how you measure it, it’s clear a lot of big capital and corporate interests are fighting hard against the reforms that will make it easier and less stressful for people to adopt better, more sustainable lifestyles. People are being pressured to live certain lifestyles by the fact that our entire society is built on the economic power of consumerism. The idea of personal responsibility has been efficiently weaponized to get people mad at their neighbors for not composting instead of being mad at their city for expanding that 4-lane suburban artillery to “make room” for the expected traffic to another Walmart (that will be getting property tax incentives to build there).
You bring up EVs as if it makes your point, but they don’t. EVs make my point. The individually-responsible thing most people can do is switch out their ICE car for an EV. It’s the best they can do to lower their personal footprints in a society that requires most people drive for most trips. And even if every ICE passenger vehicle were swapped out with an EV tomorrow, that would not be even close to enough – not to even mention most people cannot afford that trade and the halo of other hugely negative problems that would come from it.
This is the problem with any focus on individual responsibility. We need to take action collectively. The voices tut-tutting people for eating fast food over growing their own potatoes in a window box are weapons used by conservatives and capital to divide and conquer, even when they’re repeated by self-professed progressives.
Full disclosure, I only read the first 3 paragraphs because it seems you missed a key part of my point:
It’s directed at people who could do more, but actively chose not to, and then blame the system and say policy needs to change.
If you have transports close to home that can take you to your work place, but you choose to drive a car anyway, then the problem isn’t the state giving it a priority over other options, the problem is you. Clearly, the state improving transports and making them more accessible wouldn’t make a difference to you.
And are you arguing that most people east most of their meals at fast food places? Because I’m sure we both know that’s not true. Firstly, at least where I live that’s not affordable, fast food or not. Most people do their shopping around once a week and cook at home, because that’s what is actually affordable to most people. Secondly, most fast food places offer vegan and vegetarian options nowadays, and even before that plenty of them offered chicken or fish, both of which are much better than beef, and even pork. So I really don’t understand how this is a reasonable excuse for the incredibly large consumption of beef, as well as dairy products. You can also go on any big forum that doesn’t skew left so much and doesn’t care so much about the environment, and you’ll quickly find out most people’s views on vegans and vegetarians, and see that for most people it is not an access issue.
And why do you need disposable plastic goods? I’m sure you can come up with some rare scenario like a 1 in 10000 occurrence that would justify it, but that’s very obviously beside the point because of what I said at the start. Do you need to buy sodas, which come in plastic bottles? Do you need to buy water in plastic bottles? Do you need disposable plastic utensils, like forks, knifes, plates, cups? Because all those sell quite well around the world. I’ll also add this comment someone wrote in another thread a while ago:
what would happen if everyone turned around and said ‘you know what, fuck companies that sell drinks in bottles i’m never going to be without my refillable bottle’ how long would coca-cola keep producing 100 billion plastic bottles a year? what would they do with them?
But if James Quincey said ‘fuck it, I’m not producing plastic bottles anymore they’re bad for the planet’ but 8 billion people said ‘oh ok, well we’re still going to regularly buy drinks in plastic bottles’ the numbers of plastic bottles being made would dip slightly but only while Ramon Laguarta rushed to spend the flood of money now coming in to scale up production at pepsi co.
It’s a two way problem. As long as most people keep wanting those things, then they will keep being produced. And policy will not change it unless you install a dictatorship.
Anyway, like I said, I didn’t read the rest of the comment because it seems you missed an important cornerstone of my point, and I’m too tired to keep arguing, so I’m sorry but I’ll leave it there. Have a good night or day wherever you are.
Ok, but the reality is, as long as the rich are regularly taking corporate jets, and we know government’s not going to act on it, why would John/Jane Q. Public cut their own waste? It’s going to make their lives measurably worse without real benefit to them or climate change. I understand why one might, but we are not going to convince enough more people to “do the right thing” to make a difference if that’s the argument.
Well, the answer, and you imply towards the end, is that it’s morally wrong.
If I said…
There are wars currently going on. Slavery, torture, some mass shootings, and every now and then even a genocide happens in the world. So until we stop all that, why shouldn’t I go and punch some random person in the face, if it will make me feel better? After all, it’s just a drop of water in an ocean of violance.
…you would probably call me an ass, maybe even a lunatic. You’d say I was just looking for excuses to keep being an ass. But that’s the thought process you (not just you, more of a general you) are defending and making an excuse for.
The more “utilitarian” answer is that if we can’t expect people to make changes in their lives by themselves when they have the choice to, why would we expect them to be okay being forced to make those changes by a government? And why wouldn’t they just then go vote for someone who undoes it all?
