this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
88 points (90.0% liked)
Asklemmy
43336 readers
821 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Vote.
Wisely.
Voting is broken in US IMHO...
Corporations lobby and drive policies...
We the people clearly don't matter to the US of A ... We're just huminerals to them ; especially the "middle class"...
No disagreemnt, but at the same time, voting can still make the difference between "pretty fucked" and "totally fucked." And that's not nothing.
The middle class, during my lifetime, used to mean one income supported a family of four.
Now, even DINKs struggle.
This is the biggest one. Activism on the side would be good too, but that might not be simple depending on how far you go with it (a simple lawn sign does count!).
It's for the simple reason that most people will not deliberately sacrifice to decrease carbon footprint themselves, and need it to be legislated.
I don't think it's fair to put the blame on individuals not reducing their carbon footprints. It's big industries that are fucking the climate. (Oil being likely the biggest one.) And the solution isn't to incentivise individuals to bicycle more. It's to regulate industry to stop taking oil out of the ground.
The idea that the individual citizen is the problem and and the solution to climate change and other environmental issues is propaganda invented by industry to get the focus off of them. "We oil companies aren't the problem. You need to drive less." "We plastic manufacturers didn't put tons of plastic in the oceans. You need to recycle more."
"Voting with your dollars" is similarly a con.
The reason you vote (with your... you know... votes) is so that the administration that isn't going to gut the EPA gets the next term. And maybe they'll enforce regulations on special interests that actually make a positive difference in emissions.
Yeah, but don't forget industry exists to sell things to consumers. I wouldn't put the onus on an individual person, that is a scam, but everybody collectively I sure would.
The way to make everyone collectively do something is through legislation.
Friendly reminder that we're not all Americans here.
Ah! Sorry about that. I'm trying to be better about that.
This is the only suggestion that will make any difference
This and reducing flying is the best 'bang for your buck' in terms of individual actions imo. Even just starting by not eating beef is better than nothing.