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As horrible as those people are, it's not like they're just belching carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for fun. They're fulfilling demand. That 40% wouldn't disappear just by spreading ownership of the factories to more people. That's not to say that individual action is the only thing that works. Regulations need to be put in place to curb emissions, incentives should reward producers for investing & transitioning to more sustainable practices, and yes, monopolies need to get split up.
But the fact remains that some products are just bad for the environment. As as long as people continue buying those products they'll keep being produced. And when animal agriculture accounts for about as many emissions as the entire transportation industry, this seems like one of the easier steps to make.
The "my actions won't end this problem so I don't need to do anything" mentality never comes up in any other field (politeness, crimes, social change, voting). Yeah, choosing to never hold open doors for others wouldn't noticeably affect the global rate, but I doubt you'd use that logic to justify being rude.
To say Exxon was just, "fulfilling demands" makes them seem like good people. They KNEW they were causing climate change 50 years ago. They suppressed the information. Many Americans are dependent on their oil. It's all part of the design of our roads, infrastructure, jobs, etc. These corporations only care about their revenue streams, not the streams of water and how clean they are. Hoping the majority of consumers band together to do the right thing simply will not work. The corporations and the executives need to be held accountable or we will continue to flounder on climate change.
Unfortunately it goes back further than that. We knew anthropogenic climate change was a thing in the late 1800s, and the oil companies started doing the research in the early 1900s. They knew by 1910 that they were flirting with disaster. Which just allows everyone to say, "nope, not changing anything personally, because those decisions were made before I was born."
I agree that it's unfair that we have to modify our consumption when it makes so little impact. Hopefully meat in vats is actually better for the environment, but I'm not counting on it for the first generation. It is finally being served in a couple restaurants so that's a first step
It has nothing to do with fairness. Modifying consumption at an individual level doesn't help and isn't even a step to solving the problem. It's literally propaganda to shift blame and make sure nothing is ever done to address the issue.
If you're relying on individuals you may as well just give up. There needs to be systemic change forced by legislation.
Modifying consumption at the individual level unintentionally creates boycotts that the local consumer isn't even aware they are involved in. This compounds when the local consumer happens to be an upper manager, because they will carry their biases against corporations, such as Nestlé, into the corporate world, and continue their own boycott of services that are undesirable.
Again, totally unfair to the individual since we carry so little responsibility, but we also carry the ability to crush corporations that refuse to follow the people's will. Look a bit deeper into why Enron, or Sears-Roebuck collapsed. You'll find that your real power is burying corporations that have no value.
Modifying individual consumption is literally the only viable solution. It just cannot be voluntary.
That was sort of my point. I guess it would be better stated as putting the decision making at the individual level doesn't help, or something like that.
Then it isn't propaganda meant to shift blame.
Blaming "the top x%" of corporations is effective propaganda that does shift blame.
People are going to fight carbon taxation, even with a dividend, and if they think "just go after the rich" will help, we'll never get it.