this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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IIRC the study that the "X% of companies are responsible for X% emissions" is somewhat misleading. For example they use the combined output of everyone's car exhaust and attribute that to the major oil companies since they provide the gas. Not saying that large corporations and the wealthy in general contributing to climate change exponentially more than the average person, but its misleading to say that as an individual it doesn't matter if we try to use less energy.
This exactly! We need to go after the corporations with policy changes but that doesn't mean that we, as individuals, are completely blameless or that individually actions are inconsequential. If nobody chooses to drive less or to take the bus then collectively we're telling the major oil companies to continue with business as usual at if nothing's wrong. The corporations are to blame but we're all active participants!
I have some troubles with this line of thought.
For a big majority of people, there isn't simply a lot of options, or any options at all, to take the car less, or buy less over packaged items, or reduce the pollution footprint.
The corporations won't offer any alternative unless legislations make these alternatives the right choice business wise.
So toothless legislation is a problem and the governing bodies absolutely have the lion share of responsibilities and the personal efforts are worthless without the support of the governing bodies.
For many people, there absolutely is an option and they refuse to take the mild inconvenience.
This 100%
On the topic of what we do though, campaigning for actually effective legislation 1) actually works, and 2) has a far greater effect than trying to micro-optimize our individual lives. Optimization problems are solved by gathering data and focusing on the largest contributor, not just picking shit randomly.
Also, make no mistake, enacting a carbon tax, for example, would make all of our lives harder, we simply wouldn't be able to afford as much stuff as we do now. But it would align the market forces to find efficient, low-carbon solutions, as opposed to find efficient solutions despite carbon emissions. Trickle-down economics is bullshit when it comes to rewards, but no company (that stays in business) ever shied away from passing along operating costs. (A similar thing happened to nutrient labeling, the food industry fought tooth and nail against it because it would be a downturn in the business, but it was ratified anyway and since then options across the board got a lot healthier, because there was simply an incentive for the corpos to fix their shit to some degree where there previously wasn't. And that was just about informing consumers, not fully ) So don't make this out as if we're just pointing the blame so you can sit back and let the big companies do all the work, because that's not what this is about, it's simply about the fact that capitalism doesn't run on morals (as it is so clearly apparent in its results) so we need a little more than that to force the corpos to work along with the rest of us. Because if they don't, all our efforts will be in vain.
The point is, regulation would actually work. We tried to make climate change the individual's responsibility for decades and we're still barreling straight towards the climate apocalypse, so it's time to add some other measures too, not just try to slightly increase individual contributions and see if that solves it. Spoiler: it won't, but it's comfy to some high-ranking execs if we waste valuable quarters trying that again and again and again. And I guess it gives us a comfy delusion of control too.