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203

Americans misunderstand their contribution to deteriorating environment (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Of course politics made it worse as well... Anything "environmentally friendly" is now viewed as "liberal" (the left, not the general "free market" type liberal) in America by "conservatives" and they're brainwashed daily to not only hate anything the left says or wants, but they're also made to believe that it's "fake news"...

Some of these hateful chucklefucks actively "roll coal" by running their trucks extra rich, or making a toggle switch that will allow them to do it on the fly, so they can spew black smoke at cyclists and anyone driving a Prius or easily identifiable electric car...

[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Americans have been lied to by their corporate masters for decades about their contribution to deteriorating environment

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Let’s ask Charles Koch why he has spent billions of his own personal dollars to MAKE SURE people don’t understand that their house is on fire. The problem is murderous oil people perpetrating the most titanic crime in the history of earth. History’s most accomplished murderer is a free man, living in fucking Wichita for Christ’s sake. Arrest him and put him in prison with the other murderous sociopaths. There are others besides Charles, but he’s the most accomplished of the criminals.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 2 months ago

It's a bit like an adult lying to children. It's not really their fault but you'd hope at some point they would grow up.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

I'll never forget that scumbag who walked in with a snowball and said something like "how is there global warming if there is snow!?" Representative Inhoffe (Republican of course)...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The word "misunderstand" implies an attempt at understanding.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Misinformation is a powerful weapon

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Roughly one in two Americans said they are not very or not at all exposed to environmental and climate change risks. Those perceptions contrast sharply with empirical evidence showing that climate change is having an impact in nearly every corner of the United States. A warming planet has intensified hurricanes battering coasts, droughts striking middle American farms, and wildfires threatening homes and air quality across the country. And climate shocks are driving up prices of some food, like chocolate and olive oil, and consumer goods.

Something something 'muricans can't name 5 different countries in a map

Americans also largely believe they do not bear responsibility for global environmental problems. Only about 15 percent of US respondents said that high- and middle-income Americans share responsibility for climate change and natural destruction. Instead, they attribute the most blame to businesses and governments of wealthy countries.

"Me driving a SUV that's almost as big as a bus anywhere farther than 500ft from my home is not a problem at all!!" - average american, probably

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

“Me driving a SUV that’s almost as big as a bus anywhere farther than 500ft from my home is not a problem at all!!” - average american, probably

SUVs are passe at this point. The hip thing is to drive a super-duty V12 king cab truck with a constantly empty truck bed to the store.

As an American burgermeister, it's also important to complain about the price of gas continually while doing this.

(For extra credit: be sure to idle for 50 minutes in an in-and-out or chik-fil-a line that spills out into the street and blocks traffic on your way home from the store.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Speaking of naming countries... I saw this posted on lemmy a bit ago and love it. It's a game where you have to name countries to get from one country to another.

https://travle.earth/

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I know it won't fix it, and this is hardly a comprehensive list. But I feel like there are some stupid-easy things Americans could do to reduce the harm. Just a few that come to mind:

Don't buy a big vehicle like a giant pickup truck unless you really need it. (A pavement princess for your ego is not a need).
Book air travel as little as possible. Again, only if you truly need it.
If you are growing something that requires a lot of water in an area that doesn't get very much rain...stop doing that. (If you have some kind of closed loop water system, that's an exception. But how many actually have that.)
Telecommute if you can. If you can do your job from home and your boss won't let you, it's time to hunt for another job.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Americans don't have the choice to do most of these things, or the choice to do most of anything.

They're locked into a system, things are decided for them. There needs to be a change internally in America before these things can be changed. Honestly, I think the will to change these things is small, most Americans don't know much beyond oxygen tanks and diabetes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Americans don't have the choice not to buy gigantic pickup trucks and SUVs? Gimme a break. I have never bought one, it's not some kind of one weird trick thing, you just literally don't fucking buy them and buy something smaller and cheaper instead.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Half the major auto manufacturers DONT MAKE ANYTHING SMALLER. Ford discontinued every model of sedan.

And that's not getting into the whole "a brand new car starts at almost 30K on the low end" affordability issue.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

I wish there was something like a kei truck available in the US with some modern crash safety features, and maybe a plug-in hybrid option.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's a world of difference in pedestrian safety between a RAV4 and a Suburban or F150. Just because they call an e.g. CX30 a crossover doesn't mean it's as dangerous as a full size pickup truck. Your affordability argument doesn't even make any sense - smaller vehicles are cheaper than larger vehicles. If affordability is such an issue why don't we see more crosstreks? The mental gymnastics to avoid blaming a bunch of fragile dudes for buying ridiculously pickup trucks is absurd.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

It doesn't matter if one is more affordable than the other if NEITHER IS AFFORDABLE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Double minimum wage (pre-tax, pre-bills) as a starting basic car price, is not affordable (No, i do not consider needing an auto loan "affordable".).

A RAV4 is still a blunt-ended higher-sitting vehicle that puts pedestrians under a car rather than up and over like a sedan.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

You're right, 50k is the same as 30k, a 5ft tall hood is the same as 2.5ft, 40 mpg is the same as 20 mpg, and getting hit by a pickup is the same as a crosstrek. Look I ride a cargo bike most of the time and am very much fuckcars, but pretending like every since vehicle that isn't a sedan is equally dangerous and polluting isn't helpful.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Get a ford focus. Or, gasp a Toyota.

But don't give me that argument, because it's 100% bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I live in a red, suburban county. Almost every house in my neighborhood has a big ass pickup sitting in the driveway (because it won't fit in the garage). Most of these dudes drive their giant pickups to work in an office building.

I asked one of them - an engineer - about it once. He said he works in an office but has to drive to job sites every once in a while, so he drives a truck. Keep in mind the dude does not do any manual labor on those job sites. But the people working there do - and he doesn't want to feel left out.

I'd estimate that well over half the big ass trucks in America are driven by guys who want to fit it, but don't actually need them. They'd be much better off driving something like a Nissan Leaf, but don't want to get made fun of.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

So you're saying that millions of fragile men are bullied into buying full size trucks and they have no agency whatsoever into their purchase? This is no different than exposing your kids to second hands smoke because you are afraid if you don't smoke you won't look cool. I seriously don't understand why we're making excuses and coddling these weak egos instead of actually supporting the victims of the violence these people inflict on other road users. I'm more than happy to criticize the regulatory bodies and the manufacturers for failing society as well, but that doesn't mean the purchasers that make this all possible are innocent. It's a rotten subculture that needs to be called out at all levels.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Americans don't have the choice to do most of these things, or the choice to do most of anything.

You have the choice what car to buy. You often have a choice of when you fly somewhere. I mean, you can always skip that California vacation and go camping somewhere local, I'm not asking you to skip your brother's wedding.

That post also misses the biggest thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. Eat less beef. Reduce the amount of beef you eat, substitute chicken or even pork, that will have a massive effect on your carbon footprint.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Your missing the big one that most people don't want to hear, eat less / no meat. That's about the biggest decision your average person can make that will make the most impact, going vegetarian is about equivalent to not driving but most Americans need to drive, they don't need to eat meat.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Meat consumption is huge, especially red meat. I would be happy to add that to the list of easy things for harm reduction.

I really don't think all the big dumb pickup trucks are needed, though. I understand some people like contractors and landscapers really do need them. But I also see parking lots for office workers filled with the stupid things.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Oh look, it's the latest Big Company propaganda piece attempting to blame the average citizen for ruinous climate change that is pretty much solely on the back of corporate negligence and/or malice, because not being an evil douchebag costs the company 15 whole extra cents a year!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Do you have some concrete examples of some things that corporations could do to significantly reduce (not just greenwash) their contribution to climate change that would not immediately result in all their customers picking up torches and pitchforks, or just move on to their competitors?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Stop growing shit in stupid places, for one. Stop ignoring emissions standards or lobbying politicians to remove them. Those are probably the biggest bulk contributors to climate change at the moment, other than perhaps methane emissions from cattle, which I cannot in good conscious advocate against due to dietary requirements from allergies.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Corporations aren't forcing you to buy a bigger house, a bigger car, to eat meat or to fly across the country regularly, those are personal consumption choices that are driving climate change. You can blame the corporations for pushing you to consume with advertising or not doing there best to minimize the impact of that consumption but fundamentally there's no way to make a carbon neutral meat burger that the average person could consume regularly. It's not just corporations that benefit from ignoring climate costs, the average consumer does as well

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sure, all those things can minimize impact, and together we can all effect maybe one and a half a percent of a change. Alternately, we could hold companies responsible for their illegal and absurd amounts of emissions and knock a good 20-30% off.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Could you please give some sources instead of pulling numbers out of thin air. Because the numbers don't seem to align with what your saying since industry only accounts for 23 % of emissions, so unless holding companies responsible includes completely eliminating them and there emissions you aren't going to get a 20-30 % reduction in emissions. That 20-30% your talking about can actually be obtained if Americans just stopped driving and flying. Hell we can get almost double that "measly 1.5%" by Americans just driving 10% less then they are. Cars and air travel are emitting just as much as those evil corporations everyone likes to blame, and to stop climate change we'll need to rein in both. Thats just cars, it doesn't account for other consumer choices like eating meat and fast fashion that also have huge impacts.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Ah, you're making the traditional error here- you're assigning only 22% to the industry, and thinking only people transport items or use electricity.

Most of the 'electricity' emissions on that nice pie graph isn't joe bob's playstation, it's industrial power. And while a larger percentage of that 'travel' graph is people rather than train/semi/etc output for corporate use, corporations ARE responsible for the deplorable state of american transportation, as they've intentionally destroyed all our public transportation options and endlessly pushed to make things less safe and more profitable like stroads, the invention of the concept of jaywalking to shift blame for terrible drivers, and intentional lobbying to increase overreliance on cars.

We COULD drop that transportation amount, but again, that would mean less profits for industry, which spends millions if not billions ensuring that can never happen. Right now we can't reduce transportation emissions, because it would leave people stranded. We need to improve things past requiring cars for everything, and that can only be done when corporations are held accountable for their actions.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Most of the 'electricity' emissions on that nice pie graph isn't joe bob's playstation, it's industrial power.

Again please cite some sources and look at the actual data. Adding in electricity and looking at end use does up industrial but only up to 30% . It ups commercial and residential far more to 31%, your right though most of the electricity isn't going towards joes PlayStation it's going towards heating and cooling joes house.

Greenhouse gas emissions from commercial and residential buildings also increase substantially when emissions from electricity end-use are included, due to the relatively large share of electricity use mostly building related (e.g., heating, ventilation, and air conditioning; lighting; and appliances) in these sectors

Again personal consumption choices have an effect on this, even barring the choice of where to live the amount of energy needed to heat and cool a home goes up as the size of the building increases. Heating and cooling a large detached single family home is way less efficient then heating and cooling a small apartment. Like a big truck no one's forcing you to get a big house and the choice you make has climate impacts.

I agree auto companies are largely responsible for the mess we're in with transportation, but the solution isn't to just put our hands up and say we need to hold them accountable, that won't happen in the current environment. We all need to make the personal choice to drive less, and take more public transit. If public transit numbers go up then politicians will actually start prioritizing it and improvements will be made which will cause more people to take transit causing a positive feedback loop. If traffic numbers go down as well the government won't have to spend money on adding another lane to the freeway and would save on road maintenance due to cars wearing them down less, allowing more money to be available for transit and adding to the feedback loop.

To kickstart that feedback loop though we'll need people to choose to take a more inconvenient transport option at the beginning, and you aren't going to get people to make that choice by saying there actions don't matter and that it's all the corporations fault so you driving a mile to CVS is fine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

And again, you're attributing residential use to what is mainly corporate/industry use. HVAC for warehouses, data centers, skyscrapers, etc are far more than residential.

As for claiming we need to change before corporations do, that's just bootlicking. You say we need to use less convenient methods of transportation to make a statement, but the problem is there _are not more inconvenient methods available to most people _. And they cannot simply stop traveling. Increasing amounts of public transit does not increase funding- it reduces funding. Just look at the USPS. Increase the use- and thus revenue- of a service just means Republican lawmakers get greedy for privatizing that income and we're right back to where we were, but two steps back.

This needs changed at the top, because bottom-up change will simply be suppressed, ignored, or subverted. And the only way top down change happens is if those at the top feel they will lose their money or their power by not supporting it- that is the ONLY way change from the bottom happens- by the bottom threatening to remove the top, via voting for example

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Vehicles as a whole are a lost sunken cause.