No, I don’t, “the population” does. I have control over myself, 1 teeny tiny sliver of the group that is “the population.” If there’s one thing “the population” is known to put the effort into doing, it’s twiddling their thumbs. It’s nothing more than a huge writhing mass of opinions. To expect it to coordinate effectively enough to make change happen is just as ridiculous as to expect all the molecules in a glass of water to suddenly converge on one side. “The population” doesn’t make change, it buffers against it.
“Oh, all we have to do is get 8 billion people of different backgrounds, opinions, socioeconomic standards, and every other metric to agree on something. Surely that’s a feasible task!”
that’s how society works man, we agree to do things a certain way. Lead used to be a really popular component in a lot of consumer products that ended up with a lot of awful health effects. And basically, science let people know it’s bad and should be avoided, and society changed to fix it.
We got rid of lead products because governments put out new regulations that prevented companies from making products with lead, not because the population collectively decided not to buy products with lead in them. If companies had been allowed to continue making lead products, they’d have done so, and people would have continued buying them despite the science pointing to them being bad for you.
Companies will do whatever is profitable unless prevented from doing so by regulations, and people will buy what companies sell because most people don’t know, and don’t have the time to figure out what products they buy are harmful to themselves and others. Even when they do, they often don’t have the wealth to make a change to buying safer, more expensive products.
“How society works” is that people have to buy products to survive, and often have little choice among what products they can afford. If we want companies to start lowering their emissions, we need to force them to do so with regulations, just like we had to do with lead.
I do not have the control because I have limited means and if they do not offer an ecological option within those means then I have to choose from non-ecological options within those means
You have control over whether you eat pork or tofu, don’t you? You have control over whether you buy a new iPhone or a used FairPhone, don’t you? You have control over whether you plan a trip via airplane or via train, don’t you?
Shifting the blame to the individual plays precisely into the hands of massive corporations. People buy what is available and cheapest, and without government intervention that’s going to be plastic packaging wrapped in more plastic.
So you’re telling me that there are people who cannot peel a banana, but who can simultaneously peel the plastic off a container and then eat the banana?
Oh, you meant bananas and only bananas? Every other prepared fresh food is fine? 🙄
But yes, there are people who can perform some tasks but not others. Until you have a solution for them that isn’t “just don’t have fresh food lol” or “just hire someone to do it for you lol” then the problem is and remains the plastic, not the person who is buying food.
Yes, and I deliberately make choices to reduce my footprint. But it’s not enough, people are naturally greedy and think only as far as next quarter’s earnings, hence the need for regulation to account for long-term costs to the world.
The $300 ticket is for a coach seat for a trip that takes 70-90 hours one way. Hope you don’t like laying down to sleep or showering!
I can only assume you’ve never taken Greyhound if you’re suggesting it for a cross country trip. In addition to having the same problems as trains but worse (try spending 12 hours in a bus stop halfway through your trip because of overbooking!), if you do want to take Greyhound then be sure to sleep on top of anything on your person that you don’t want stolen. Once I had shit stolen from me before I even made it onto the bus!
Well yes, but you’ve also failed to explain how someone with a limited budget can enjoy all the comforts and conveniences of modern life without making any sacrifices, which makes you wrong.
For sure, they optimize for profits, and that means being irresponsible with the world.
Let’s take meat for example. It’s not like a ranch is going to raise and slaughter millions of cattle just for the lulz. If nobody is buying it, there’s no economic incentive and the problem goes away.
Consumers are unwilling to change to more expensive, ethical products. It follows that corporations are unwilling to produce them. Until something like lab meat becomes cheaper and easier than natural meat, this will persist. This could be done through taxes on natural meat, (maybe a methane emissions tax).
But consumers fundamentally hold all the power here. They could simply switch to eating less meat and the producers would automatically correct themselves. You just can’t convince people to do it.
i agree with you, except scale. individual consumers have no power. if consumers/citizens were collectively organized at a substantial percentage, they could change everything. thats why the corporatioms and rich and govt will do anything to not let the people be united like this. and even if they could organize on that scale, it could just be corrupted or turn authoritarian/fascist itself.
1 person trying to change the world by eating less meat doesn’t even blip the radar.
The argument is that corporations do what they want, often not because we want to buy their stuff, but because:
we don’t have a choice
they hide what they’re doing through propaganda, lies, obfuscation, etc.
so we don’t know about it
powerful lobbying
Here’s some examples:
Cigarette companies spent decades convincing people their product was harmless and Even good for you. The oil industry has been covering up climate change the same way.
Trains are rarely an option in the US, because of subsidies to planes, roads, etc. Car companies pushed hard to actually remove public transportation.
Don’t like your ISP? Too bad, you probably don’t have another choice
Look at the PG&E story and how they contaminated drinking water, then just lied about it while people died. You don’t really have a choice about who supplies electricity to your city.
Yes, you could choose to live off of the grid and walk everywhere and grow your own crops, but that’s hardly a choice. And it doesn’t have to be that way. Shitty people at the top of these companies make ungodly money by screwing everyone else over anyway they can, regardless of the cost to humanity. That is the point.
Maybe if you’re on shrooms or LSD, yeah “it’s all the same if you use what they make maaaaaaan”
But only if you ignore the power dynamics behind wealth, and aren’t aware of the concepts of bribery, temptation, and unlimited influence.
Or the fact that people want greener options but they are intentionally unavailable, sabotaged, prohibitively expensive (but never subsidized), or publicly demonized in media with disinformation and propaganda.
Between consumers and corporations, only one gets to call all the shots
Sustainable energy is heavily subsidised in Europe. Thanks to that we have 80% renewable energy production in Austria (and buy some non-renewable energy from other countries but still, we’re on a good way).
I think you’re being downvoted a bit unfairly because you’re strictly correct
No, he’s not. Deliberately ignoring the larger context is blatantly incorrect. He’s pushing corporate propaganda. The downvotes are well-deserved, and maybe even a ban would be too.
if you wanna reduce global emissions, you should at least know where it’s coming from. You hear how most emissions are coming from corporations, mostly oil companies, but that’s not quite it. If you went to their corporate headquarters you wont find the emissions they’re talking about. If you went to their oil drilling operations, you wont find them there either. The pipelines, the oil tankers, still no. Oil companies emissions are coming from your tailpipe. I mean it literally when I say consumer emissions and their emissions are the same.
Its important to know, think about it for a bit, you’re demanding oil companies to take responsibility for those emissions. Imagine they do what you want for a change, and they stop their emissions. That means no gas available to consumers. And oil companies are the biggest targets, but any corporate emissions work the same way, them taking responsibility for their emissions means halting what they produce. Because corporate emissions and consumer emissions are the same, consumers have to deal with the consequences no matter what, either by stopping buying themselves, or no longer having products available to buy.
Consumer emissions and corporate emissions are the same emissions
except that consumers do not have meaningful control over the companies and the corporate leaders do
Youve got all the control. Without you theyre not emitting anything
No, I don’t, “the population” does. I have control over myself, 1 teeny tiny sliver of the group that is “the population.” If there’s one thing “the population” is known to put the effort into doing, it’s twiddling their thumbs. It’s nothing more than a huge writhing mass of opinions. To expect it to coordinate effectively enough to make change happen is just as ridiculous as to expect all the molecules in a glass of water to suddenly converge on one side. “The population” doesn’t make change, it buffers against it.
“Oh, all we have to do is get 8 billion people of different backgrounds, opinions, socioeconomic standards, and every other metric to agree on something. Surely that’s a feasible task!”
that’s how society works man, we agree to do things a certain way. Lead used to be a really popular component in a lot of consumer products that ended up with a lot of awful health effects. And basically, science let people know it’s bad and should be avoided, and society changed to fix it.
We got rid of lead products because governments put out new regulations that prevented companies from making products with lead, not because the population collectively decided not to buy products with lead in them. If companies had been allowed to continue making lead products, they’d have done so, and people would have continued buying them despite the science pointing to them being bad for you.
Companies will do whatever is profitable unless prevented from doing so by regulations, and people will buy what companies sell because most people don’t know, and don’t have the time to figure out what products they buy are harmful to themselves and others. Even when they do, they often don’t have the wealth to make a change to buying safer, more expensive products.
“How society works” is that people have to buy products to survive, and often have little choice among what products they can afford. If we want companies to start lowering their emissions, we need to force them to do so with regulations, just like we had to do with lead.
I do not have the control because I have limited means and if they do not offer an ecological option within those means then I have to choose from non-ecological options within those means
You have control over whether you eat pork or tofu, don’t you? You have control over whether you buy a new iPhone or a used FairPhone, don’t you? You have control over whether you plan a trip via airplane or via train, don’t you?
Shifting the blame to the individual plays precisely into the hands of massive corporations. People buy what is available and cheapest, and without government intervention that’s going to be plastic packaging wrapped in more plastic.
Why not both? Companies that peel bananas and wrap them in plastic for sale are garbage companies. And people who buy them are garbage people.
Environmentalists remember that disabled people exist challenge: impossible.
So you’re telling me that there are people who cannot peel a banana, but who can simultaneously peel the plastic off a container and then eat the banana?
Oh, you meant bananas and only bananas? Every other prepared fresh food is fine? 🙄
But yes, there are people who can perform some tasks but not others. Until you have a solution for them that isn’t “just don’t have fresh food lol” or “just hire someone to do it for you lol” then the problem is and remains the plastic, not the person who is buying food.
Yes, and I deliberately make choices to reduce my footprint. But it’s not enough, people are naturally greedy and think only as far as next quarter’s earnings, hence the need for regulation to account for long-term costs to the world.
a train ticket cross country costs thousands of dollars more than an equivalent class of airplane tickets so no, no I do not have that control
NY–LA via Amtrak: $291. Greyhound, a bus company: $139
The $300 ticket is for a coach seat for a trip that takes 70-90 hours one way. Hope you don’t like laying down to sleep or showering!
I can only assume you’ve never taken Greyhound if you’re suggesting it for a cross country trip. In addition to having the same problems as trains but worse (try spending 12 hours in a bus stop halfway through your trip because of overbooking!), if you do want to take Greyhound then be sure to sleep on top of anything on your person that you don’t want stolen. Once I had shit stolen from me before I even made it onto the bus!
Can you acknowledgedyou’ve moved the goalposts from train to bus?
I did provide the price for a train ticket that is significantly cheaper than Match!!’s “thousands of dollars”, didn’t I?
No, a bus isn’t a train. Is this perhaps a language barrier problem?
Well yes, but you’ve also failed to explain how someone with a limited budget can enjoy all the comforts and conveniences of modern life without making any sacrifices, which makes you wrong.
Well, in the US trains probably aren’t an option. But you’re exactly right. The reason corporations pollute is because we buy their stuff.
corporation pollute because the governments let them, and its cheapest. governments let them because they are corrupted by the corporations.
if/when executives can get the death penalty for crimes against earth, they will still find a way to supply stuff to market.
For sure, they optimize for profits, and that means being irresponsible with the world.
Let’s take meat for example. It’s not like a ranch is going to raise and slaughter millions of cattle just for the lulz. If nobody is buying it, there’s no economic incentive and the problem goes away.
Consumers are unwilling to change to more expensive, ethical products. It follows that corporations are unwilling to produce them. Until something like lab meat becomes cheaper and easier than natural meat, this will persist. This could be done through taxes on natural meat, (maybe a methane emissions tax).
But consumers fundamentally hold all the power here. They could simply switch to eating less meat and the producers would automatically correct themselves. You just can’t convince people to do it.
i agree with you, except scale. individual consumers have no power. if consumers/citizens were collectively organized at a substantial percentage, they could change everything. thats why the corporatioms and rich and govt will do anything to not let the people be united like this. and even if they could organize on that scale, it could just be corrupted or turn authoritarian/fascist itself.
1 person trying to change the world by eating less meat doesn’t even blip the radar.
The argument is that corporations do what they want, often not because we want to buy their stuff, but because:
Here’s some examples:
Yes, you could choose to live off of the grid and walk everywhere and grow your own crops, but that’s hardly a choice. And it doesn’t have to be that way. Shitty people at the top of these companies make ungodly money by screwing everyone else over anyway they can, regardless of the cost to humanity. That is the point.
Maybe if you’re on shrooms or LSD, yeah “it’s all the same if you use what they make maaaaaaan”
But only if you ignore the power dynamics behind wealth, and aren’t aware of the concepts of bribery, temptation, and unlimited influence.
Or the fact that people want greener options but they are intentionally unavailable, sabotaged, prohibitively expensive (but never subsidized), or publicly demonized in media with disinformation and propaganda.
Between consumers and corporations, only one gets to call all the shots
…while the unsustainable options are, massively…
Sustainable energy is heavily subsidised in Europe. Thanks to that we have 80% renewable energy production in Austria (and buy some non-renewable energy from other countries but still, we’re on a good way).
I think you’re being downvoted a bit unfairly because you’re strictly correct
That said, fossil fuel companies also spend a considerable amount of money and effort keeping us dependent on oil
The Drilled podcast and Climate Town have both done excellent reporting on this
No, he’s not. Deliberately ignoring the larger context is blatantly incorrect. He’s pushing corporate propaganda. The downvotes are well-deserved, and maybe even a ban would be too.
I think that’s a valid opinion to have but also the person could have just been a bit glib and not careful with their words
They’re a commenter on Lemmy, not a politician. I don’t expect them to always have well crafted takes
There’s always a corpo-fucker in these threads.
if you wanna reduce global emissions, you should at least know where it’s coming from. You hear how most emissions are coming from corporations, mostly oil companies, but that’s not quite it. If you went to their corporate headquarters you wont find the emissions they’re talking about. If you went to their oil drilling operations, you wont find them there either. The pipelines, the oil tankers, still no. Oil companies emissions are coming from your tailpipe. I mean it literally when I say consumer emissions and their emissions are the same.
Its important to know, think about it for a bit, you’re demanding oil companies to take responsibility for those emissions. Imagine they do what you want for a change, and they stop their emissions. That means no gas available to consumers. And oil companies are the biggest targets, but any corporate emissions work the same way, them taking responsibility for their emissions means halting what they produce. Because corporate emissions and consumer emissions are the same, consumers have to deal with the consequences no matter what, either by stopping buying themselves, or no longer having products available to buy.