this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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I hate when they seem to think that everyone doesn't care, but only the billionaires and a few corporations are causing the majority of the climate change.
Why does everyone have to give up eating meat, so that companies like SpaceX can dump more Methane than cows burp in a a year because they save money on Methane fuel?
Why does everyone have to buy new super expensive electric cars without any increases in minimum wages in 15 years?
Why do we all have to live in mega cities with mass transit and walking everywhere, but I'm disabled and walking everywhere will send me back into a wheelchair.
It bugs me that everything in the climate change news puts it on everyone, instead of calling all of the major polluters to account and their politicians who keep pushing the gas petal for money.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm pretty sure most of the regular people just can't afford to make the needed changes because the economy is so top-heavy that no corporation is willing to increase their labor costs because of greed.
But, maybe it's just me.
Unfortunately we have to do both. We need big industry to reduce but we also need a massive change in our behaviors. Industry must be forced to make these changes because they are purely profit driven and don't take into account 2nd order costs of their actions. People can make choices to improve their personal impact on the environment, and every little bit counts.
For example, if everyone who can uses more public and active transportation, then that leaves more capacity for those who can't. Making less cars is better than making more EVs. Personal transport is a significant source of pollution even if it's not close to the biggest.
That’s the thing that scares me the most, actually. That in order to ensure humanity’s survival, all we need to do is cure the dark greed in every man’s heart.
Otherwise, we’ll just end up with carbon credit style solutions that ensure we transfer ownership of emissions at a heavily discounted rate, rather than making less emissions.
The problem isn't curing greed, it is using an economic and governmental system that enables the people to be intentional about production and consumption. Capitalism isn't it, it explicitly relies on markets which is an opaque tool which makes it difficult to live intentionally. Markets tell you to just "trust" that the price reflects the impact of that product or commodity.
The problem is greed. The solution is punishing it. Severely.
...if you were disabled, a city built towards accessibility would be ideal.
perhaps I'm not understanding what you mean by the above.
You want to have your cake and eat it too. You pay those corporations to pollute in the process of getting you the things you refuse to live without. You vote for those politicians to enable your consumerism and then blame corruption for the policies they pass to give you what you want. You claim that regular people can't afford the needed changes, yet you insist on eating meat and using cars to get around as if those are free. You claim to want corporations to increase their operating costs to be more sustainable, but you complain about your purchasing power decreasing. You blame corporations for greed, but you insist on a personal electric car because you would rather spend >$50k than learn the difference between walkability and only being traversible on foot.
Not all corporate emissions are for private consumption, but most of them are. Not the whole decrease in personal purchasing power is from decolonization and switching to more sustainable production processes, but a decent chunk of it is. You will have to sacrifice products if you want any hope of a better world.
If there is one ray of hope I can offer you, it is that you seem to have too little faith in the quality of life in a degrowth economy. Modern walkable cities are more pleasant to traverse for more disabled people than car-centric ones, with mobility scooters and public transit chauffeurs. Alternatives to meat are delicious if prepared by a competent cook, and it's easier to get a competent cook to make a fancier meal for you if you share meals with flatmates. Without SpaceX-raised satellites your internet and television connection might be worse, but as you share a meal your human connections can be stronger.
Corporations have spent the past 150+ years permeating every form of media about how necessary it is for you to consume and consume and consume. You don't need their products nearly as much as you think you do, at least in the long term if we work together.