this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
434 points (98.2% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5373 readers
900 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
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.