this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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Look, I get that logic, I really do.
And do it. I’m not trying to stop anyone from going vegetarian at all. But think of how many people need to change before your not buying meat actually has an effect. Because, think about it: you don’t buy any meat, but the store you shop at doesn’t change their order. If you went full vegan today, the grocery store would still stock the exact same amount of those products.
My point isn’t that telling people to go vegetarian is wrong. Not at all, it’s a great thing.
My point is, it’s thinking way too small and it’s actively changing the tone of the conversation. And that change was literally crafted by industry publicists, drawing attention away from the true culprits. The waters are muddier.
If every article and every study that came out telling individuals how to change their lives and sacrifice in order to save the environment were, instead, about how 100 companies are responsible for 70% of emissions, how they had internal studies a hundred years ago about how their product was altering the environment, about how they’ve escaped change via lobbying and misinformation, the pressure wouldn’t be spread out—this conversation wouldn’t be happening. Our lifestyle changes would be exactly as important as they should be in this conversation: a nice addition. Nowhere near the focus. Instead, I see way more articles focusing on how we can all collectively change to fight the monstrous beast that is climate change. That’s telling people to fire bottle rockets at an attacking Air Force. It’s pissing in the wind. When there are white armies out there that get to write off doing shit because it’s on those people.
Again, changing your life for the good of the environment is a great thing. Doing it is admirable. But it’s also privilege-restrictive. Living an emission-reductive lifestyle is literally not possible for a lot of people. Just like being poor is expensive, being poor forces horrible carbon emission decisions on people. I haven’t crunched the numbers, (no one has) but if every privileged-enough person changed, would that be enough? Probably not. More and more people are financially restricted, and talking about eco-friendly lifestyle choices like it’s all about how much you care is incredibly unfair.
But that’s all after the fact of this being a tactic invented by the oil/gas industry to take pressure off of the few companies that literally are responsible for—and that could have a huge effect on—climate change.
This is playing marbles in a hurricane and yelling at the kid who is trying to blow the marbles out of place—is that contribution actually changing things? Sure, a little. But there is a fucking hurricane and any time spent talking about changing that kid’s behavior is time not spent talking about the hurricane.
But there's every chance that I'm the tipping point between one more order of meat from the supplier, and two. That I'm the drop in the bucket that saves a cow's life. And as for fuel, well I'm definitely having an effect on the environment, because I'm avoiding the use of moles upon moles of carbon atoms. It's not big, but it's there. We need big, but we also need there. It ALL matters.
And besides, I'm not just a consequentialist. I'm a virtue ethicist too. I can honestly say that I'm not part of the problem, and that feels good. That's more worth it to me than delighting in eating the flesh of slaves. And knowing that other people are part of the problem and they think eating slaves can be justfied by some excuse, well that's disgusting and I don't like those people. It's morally bankrupt. I do not like slavers.
That's what the conversation has BEEN for the last 5-10 years. The 00s and early 10s, you're right, it was all on the big companies and they used propaganda to delay us looking at them. But today, everyone knows the government and the corporations are to blame, and does it change their votes? Not really. We are already having the conversation about big business and it's not working. And even if it did work, we don't have the same luxuries we had in the 00s. In the 00s, climate change could have been solved by big companies taking responsibility. That's not true anymore. In the 20s, it takes EVERYONE working to save the world. And since I'm part of everyone, I'm gonna work.
No you’re missing my point. The stuff we read and share has a huge effect. If instead of aiming at the very bottom, hoping to pick up enough crumbs to stop the massive tsunami heading for us, we aimed all of our energy at the top, the mood would be very different. It wouldn’t be one of despair because we are reading about the lifestyle changes we need to make, knowing we can do everything possible and there are still millions if not billions of people that don’t have the luxury of making these decisions, not to mention all of the people that could but won’t. Instead, the feeling would be righteous indignation at the true culprits.
In fact, think of all the younger people reading this study, despairing that they don’t have the power or money to make these changes. We’re devastating an entire new generation, poisoning them against the feeling that they could do something positive against climate change. That has a powerful effect. That matters.
The feeling would be very different and we could see some true action that had the hopes of changing our course. Instead, with this kind of shit, it’s a mishmash of anger, despair, bickering over our lifestyle choices (as evidenced here)…it had the exact effect intended. To alleviate the pressure on the companies so they could continue destroying the earth while we sit here feeling guilty about having to drive to work here we live or about our clothing choices, eating habits, using our goddamn a/c in record heat, etc.
We are facing down a massive, gargantuan snake. And there are still some of us talking about taking small bites from the tail up to devour it. Instead of cutting off the head. Do those small bites actually help? On the most minuscule level, yes. But that head is still mowing down on everything and everyone while we argue about how to properly and effectively bite from the tail up. Cut off the fucking head and deal with the rest when the most dangerous part is vanquished.
The ability and willingness among the people to make the necessary changes—not to mention the efficacy of those individual changes on such a massive problem—make this conversation about how to best keep your clean outfits dry on the titanic. Useless. (And as I’ve always had to do in this conversation, qualify my statements by saying that yes, going vegetarian and vegan are great, doing anything with a net positive effect on the world around you is admirable and we should encourage it. But in this context, he framing of the conversation is deadly important. And that’s my entire point.)