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Not my OC but what I've believed for years: there's no conflict between reducing your own environmental impact and holding corporations responsible. We hold corps responsible for the environment by creating a societal ethos of environmental responsibility that forces corporations to serve the people's needs or go bankrupt or be outlawed. And anyone who feels that kind of ethos will reduce their own environmental impact because it's the right thing to do.
Thoughts?
People don't vote with their wallets for the best option, they vote with their wallets for what they can afford.
Everyone would like a Tesla model geewiz with zero emissions, but what they can afford is a 30 year old shitbox that burns as much oil as it does gas. They'd love to buy your supergreen organic carbon neutral groceries, but they can afford pb&j and ramen. They'd love to buy widgets made by fat happy employees that earn a living wage in a 100% renewable powered factory, but they can afford chinesium widgets made in a smelly ass factory that dumps it's waste out the back door full of workers paid a dollar a week...
People can't afford for their needs to dictate how society is structured. The structure of society dictates the needs of a huge majority of people. The exact inverse of what you're suggesting is what the simple reality is.
indeed. that's why we need to focus our energy on systemic solutions, not individual solutions.
Yup.
The flip side of this, is, of course, that voting with your wallet means that people with bigger wallets get more votes, and that results in the rich always getting their way.
Everyone would like a Tesla model geewiz with zero emissions
But that's exactly the problem! That right there is illustrative of the whole problem! Cars are not the solution, electrical or otherwise (electrical cars are still bad for the environment for a myriad of reasons)! And yet, instead of wanting more walkable and bikable cities, with more public transports, most people just want electrical vehicles; a "solution" that doesn't require them to change anything about their lives, or requires any actual systematic change.
And as for "supergreen organic carbon neutral groceries":
Anywhere I know of, most greens are cheaper than meat, and yet 2 things are true in a lot of the developed world:
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that most people could eat less meat than they do - especially red meat, which is worse - but they don't. They actively chose to keep consuming, and overconsuming, even when they don't have to. If they can walk, they'll make excuses to take the car. If they can take public transport, they'll still make excuses to take the car. The philosophy of "I don't have to do anything, it's the corporations and government who have to act" just enables that behaviour, and also raises two questions:
What will those people do when policy comes in to place that requires actual change from them? Will they be OK with it, or will they end up taking the system down and electing someone who undoes everything?
If people truly care so much, why aren't all countries around the world electing more environmentally aware parties that enact more effective change?
I think convincing people pollution is morally wrong and to avoid it as much as possible in their own lives, will not only make the systematic change easier, it will also cause those people to actively fight for better and more effective changes when they realize they are being limited by the system itself. As opposed to now, where they just keep doing their thing, electing the same people, and just hope someone sorts it out without bothering them.
Speaking from a US point of view, society is often structured in such a way that a lot of the solutions you offer are made significantly difficult for consumers, especially with lower income.
People simply aren't well-enough off to be able to look beyond their own experience and want to improve the world as well. I think that's why we need to champion worker's rights as a big part of the push towards all this, too
I agree entirely. You should live ethically because it's the right thing to do, and the fact that it won't save the entire world on its own shouldn't be an excuse not to. That there's so much leftist pushback on this idea of maintaining your ethics in your personal life is really disheartening. Consumption really is a mind virus that is determined to keep you hooked, even among those who should know better.
If we can't maintain our ethics in the small bubble that is our own lives, how exactly do we intend to maintain them on a societal level? And if you don't respect nature now, why should I expect you to start respecting it after we change some laws? Start now, at least for some of it. You're gonna have to do all of this eventually anyways. So what do you have to lose?
I'll start out with the most damning response to the "footprint" concept: carbon footprint is almost entirely dictated by your income.
The logic that consumer behaviour puts pressure on corporations is based on the logic of supply & demand based pricing.
The problem is, that's an article of faith and not really supported by the evidence. When you put that theory to the test the evidence shows that pricing follows a model where companies effectively dictate their prices to you. It doesn't follow supply and demand.
This is an interview of two economists on this topic: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/everyone-else-admits-we-were-right-122933018/
They also skewer the whole institution of orthodox economics here. I found it quite cathartic.
But the upshot of this is, in my opinion, the only way to reduce your personal carbon footprint is to make yourself "poor" at least as far as the economy is concerned. That may sound impossible, but I think it dovetails nicely with my own politics of building mutual aid networks, where people create alternative methods of directly meeting one another's needs and help wean one another off our dependence on capital and the state.
That isn't consumer activism as much as it is anti-consumer, and that's kind of incidental to its primary goal to create a political body that undermines the entire machinery of capitalism whilst educating common people on how to run a world for and by themselves.
I think I'd quite like to try out a society that praised things like humility, modesty, selflessness
and vilified things like, gluttony, vanity. envy, pride, greed.
I'm not sure where i'm going to find one of those - it'd probably get attacked by some international agency that claims to have intelligence.
I'd agree with your politics there, too. The poorer you make yourself, the more likely you are to live a moral life. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to also make it a good, comfortable, safe life, and I think it's a bit much to ask people to go that much against their own interests. (This varies from country to country of course, I'm sure there's places where you'd be ok)
Part of the point of the mutual aid is to make life better without needing the money. That's why I put "poor" in quotations and specified in the eyes of the economy.
Fair, I should have made the effort to use "poor" in quotations, too. I love the idea of mutual aid working that way. I guess I'd be worried about relying on it for anything as potentially life-or-death as healthcare, but that's a few steps further down the line than we're discussing here
Yeah, you take the steps you can when you can. The ultimate point is to create a real alternative to the existing power structure. The anti consumerism is a by-product.
Edit: maybe the anti-consumerism is necessarily interwoven in the project, because you are freeing yourself from reliance on consumer goods and from the entire consumer identity.
Their "own interests"
this is a key phrase here for me.
Once a person has a modest amount; is it in their interests to eat more and get fat, or to live in a place where other people share in having a modest amount, or, at least have a fair oppotunity to get a modest amount.
A person's morality will influence the scope of their concept of "own interests".
And therefore how much they want beyond meeting their "own basic needs" before they start caring more about neighbours with unfulfilled "basic needs".
I'm not particularly for/against anything here, but holding corporations accountable is the only practical option for legitimately reducing environmental degradation.
We could all use paper straws and long-lasting lightbulbs, and it would have a negligible effect on the environment. Add to that the issue that it's unlikely we'll all ever do anything.
I like the idea of personal responsibility for consumer decisions. But, it won't really reduce the global environmental impact of corporations. In that sense, getting really into sustainability with your own behavior is more about a personal sense of righteousness than anything else. If we're going to reduce the ongoing harm to the environment, we must reduce corporate power. Of the two options above, it's the only one that will produce any measurable positive impact on the environment.
The other side knows this, which is why it ridicules our movements at all times. When, for instance, 400,000 people march on New York City, I know that I will get a stream of ugly tweets and emails about how—saints preserve us—it takes gasoline to get to New York City. Indeed it does. If you live in a society that has dismantled its train system, then lots of people will need to drive and take the bus, and it will be the most useful gallons they burn in the course of the year. Because that’s what pushes systems to change.
When brave people go to jail, cynics email me to ask how much gas the paddywagon requires. When brave people head out in kayaks to block the biggest drilling rigs on earth, I always know I’ll be reading dozens of tweets from clever and deadened souls asking “don’t you know the plastic for those kayaks require oil?” Yes, we know—and we’ve decided it’s well worth it. We’re not trying to be saints; we’re trying to be effective.
... Movements take care of their own: They provide bail money and they push each other’s ideas around the web. They join forces across issues: BlackLivesMatter endorsing fossil fuel divestment, climate justice activists fighting deportations. They recognize that together we might just have enough strength to get it done. So when people ask me what can I do, I know say the same thing every time: “The most important thing an individual can do is not be an individual. Join together—that’s why we have movements like 350.org or Green for All, like BlackLivesMatter or Occupy. If there’s not a fight where you live, find people to support, from Standing Rock to the Pacific islands. Job one is to organize and jobs two and three.”
And if you have some time left over after that, then by all means make sure your lightbulbs are all LEDs and your kale comes from close to home.
--Bill McKibben: The Question I Get Asked the Most
I've personally witnessed the tension between people who equate individual environmental impact with morality and those who are trying to organize social movements. I wish they were complementary, but often that is not the case. The condescension from people who can afford environmentally-conscious products or have hours to spare for less time-efficient forms of travel and cooking is destructive to movements, especially when organizing in low-income and immigrant communities. Ecological individualism is great if it is done in ways that complement or support mass action, otherwise it is merely performative.
Unless you're a millionaire, I don't care how you're spending your money, as long as you're there when we need you.
@stabby_cicada The rich (people, countries) are the ones who pollute the most... they should be the first to decarbonize (because they can afford it) and they should help pay for everyone else to decarbonize. *Everyone* can help pressure corporations/politicians (with pressure campaigns and votes) to decarbonize at scale, to develop a climate plan for your local school/government, to demand better regulation of pollution.
It's ALL OF THE ABOVE that needs to happen. As fast as possible.
The drivers for change are multifaceted, as you point out. One of the main drivers for big corporations are there reputation because it directly affects their long-term profitability. Other drivers include things like shareholder perception which is also linked to their reputation. You see this a lot in mining, where companies like TECK are splitting or offloading coal investments because of public and shareholder perception. Perception also plays a role in regulatory approvals for mines as well, which ultimately can dictate their approval and how they operate. At some mines there are now electric mining trucks or electric assisted mining trucks that are more fuel efficient because of perception but also because of fuel costs. When multiple drivers come together, it creates change.
People who reduce their own environmental impact often take it personal when other's don't praise them or copy their behaviour. There's often a tendency of judging others for their choices. I really try to watch myself but I'm not free from it, and I guess we all know also how annoying it is to be on the receiving end of these world improvement attempts.
Companies on the other hand are not people, so we don't have to be kind to them. We should always hold them accountable for their actions.
... thinking this further, personal responsibility and corporate responsibility are connected. Corporations consist of people. I decide every day to continue working for a bunch of corporations who aren't providing useful service for society. You might do the same. Each individual person who gets up in the morning and continues to do their job within a deeply unjust and destructive society is perpetuating the destruction - but it's like we are waiting for the others to start first. Because obviously it's utterly scary to imagine running to join the revolution with a raised fist and then find everybody else stayed sitting at their desks. So we just shake our fists a little, and go vegan or take the bus so we don't feel so bad about our participation in perpetuating the destruction.
... and I think that's where our joy of life and art comes in, because art gives us the chance to dream the life we want, the society we want, the relations we want, while we are forced to survive in this deeply flawed version of reality. As for our fellow world improvers, the kind thing is to cheer them on: yay, you're still with us, plant eaters, bus takers, writers, doers!
Ok, but the reality is, as long as the rich are regularly taking corporate jets, and we know government’s not going to act on it, why would John/Jane Q. Public cut their own waste? It’s going to make their lives measurably worse without real benefit to them or climate change. I understand why one might, but we are not going to convince enough more people to “do the right thing” to make a difference if that’s the argument.
Well, the answer, and you imply towards the end, is that it's morally wrong.
If I said...
There are wars currently going on. Slavery, torture, some mass shootings, and every now and then even a genocide happens in the world. So until we stop all that, why shouldn't I go and punch some random person in the face, if it will make me feel better? After all, it's just a drop of water in an ocean of violance.
...you would probably call me an ass, maybe even a lunatic. You'd say I was just looking for excuses to keep being an ass. But that's the thought process you (not just you, more of a general you) are defending and making an excuse for.
The more "utilitarian" answer is that if we can't expect people to make changes in their lives by themselves when they have the choice to, why would we expect them to be okay being forced to make those changes by a government? And why wouldn't they just then go vote for someone who undoes it all?
What if I punch the people who are causing the majority of those bad things.. or maybe eat them.. is that wrong?
I think it's more a matter of going after someone randomly punching people in the face every now and then when there's mass shootings and stuff even worse going on would be a bad use of resources, even though of course the person punching people is morally in the wrong. Similarly, encouraging people to reduce waste and cycle more is not a good use of resources, when companies are burning coal and rich people take their private jets everywhere.
I don't see how consuming less resources is waste of resources.
At the end of the day, they are both morally wrong and reprehensible. Neither should be done if it can be avoided.
I don't feel like writing too much, so I'll just leave this here to perhaps add some context. It's another (longer) comment I wrote earlier about the topic.
On the idea of consuming less resources being a waste of resources: Every one of us has a limited amount of mental energy. Most of us have to spend a lot of that on making a living. If we want to live perfectly moral lives, we can expend the rest of it doing that. But then that is the only thing we will change in the world. On the other hand, if we spend that energy on reforming policy and inspiring societal change, we may have further reaching effects. I don't think the former is necessarily the more moral choice, though it definitely is a moral one. In an ideal world, we'd all do both of course
Agreed. It's simply lip service to absolve people of their own part of the responsibility for the problems of the world. It's highly disingenuous. If you can't act with any level of personal responsibility, how can you be a good advocate for corporate responsibility?
I disagree. It isn't lip service.
It is NOT your personal decisions that are ruining the planet. Only collective action can do that and so only collective action can address it.
The term carbon footprint was invented by British Petroleum to fracture and confuse people who desired a more beautiful and sustainable world. It worked like hell. Insanely effective. Still showing continuing efficacy even when British Petroleum behaves with such ruinous irresponsibility they had to change their goddamn name to try and make people forget who they really are.
You should be a responsible consumer to the degree you can. You should make choices to signal your own preferences to the world, to remind people that a better life is possible, and to reward the businesses that behave well. You should not be shaming and gatekeeping people who fail to behave their best by holding them to incredibly unfair standards like "if you can’t act with any level of personal responsibility, how can you be a good advocate for corporate responsibility". You absolutely, 100% can be an a good advocate for corporate and collective responsibility without having good personal behaviors and we NEED the people who behave exactly like this if we want the planet to have a future. Because we need their votes. And people who gatekeep and shame others for their perceived bad behaviors drive them away instead of calling them in.
You absolutely, 100% can be an a good advocate for corporate and collective responsibility without having good personal behaviors
Frankly I disagree. Someone like that can say all the right things and vote the right way as long as their personal behaviors aren't impacted. But what will keep them advocating for corporate responsibility once the stuff they want to buy becomes more expensive?
Telling people you can support corporate responsibility and keep consuming the way you do today is a lie. Because corporate responsibility means producing less means consumption becomes more expensive means your standard of living goes down. And anybody who supports good environmental policy as long as their personal behaviors aren't impacted will at that point reverse course.
No, I think a true environmental movement has to start with the personal and moral. People need to believe reduced consumption is a moral good for both people and corporations. And then they vote their values and accept the consequences and the personal becomes political.
It is the opposite.
The way people vote affects the regulations and markets. It directly impacts their personal behaviors.
Telling people you can support corporate responsibility and keep consuming the way you do today is a lie.
It's also not something I nor anyone else here has said. It's a total strawman. The point is that you can advocate for systemic changes that will even affect your own behaviors without being a leader in those behaviors.
People need to believe reduced consumption is a moral good for both people and corporations.
Yes. To get them to vote and act collectively. You don't need every single person to be a leader held to some invisible and impossible standard and told to GTFO if they can't hit that standard. You need them to vote.
It’s also not something I nor anyone else here has said. It’s a total strawman.
It's not just about this place, it's about the average person. Every time this topic comes up, people always get very defensive and take it personally, often times even going on about "I already do all this, and that, and some other things, what else can I do?". Well, chances are the criticism is not directed at you, then.
The criticism is directed at the people who base a big part of their diet on red meat; it's directed at people who make excuses to drive when they could have easily walked or taken a bike but thought driving was more convenient and comfortable; it's about people who have access to public transports but don't want to take them because they'd have to walk five minutes to or from the station, or don't want to "smell other people", or just want "the privacy of my own car". It's directed at people who could do more, but actively chose not to, and then blame the system and say policy needs to change.
Policy would mean not subsiding red meat, therefore making it more expensive; it would mean raising prices of gas and forcing those people to walk more or ride more public transports; it would mean anything made of plastic would be a lot more expensive, and anything that needs to be shipped somewhere would be too.
How many people do you think would actually be okay with those policies, when they won't even do it out of their own free will when given the option? How long until they regret it and vote for someone who undoes all the policies?
Even if we ignore all that and say that voting is the most important thing, how many green and ecological parties do you see winning elections around the world?
No matter how you measure it, it's clear most people are not pushing that hard for change. The average person is choosing convenience and comfort over everything else, and just hopes someone else will sort out the problems - in a way that doesn't really affect them or their choices. It's also the reason there's such a large push from the average "environmentally aware" person for electrical vehicles (even though they're still bad for the environment) instead of more transports; it would mean not having to change anything in their lives.
More people would walk, bike, or take transit if these options were less shitty. If the car weren't formally preferred by the state and given priority over other options.
More people would eat fresh produce over fast food hamburgers if that produce were available as conveniently as the fast food dive instead of a supercenter you have to drive to at the edge of town.
Fewer disposable plastic goods will be used when the major companies stop handing them out left right and center.
This is all big "YET YOU LIVE IN A SOCIETY, CURIOUS!" energy. People can want to make their world more sustainable without adopting a full-on crunchy lifestyle. People can advocate for change knowing it will help others in the future even if it doesn't match with how they currently live. I'm sick and tired of lefty types and environmentalists treating the "average person" like a simpleton who's incapable of having complex thoughts or feelings. Who's incapable of doing anything but acting in their own selfish, shortsighted interest. It's not individual consumers behaving selfishly that got us here.
No matter how you measure it, it's clear a lot of big capital and corporate interests are fighting hard against the reforms that will make it easier and less stressful for people to adopt better, more sustainable lifestyles. People are being pressured to live certain lifestyles by the fact that our entire society is built on the economic power of consumerism. The idea of personal responsibility has been efficiently weaponized to get people mad at their neighbors for not composting instead of being mad at their city for expanding that 4-lane suburban artillery to "make room" for the expected traffic to another Walmart (that will be getting property tax incentives to build there).
You bring up EVs as if it makes your point, but they don't. EVs make my point. The individually-responsible thing most people can do is switch out their ICE car for an EV. It's the best they can do to lower their personal footprints in a society that requires most people drive for most trips. And even if every ICE passenger vehicle were swapped out with an EV tomorrow, that would not be even close to enough -- not to even mention most people cannot afford that trade and the halo of other hugely negative problems that would come from it.
This is the problem with any focus on individual responsibility. We need to take action collectively. The voices tut-tutting people for eating fast food over growing their own potatoes in a window box are weapons used by conservatives and capital to divide and conquer, even when they're repeated by self-professed progressives.
You absolutely, 100% can be an a good advocate for corporate and collective responsibility without having good personal behaviors and we NEED the people who behave exactly like this if we want the planet to have a future.
If they can't handle it now at least in some degree, then I don't see how they'll be able to handle it in a much worse degree after we make these large reforms and changes. My fear is that these people will turn away from us as soon as things get too hard and run into the arms of the first strongman who tells them they'll make it all better.
I also do not see it as gatekeeping to ask people to do better. Nobody is saying they can't vote with us. We're just asking them to not wait until forced to make at least some changes.
@stabby_cicada its still collective action at the end of the day if you hope to have an impact.
I would suggest strategic boycotts can have an impact at times. Generally voting with your dollars is most useful when supporting local alternatives where your individual dollars really have a big impact.
The danger with individual responsibility campaigns is they tend to shift focus away from those with the real power (as has been stated here by others).
Take a look at the history of the Make America Beautiful campaign to see how corporations have intentionally pushed this narrative to shift focus off of them.
I don't really know how oil corps are going to be "held to account" at an international level in any effective way. Who is going to do what to them? for how long? with what mandate? Edward Norton with some home made soap?
Oil/coal corps seem to be better at creating laws for the benefit of them than democratic processes are for the benefit of people. Even in countries that they don't operate in (especially if they want to operate there).
I think underlying it all is a prisoners dilemma / tragedy of commons type situation - co-operative solutions can sometimes emerge and even persist, but they can be unstable or easier to destabilise than would be nice. Coupled with a large power imbalance (since wars, military and oil are all quite closely related).
If a person can reduce the amount of fossil fuels they use directly and indirectly, or modify their lifestyle / environment to use less of it, then that might be their best (only) method to actually erode their power (however slightly).
Slowing/stopping/reversing climate change could be achieved much more readily if "people" (in general or specifically activists) were willing to accept some sacrifice, which is to say decrease in their standard of living.
However, I think that's a third rail that no one wants to touch. See "veganism is too hard", "biking takes too long", "I'm really busy, I have to use plastic water bottles", etc. There are of course people for which it really is not possible, but also many where they are just unwilling to sacrifice.
Therefore, the only way to maintain our current standard of living while ameliorating climate change is through rapid technological advancement. I'm not hopeful.
I feel like this is the option that is most discussed in public discourse, which is the problem. If we discuss climate change through the lense of "Why don't people bike, since driving is bad for the planet?" rather than "What structural changes (bike lanes, public transit, car-free city centers, etc.) can we offer to encourage people to cycle more?" or even "What are the biggest transport-related emissions (private jets, flying in fresh fruit from halfway across the world, using trucks for shipping, etc.) and how can we work as a society to eliminate them?", then people will feel disenfranchised, and even if we all started cycling it wouldn't help nearly as much as if we tackled the bigger corporate issues. It's neither pragmatic nor fair to focus on individual action at the scale of single consumers.
I agree with that wholeheartedly. "How do we make people want to behave better" is the question I want to pour my energy at, and I don't think shaming them and making them defensive is the way to do it.
Because right now, we mostly do the opposite. We systematically encourage people to make the wrong choices through our markets and built environments. And pearl-clutching about bad actors in that environment is totally unreasonable and unfair, in my opinion.
That's a great point. I hadn't thought about it quite that way before. Thanks.
I had to think about this a bit. Ultimately, I still can't think of any historical precedents where a people reacted proactively to a threat with relatively unknown consequences (to the individual). Maybe I'm missing something.
While it does no harm (and in fact probably makes sense) to invest in multiple strategies to fight climate change as a society, I have to admit that I don't think attempting to change people's minds regarding climate change is the most effectual. Consider that not only do you have to convince the "Western" world (which already has a high standard of living) to reduce emissions, you also have to somewhat repress development of nations which are striving to industrialize and will almost certainly be emitting more greenhouse and toxic gases in the future. See China, India, Africa, etc.
I agree that blaming consumers is counter-productive to the goal of convincing society to be more sustainable, but given the limited time we have, technologies like carbon capture, fusion, massive solar/wind, should be the core strategy in ameliorating the effects of climate change.
If Individual Reponsibility actually somehow lead to the ratification of laws for corporate accountability then the Corporations wouldn't have spent the last 60 years pushing it, imo. I mean, sure, promote it, I recycle aluminium despite it being 12 miles out of my way to do so, but don't act like it does any more than it actually does.
The issues I have with this is you can't put this on just the customers, companies, or the government. If we say it's just the customers the amount of waste a person creates is very small. The latest thing is the straws and if we cut that out then that can give people a false sense of security. The companies are the big causes of pollution. The issue with that is trying to track down what a company is doing or even what company owns a project. The government is the only one that can really have the resources to try track what a company is doing. They also are able to have a lot of incentives that will cause a real impact on the companies. These can be in the case of fines or tax break. Just one group can't change this alone, it will take everyone. One more issue with just the customers is you can't expect a family that is having a hard time to pay their bills to spend more money. The environment is important but if you can't have a roof over your head doing it you won't do it.
I guess it just yanks my chain to have to limit the way I live (or use more expensive “green” options) when I know the major polluters are doing nothing of the sort and only make steps towards renewables or green options when it directly benifits them with lowered costs or a better public image.
I understand that change happens in small increments and spending money on green alternatives will guide the market but it is annoying that it falls to the ones who are smart enough to understand the dangers and caring enough to do anything about.
I know a couple who make coffee at home every morning and put it in a disposable cup with a plastic lid. New cup every day. They aren’t callous, they’re just not smart people. And their reward is to not worry about the the things we do.
End rant
Ethical consumption without collective action has no teeth -- what if none of the corporations offer ethical goods to consume?
Collective action without ethical consumption has no stamina -- if people are unprepared for personal sacrifice, how many will continue to support the reduction of unethical goods once the corporations reduce production and/or raise prices?
Corporations don't operate under the same rules, laws or have the same motivations as humans do.
The humans that run them can't change this without laws and appropriately tough penalties enforcing new behavior.
What he speaks of may work on the local mom and pop retail store or restaurant.
Whoever wrote this is way off base when it comes to multinational mega corps.