People aren’t blindly consuming though, they’re consuming mostly as a necessity, without much choice in the impact of what they consume. Us down here at the bottom of the class hierarchy don’t have a lot of wiggle room. In general, the lower and middle classes much more rarely consume for pleasure, but even still, why shouldn’t I get to take a plane for vacation once or twice a year, sucking the farts of the 300 other peasants in the economy class seats, while CEOs take single-passenger trips in their private jets every day? Do you see how that’s frustrating? My footprint is already incredibly low because on top of just not consuming all that much in the first place (compared to a billionaire), I do try to be as responsible as I reasonably can. Billionaires aren’t even trying.
I think the big point is, it would be magnitudes easier to get the 100 richest people to lower their carbon footprint than the 1 billion poorest (do you understand how monstrously difficult it is to convince 1 billion, or even 1 million people to work towards some common goal?), and it would probably have a bigger impact on the environment to boot. I’m getting tired of people continuing to advocate for individual action when actions by billionaires would be so much more impactful, for so much less sacrifice on their part. Work smarter, not harder, you know?
Obviously, the best solution is to do both, to tackle the problem from both sides. But in my personal opinion, I think we should start with the billionaires and see where that gets us first. They owe us at least that much.
We’re talking about two different groups of people here. The working class trying to survive get a pass on individual actions because they have no means. They should probably vote and organize and get engaged to better their outcomes.
I’m talking about the millions of people that have the means, but just don’t because they quite literally don’t care. I see them every day. It’s the millions of people buying new $60k trucks and SUVs every few years, and large suburban homes, and who have trash cans that are 5x the size of mine that still can’t contain their mindless shopping detritus, and spend tons of money on trendy home furnishings but “don’t think solar makes sense” or don’t bother trying literally anything that reduces carbon.
I’m saying that giving millions of these people a pass because a billionaire is worse isn’t helpful, and expecting these folks to magically work towards sustainable collective action when they spend their entire lives living the opposite of sustainability is simply not going to work. If you can convince neighbors to get heat pumps solar and give them a test ride on your ebike and show them how easy it is to live without gas you can probably get them to vote for someone that is focused on the climate. Sitting around you and your neighbors matching F150s blaming China and Bezos and speaking in abstract terms about “collective action” seems less effective to me.
I’m saying that giving millions of these people a pass because a billionaire is worse isn’t helpful
I’m not giving them a pass. I do my part, and I encourage others to do theirs. It’s billionaires who are getting a pass. There’s next to no consequence for large scale damage to the environment, if you’re rich enough.
and expecting these folks to magically work towards sustainable collective action when they spend their entire lives living the opposite of sustainability is simply not going to work.
I one hundred percent agree, it’s a tall task to get that undereducated, uncaring group to think about the environment.
What is a shorter task, is passing taxes, policies, and other financial incentives to make billionaires pay for the damage they’re doing. Which in all likelihood, will come in the form of not offering all those horribly irresponsible products. Kills two birds with one stone.
Yes, there is a difference between the elite and the lower class, but it’s only in resources and opportunities. If both sides switched positions the lower class people would go for exactly the same fun as the elite is having right know. Because that’s the way we are born and raised, greedy and selfish. Purging a couple of assholes and replacing them with fresh soon-to-be assholes won’t solve this. Our mindset needs to change. We need to agree on what is important, what is enough and what’s obscene.
If both sides switched positions the lower class people would go for exactly the same fun as the elite is having right know.
Then it seems to me that the real problem is the capacity for damage that being a billionaire grants you, not the people involved. Maybe we need to start looking at ways to limit the damage billionaires can do, instead of focusing so hard on changing the behavior of the masses.
Purging a couple of assholes and replacing them with fresh soon-to-be assholes won’t solve this
I’m not suggesting a purge, I’m suggesting we change the behavior of the billionaire class. That can be achieved with taxes, policy, and financial incentives just as easily as with violence (probably easier tbh).
Our mindset needs to change.
Dawg, we’ve been trying to change the mindset since (at least*) the 90s, and it’s just not enough. You and I can reuse our sustainably sourced reusable hemp shopping bags all we want, reduce our consumption all we want, recycle all we want, it doesn’t change the fact that Kroger is shipping in produce from half a planet away on a daily basis. We need to go further, and make the upper class take their share of responsibility for the damage they do to the environment.
We need to agree on what is enough and what’s obscene.
Agreeing on what’s enough is hard, but agreeing on what’s obscene is much much easier, and I think it’s safe to say that nearly every billionaire in the world exceeds what we can agree is obscene. That’s a much easier problem to solve, one we have the tools to solve now. Let’s tackle that first, while we work through the harder problem of figuring out what’s enough.
I like this debate, yet it’s getting long and complex, this would be better face to face. That’s why I’m picking only one topic:
One hemp bag needs to be used +1000 times to replace a thousand plastic bags in co2 emissions (they degrade, so at least they don’t kill sea animals, though). I have like 50 of them at home (bought none of them). Recycling is a lie as well, most stuff is still useless.
My point is: People are all for saving the planet as long as it’s as easy as buying a different or even a new product. People love to consume. But we won’t save anything with this mentality. We need to go NO THANKS! and stop habits that really affect us. Kroger shipping produce is not the problem, look at the first graph here, the stuff millions eat daily is. So, no more flying, no more meat, no more Amazon, we need to ostracize this behavior. Clean energy, public transport, EV, you money at an ethical bank is great if you can afford it and will get us a long way.
Again: I know this won’t save us and I’m all for canceling fossil destroyers, holding billionaires accountable and putting CEOs in jail. But it’s much easier to change yourself than to change Tylor Swift.
Brother, a huge chunk of people outside of Europe can’t do things like choose cleaner energy sources, choose to use public transportation, choose to live car free, choose to eat local produce, or choose to do any of those things in the articles you listed, because those choices do not exist for them. I don’t have access to local produce except a few weekends in the summer. My city doesn’t have functional public transportation. My apartment doesn’t let me choose where I get my energy from, and even if it did, there probably wouldn’t be a clean energy option in my state. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if more coal power plants were being built, due to lobbying and politicians that I voted against. Don’t you see how it’s frustrating when you say that these individual actions need to be the focus when it’s impossible for a ton of people to take those actions?
Well, if you can’t then don’t!
No meat, no planes and no unnecessary Amazon purchases still applies. Be the change you want to see in the world. Or are just looking for an excuse like the billionaires and everyone else?
That may be how you were raised, but most of us were taught sandbox rules. You don’t just grab everything you can because it won’t be there tomorrow, you share or else.
People aren’t blindly consuming though, they’re consuming mostly as a necessity, without much choice in the impact of what they consume. Us down here at the bottom of the class hierarchy don’t have a lot of wiggle room. In general, the lower and middle classes much more rarely consume for pleasure, but even still, why shouldn’t I get to take a plane for vacation once or twice a year, sucking the farts of the 300 other peasants in the economy class seats, while CEOs take single-passenger trips in their private jets every day? Do you see how that’s frustrating? My footprint is already incredibly low because on top of just not consuming all that much in the first place (compared to a billionaire), I do try to be as responsible as I reasonably can. Billionaires aren’t even trying.
I think the big point is, it would be magnitudes easier to get the 100 richest people to lower their carbon footprint than the 1 billion poorest (do you understand how monstrously difficult it is to convince 1 billion, or even 1 million people to work towards some common goal?), and it would probably have a bigger impact on the environment to boot. I’m getting tired of people continuing to advocate for individual action when actions by billionaires would be so much more impactful, for so much less sacrifice on their part. Work smarter, not harder, you know?
Obviously, the best solution is to do both, to tackle the problem from both sides. But in my personal opinion, I think we should start with the billionaires and see where that gets us first. They owe us at least that much.
We’re talking about two different groups of people here. The working class trying to survive get a pass on individual actions because they have no means. They should probably vote and organize and get engaged to better their outcomes.
I’m talking about the millions of people that have the means, but just don’t because they quite literally don’t care. I see them every day. It’s the millions of people buying new $60k trucks and SUVs every few years, and large suburban homes, and who have trash cans that are 5x the size of mine that still can’t contain their mindless shopping detritus, and spend tons of money on trendy home furnishings but “don’t think solar makes sense” or don’t bother trying literally anything that reduces carbon.
I’m saying that giving millions of these people a pass because a billionaire is worse isn’t helpful, and expecting these folks to magically work towards sustainable collective action when they spend their entire lives living the opposite of sustainability is simply not going to work. If you can convince neighbors to get heat pumps solar and give them a test ride on your ebike and show them how easy it is to live without gas you can probably get them to vote for someone that is focused on the climate. Sitting around you and your neighbors matching F150s blaming China and Bezos and speaking in abstract terms about “collective action” seems less effective to me.
Sorry for the rant!
I’m not giving them a pass. I do my part, and I encourage others to do theirs. It’s billionaires who are getting a pass. There’s next to no consequence for large scale damage to the environment, if you’re rich enough.
I one hundred percent agree, it’s a tall task to get that undereducated, uncaring group to think about the environment.
What is a shorter task, is passing taxes, policies, and other financial incentives to make billionaires pay for the damage they’re doing. Which in all likelihood, will come in the form of not offering all those horribly irresponsible products. Kills two birds with one stone.
Yes, there is a difference between the elite and the lower class, but it’s only in resources and opportunities. If both sides switched positions the lower class people would go for exactly the same fun as the elite is having right know. Because that’s the way we are born and raised, greedy and selfish. Purging a couple of assholes and replacing them with fresh soon-to-be assholes won’t solve this. Our mindset needs to change. We need to agree on what is important, what is enough and what’s obscene.
Then it seems to me that the real problem is the capacity for damage that being a billionaire grants you, not the people involved. Maybe we need to start looking at ways to limit the damage billionaires can do, instead of focusing so hard on changing the behavior of the masses.
I’m not suggesting a purge, I’m suggesting we change the behavior of the billionaire class. That can be achieved with taxes, policy, and financial incentives just as easily as with violence (probably easier tbh).
Dawg, we’ve been trying to change the mindset since (at least*) the 90s, and it’s just not enough. You and I can reuse our sustainably sourced reusable hemp shopping bags all we want, reduce our consumption all we want, recycle all we want, it doesn’t change the fact that Kroger is shipping in produce from half a planet away on a daily basis. We need to go further, and make the upper class take their share of responsibility for the damage they do to the environment.
Agreeing on what’s enough is hard, but agreeing on what’s obscene is much much easier, and I think it’s safe to say that nearly every billionaire in the world exceeds what we can agree is obscene. That’s a much easier problem to solve, one we have the tools to solve now. Let’s tackle that first, while we work through the harder problem of figuring out what’s enough.
I like this debate, yet it’s getting long and complex, this would be better face to face. That’s why I’m picking only one topic:
One hemp bag needs to be used +1000 times to replace a thousand plastic bags in co2 emissions (they degrade, so at least they don’t kill sea animals, though). I have like 50 of them at home (bought none of them). Recycling is a lie as well, most stuff is still useless.
My point is: People are all for saving the planet as long as it’s as easy as buying a different or even a new product. People love to consume. But we won’t save anything with this mentality. We need to go NO THANKS! and stop habits that really affect us. Kroger shipping produce is not the problem, look at the first graph here, the stuff millions eat daily is. So, no more flying, no more meat, no more Amazon, we need to ostracize this behavior. Clean energy, public transport, EV, you money at an ethical bank is great if you can afford it and will get us a long way.
Again: I know this won’t save us and I’m all for canceling fossil destroyers, holding billionaires accountable and putting CEOs in jail. But it’s much easier to change yourself than to change Tylor Swift.
poore-nemecek can’t be trusted to be the basis of my dietary decisions. it probably can’t even be trusted to have understood it’s own source data.
Brother, a huge chunk of people outside of Europe can’t do things like choose cleaner energy sources, choose to use public transportation, choose to live car free, choose to eat local produce, or choose to do any of those things in the articles you listed, because those choices do not exist for them. I don’t have access to local produce except a few weekends in the summer. My city doesn’t have functional public transportation. My apartment doesn’t let me choose where I get my energy from, and even if it did, there probably wouldn’t be a clean energy option in my state. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if more coal power plants were being built, due to lobbying and politicians that I voted against. Don’t you see how it’s frustrating when you say that these individual actions need to be the focus when it’s impossible for a ton of people to take those actions?
Well, if you can’t then don’t!
No meat, no planes and no unnecessary Amazon purchases still applies. Be the change you want to see in the world. Or are just looking for an excuse like the billionaires and everyone else?
That may be how you were raised, but most of us were taught sandbox rules. You don’t just grab everything you can because it won’t be there tomorrow, you share or else.