Comment by WarmWash
13 hours ago
The real problem is that everyone has to sacrifice, but half the people think there is no problem and then other half thinks only corporations need to sacrifice (and are unwilling to sacrifice themselves).
13 hours ago
The real problem is that everyone has to sacrifice, but half the people think there is no problem and then other half thinks only corporations need to sacrifice (and are unwilling to sacrifice themselves).
No one thinks only corporations have to sacrifice; they do think that it's folly to ask individual members of society, who on average contribute the smallest overall proportion to global warming, to sacrifice while corporations continue to squander away our natural resources. And the pareto principle agrees.
Yeah but there's a lot of individual members of society, and nearly all of them benefit from supply chains that emit CO2 and would have to stop doing so in order to not emit the CO2.
If gasoline in the US cost $20/gallon this would reduce the amount of CO2 emissions because suddenly driving a gasoline-powered car is much more expensive for everyone. This would make a lot of ordinary Americans very upset.
No, that's insufficient. Yes, corporations that cause the most warming will need to be curtailed if we're to survive. But those corporations are in the act externalizing costs. Once you force them to internalize those costs, the visible costs to consumers will increase, meaning less consumption overall. If you can't convince those consumers that less consumption is a good thing if it's in the service of saving the biosphere, then they're going to rebel against your efforts to properly force companies to account for the environmental costs of their products. There's no either/or here, it's the responsibility of both corporations and individuals.
I think the problem may be that consumerism is the only thing most people have left. Capitalism has already comodified culture, ground workers down to replacable cogs, and put home ownership out of reach. I think its reasonable for people to demand that some of those things be given back in exchange for abandoning consumerism.
Oil companies sell you gasoline that you burn.
One rule which always holds true in life: people who ask for sacrifice will never sacrifice an inch themselves. No matter what cause.
People love to point out a hypocrite but math and statistics are rarely kind to laws that always hold true.