Edit: I wanted to apologize after reading some of the comments. You raise some legitimate points, I realize that there is a subtle malthusian element to this chart and some of you feel like a burden already. Furthermore, you raise a good point about corporate pollution, oil companies, and how their footprint is much greater than average plebs like us.
That’s 100% valid and I don’t disagree with you at all. My “compromise” I guess would be that continue to apply pressure and protest against large corporations, but in terms of ourselves, just pick a few things you can cut down on yourself, it does not have to be everything on this list.
For example, I really prefer having animal products in my diet, but I am willing to live in a small apartment , car-free, and not go on vacation much in my adulthood. In the same way, you guys can pick what you are comfortable with in reducing and what you do not want to compromise on.
All of us have different standards of living and we are flexible on some things, and some things we are not flexible. That is alright, just consider changing what you are comfortable with, but please do not think you are a burden. Your presence and your life is valuable to me. I don’t like to demoralize people.
the narrative that our personal carbon footprints matter was created by oil companies and continues to only benefit them and nobody else. changing your individual habits will never address a systemic problem. and this is a systemic problem, not a personal one.
I agree but, again, if they want to spread propaganda that they think it benefits them but, in reality, it only hurts them in the long run, I’m not going to stop them.
Getting some uncaring person to the level of going after oil companies and billionaires doesn’t come at a flip of the switch. It’s a process that starts with small actions, like these, and can lead to them attempting bigger actions. “If I can make an impact, my family/social circle can make a larger impact, getting Big Company to do something similar will make a massive impact”.
The Perosnal Carbon Footprint and similar small scale activism has done more to inspire new climate change activists than most things in recent years. There is no logical way this helps the oil companies. If anything, it hastens their decline. If what you said is true about them being behind the personal carbon footprint, they really fucked up. The fastest way to change a systematic issues is to give people hope that it can change at all, even if their individual change at the begining is negligible.
I guess you are right. We have already won, no need to do anything else, I would offer to celebrate with you, but I figured out that leaving my house hurts the environment so I am inside in the dark doing my best to reduce my personal carbon footprint. Eventually when all of us are dead, the Capitalist Survivors will surely be defeated.
Nah. You were right. There’s nothing we can do about it so why bother trying? Guess I’ll start rolling coal, trowing my trash directly into the river, and not voting at all as my impact means nothing. I’d also say let’s celebrate but it’s not worth it to start small get together outside that our neighbors might join us for the festivities so we might as well just cough ourselves to sleep.
I am not the one that said there is nothing we can do about it. However the liberal solutions of “vote blue no matter who” and “make my life measurably worse by cutting out the majority of culinary culture, most travel, child-rearing, fireworks, and literally everything else because it all has an impact on the environment” are bullshit. There are something like 20,000 people on earth that are fucking it up for the rest of us, and maybe a couple hundred thousand who defend them, why should I change my lifestyle just because those people should be culled? Let’s just cull them, restructure society so that people like that don’t get to exist again, and then the rest of use with very minor changes to our lifestyle (getting rid of the concept of commuting by car) can enjoy meat, travel, and having a family.