addendum: this is not an excuse to do nothing on a personal level. you are just as bad as the corporations if you act carelessly like you can’t help change anything. go vegan
Whenever I say this I get gang downvoted by people on this site.
What most fail to understand is that are contributing to the emissions of shell and other major contributors to global warming by purchasing or using anything which relates to their products.
The wealthy humans can afford to avoid these products, but they cop out.
But 58 million Americans emit as much as shell
Also, does it really take into account that Shell emit that much providing a product for people?
It’s how I feel when people blame Chinese warehouses for emissions. They’re making the stuff for you, you’re the ones buying it and by extension creating the emissions…
We need to pressure companies to protect the environment, but the best thing we can really do is reduce consumption.
Look the important thing is always that it’s someone else’s fault and if I were to change my ways it wouldn’t make a difference anyway so let’s just all keep doing what we’re doing.
I feel like there’s a middle ground where we recognize that we can take steps to not actively contribute to the problem while also squarely blaming the system for creating this.
I can’t expect people to walk or cycle six miles to work in -40F temperatures when virtually no public transportation infrastructure exists in my town. (Especially applies to older people, or people with disabilities, or hell, kids whose parents drag them to some fucked up place like disconnected suburbs or remote rural homesteads).
I can and do choose to walk/cycle/skate more, turn down the heat, buy upcycled clothes, look for products manufactured in the US/Canada/Japan/Europe/etc. (not because of some sick sense of nationalism, but because they’re less likely to use straight-up slave labor). I can and do choose to meet with my city council rep and offer to serve in my community in a way that will hopefully lead to positive change.
But at the end of the day, it’s also important to remember that capitalism and greed are at the root of the problem, and I hope for the type of radical systemic change we really need in order to fix this.
This complexity is the problem. Thanks to insufficient funding for education, many people find it difficult to understand to understand complex problems and their full context, so they want simple “solutions” that are black and white, instead of the grey of reality.
Many people also are prone to zero sum thinking. When you tell them that everyone is responsible, they hear “We shouldn’t blame corporations, YOU are to blame!”
Even though that’s neither what you said nor thought.
Zero sum thinking + cognitive dissonance.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t acknowledge that the system is at fault, but we should also be able to acknowledge that change requires us to change our own habits to shift the status quo. Where I live there used to practically be no vegetarian meals other than salads and fries and now (in cities at least) you’ll be hard pressed to find a restaurant that doesn’t offer realistic vegan options on the menu.
That didn’t happen because the system decided “wow, animal rights” but because people, with their wallet, were the voice of change. Same goes for other mentioned issues. We have a system in place in Germany that allows unlimited regional travel for a flat price of 49 euro a month (or 39 for people getting social help or even 29 euro for students). That’s one thing that’s trying to provide a more environmentally friendly alternative for everyone. Change is possible and your actions to contribute.
I just deteste when people act like there isn’t anything we could do and that that somehow excuses their lack of effort or interest.
Agreed, especially western countries that have their CO2 targets, then barely make them and shout at countries like China for having big emissions. Yeah no shit, if you outsource all your manufacturing to China then you don’t have any emissions at home, because the factory isn’t there, it’s in China. Same thing with health and safety regulations, child labor etc. Look at us being all high and mighty, no children working here (except the US, we don’t talk about that), we have proper health and safety regulations. Boo China why are you like this? Oh right, we made you this way.
And why did all the factories move to China? Capitalism…
That just means we have to get rid of 58 million Americans to balance it out!
Joke’s on you: I plan to live at least 58 million years.
You better become vegan then.
He already is, that’s why he said he is going to live that long
Ah, the old “this solution isn’t 100% effective, thus I shall ignore it”.
Shell is creating products you are buying. We can regulate them harder, but you can ALSO just not buy their product. We can do multiple things that contribute, you just don’t want to, because it’s slightly inconvenient for you.
This post is a call to action. You should take it as a call to action.
You should be going to marches.
You should be rallying and participating in your local politics.
You should be supporting groups fighting for better public transit, stricter regulations and the budget to enforce it, and right to repair.
You should be voting with environmental Policy in mind.
You can do personal changes too, and encouraging others to do the same. but the vast majority of humans will not change until it’s easy and gratifying or they’re forced to. It will take exponentially more work getting a meaningful number of people to listen to you’re propaganda. Its much more efficient to target the infrastructure around them to incentivize the change.
But that’s the point. You can do both. You could do anything, just don’t shrug and go “it’s only corporations”.
That’s not point. Individualist solutions are weak in comparison - a drop in the bucket. Collectivist solutions are what will actually be the brunt of solution. You’re pitching a patch kit for damage that needs a full rework.
By all means, cut you’re consumption, but realize that your consumption change isn’t going to do nearly enough on its own. That’s the point of what’s being said above.
And my point is that structural reform is neither fast, total or certain. It’s preferable, but if you can change some things today, that’s a great temporary thing in addition to maybe changing everything in 10 years.
I’m not buying any Shell products. Yet they destroy my life and world.
It’s basically impossible not to buy Shell products. Even if you don’t buy from Shell directly, chances are there are products of Shell in the products you buy. And even if that isn’t the case, chances are the factory the product is made uses a lot of Shell products and so do all the factories that made the components and so do the shipping companies that shipped all the stuff around the world.
Shell is freaking huge, they are everywhere and one of the biggest companies in the world. They don’t just make gasoline, they have so many products and have their claws in a lot of industries.
Probably. It was a reply to someone writing that the solution would be for me to not buy their product.
Great, instead of Shell, just buy BP, or Exxon… Oh wait… they’re up to exactly the same shit, and are all together deliberately holding us captive and keeping any realistic alternative from being accessible to the masses because they know it will replace them…
First remove head from ass, then form opinion…
I’m very sorry you see absolutely no alternatives to driving a car, but I think it’s a bit unfair to claim my head is up my ass because of your lack creativity.
Daily reminder that carbon footprint is a myth created by big oil
Forbid whatever shell is selling. Only except might be is if it saves life and there is no good alternative. Wait - did I just solve climate change?
They effectively sell all of our fuel. I’m doing my best to avoid them but I’m in a fortunate position where I’m wealthy enough to use the alternatives which are 20% or so more money.
I hope more do the same, then shell will die
Can’t kill a megacorp like that this easily, they have ample time to invest their ill-gotten earnings elsewhere even in the most optimistic scenario. Most energy companies are branching out into renewables nowadays.
That’s no excuse to not contribute towards greener alternatives
You guys know we buy shell products right?
You know shell along with a handful of other companies actively block any other option for us, and hold us captive to their exploitation, right? 🙄
Objectively false/hyperbolic statement. Shell haven’t stopped me buying a second hand electric car and a heat pump for my property.
If you’re wealthy you can avoid shell
Yeah I’m sure shell and co really forced the sale of 750k F-series trucks last year, right?
An average U.K. citizen emits 5 tonnes. Get in gear Americans!!
This comparison makes no sense at all. But true, tax the rich, and imprison people profiting on the lifes of others
Jfc, it’s distressing to see how many people buy in to the personal responsibility propaganda and are actively not only licking the boot that’s on all our necks, but doing the corporations’ dirty work for them, gleefully, ignoring the entire picture (the deliberate spending of many trillions, and holding governments in their pockets to keep us dependant on oil and having no viable alternative) except the tiny little fragment they’re comfortable confronting - other individuals. It’s both gross and concerning.
idk if ill make it that long, but ill try i guess
This is a false dichotomy, the way you shutdown O&G is through political action, making personal choices to limit your personal carbon output is a political action. It directly hurts O&G and directly helps the alternatives.
Making a personal choice helps drive political will which changes how people make personal decisions which drives political will. Arguing about which step to bootstrap the process seems pointless. If it’s easier for you to show up at Tuesday at 11am to city council meetings and yell for more bus routes do that. If it’s easier to increase your commute 20minutes and drive up ridership to give ammo to the council people, do that. If it’s easier to drop a big sum of money to lobby the government do that. Just do whatever you can that helps.
We are all drops of rain in an ocean, but without the rain the ocean would run dry.
You fell into the trap that this post is exposing. Of course personal action matters, everyone knows it and there’s no chance we’ll forget it, but the heavy polluting companies want to focus our attention on that alone, to keep it off of themselves. Please don’t assist them in doing so.
I think this is the same carbon emissions : just split differently. Shell consumers are the very same citizens. Also 16tons is huge, even compared to other developed countries in Europe for example (almost twice as much !)
No they didn’t. They clearly stated that we need to take political action which is the only way to force the companies to align with our goals. Policies that drastic need a lot of backup in the society that legitimises these policies, which is what they meant by “we are all raindrops”
I am not supporting shell here, just asking a question.
If I am correct in assuming that shell produces 928 million tons (58,000,000 * 16) that means if the average American reduced their CO2 output from 16 down to ~13.3 then that would offset the total output of shell?
Is that amount of reduction even possible for the average American without giving up too much?
Obviously every company should do everything they can do lower emissions, but per person changes can have effect too. The problem is the vast majority of the 340 million Americans simply don’t care.
Just look what happened when lockdown gave the natural world a chance to breathe.
We COULD offset a fucktonne of CO2 if we changed our lifestyle.
But do you remember HOW FUCKDAMN HARD half the population fought against that literally while their grandparents were dying in agony?
Keep that in mind when you consider any monolithic action of altruism.
Can we stop global warning with radical changes to our consumption?
Absolutely yes.
Will it happen?
Not without direct government action.
That’s so very sad, especially because Shell just does it for fun. If, at the very least, there would be some kind of product we could reduce demand for to stop Shell from being so bad. But alas, we can only blame them and never challange our own behaviour - since you know, no one single person ever made any difference at all.
But corporation bad no?^/s
I mean — despite our own collective apathy, and want for oil-based products — the answer is still unironically yes
