I have a hard time taking this suggestion seriously, because it amounts to asking everyone to give up every material pleasure with no actual sense of the degree to which it harms the environment, particularly when we could instead change the system to produce things with minimal harm to the environment. But again, I recognize that's no fun for the folks whose identity is wrapped up in sacrificing "for the environment". It's politically impossible, there's everything to lose, and there's nothing to gain over a carbon pricing scheme.
That said, if I were in charge of Exxon's marketing apparatus, I would absolutely campaign to get people to think that they could personal-responsibility their way out of this problem. Go environmentalists! You can do it! Put your back into it!
The point of the personal carbon footprint was to convince people that they could individually make the world less bad by making choices within the existing system and didn't need to change anything (hence that paying for it was unnecessary). It's an influence tactic. I do not think it's hypocrisy to say this.
My goal in bringing it up is to note to whoever is reading it that you have better options than just eating Impossible burgers or paying some huckster for a paper that says someone in the Amazon didn't cut down a tree every time you fly on a plane. You can demand that the system change, that you have better options. That probably means that Exxon should stop existing. If you're worried about it costing you more now, it might, but it probably won't in the long run.
This right here, aside from being wrong, is why a majority of the worlds population are completely disengaged with environmentalists values. You’re promoting a completely impractical solution as if it were the only one available, when it’s absolutely not, and your demonizing the very people you’re (presumably) hoping to reach. Telling people that they’re to blame, and that if they don’t change everything about their life then they’re going to die is a message you’re never going to be able to sell to people. I couldn’t even imagine a better method of getting people to disengage than that, you’re doing a far better job than any oil company PR department could even dream of. In addition to that you’re also demanding that the rug be pulled from beneath the entire global economy? None of that is required, and if you can’t see how dangerous this message is, then there’s nothing I could say that would help you.
You're absolutely right. I'll make a big personal sacrifice and close down my oil company. Everyone has to do their part, right?
In seriousness, carbon emissions are overwhelmingly emitted from large corporations and state level actors (like the military). Which isn't to say that people shouldn't do what they can to reduce their own carbon footprint, but the world won't be saved if everyone buys local and starts biking to work.
It's alarming to see people on here entertaining the notion that coercing people to decimate their quality of life is going to put a dent in global emissions, let alone save the environment. We're at a point where the financial and industrial sector needs to be on board and on the hook for trillions to change global infrastructure, and we need innovative technology yesterday to reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere.
Even if you could convince most of your classist hippie/yuppie acquaintances to live in a cage, it would not make a difference. That is the infuriating part of the messaging, the projection of guilt onto consumers for not jumping on a hypothetical ineffectual bandwaggon. They sure like to talk the talk, but I don't think they would let their own consumer preferences truly open to public scrutiny.
The big energy companies love this because it deflects attention away from them.
I stopped flying, sold my car, cut down on meat consumption and generally try and live a low impact life, all it's done is lower my standard of living compared to my friends and neighbours. I don't regret it but you soon realise asking individuals to change their behaviour isn't going to get you anywhere.
The only real solution I can see is to shift taxes to carbon as it comes out of the ground then let the market find alternatives.
I'm not arguing that people can't reduce their carbon footprint, I'm arguing against a lazy suggestion that people don't actually care because they continue to buy any oil-based products, which is essentially unavoidable in modern society.
Or maybe hold companies accountable for the damage their products do to the environment and stop allowing the blame to be shifted to individual consumers?
This stuff is all "personal responsibility", and the fossil fuel industry invests a lot in making us think that recycling, etc will save us. It's really about making sure the fossil fuel industry can continue to pollute without having to pay the social costs.
The bottling industry similarly ran campaigns in the 70s to convince people that litter pollution was a personal responsibility problem, so that it wouldn't have to pay to clean up its mess.
Similarly, rather than making safer cigarettes, the cigarette industry ran commercials and hired "experts" to testify that the cause of household fires was flammable furniture (not cigarettes). As a consequence, several generations grew up around toxic flame retardants.
Ultimately personal responsibility cannot carry the day. Not only is it politically impossible to convince everyone to give up their luxuries and frivolities, but even if we could, these things account for a small share of our pollution. We need to transition our economy to clean energy. Carbon tax (or "pricing" if you chafe at the word "tax") is necessary (but probably not sufficient).
Yes, this will probably "harm the economy" in the same way that limiting one's credit card debt "harms their personal finances".
As I'm posting a lot of such disbelieving comments, let me address it here: it's not about consumption reduction in general - it's about enough people voluntarily reducing consumption enough to matter. We should each try their best at it, but I don't believe you can count on it when planning climate policy.
The best way to trigger a bottom-up consumption reduction would be massively brainwashing people. But I can't see the usual brainwashers (media, advertisers) interested in doing it, nor do I see why would they all want to do that, on a systems level. The incentives are not there.
Then there's a matter of effect size. As the climate saying goes, "a lot of people helping a little helps a little". How far are you willing to voluntarily reduce your quality of life? Are you willing to change your job just so that you could stop using your car? Because current predictions indicate that it's the least it would take, from everyone. Most people don't engage in enough spurious consumption to have a lot to cut back before it starts significantly degrading their quality of life, and possibly becoming a health issue. I do my best to reduce my carbon footprint; I even work remotely these days. But I also have several people depending on me, so you can bet that ensuring I'm physically and mentally capable of doing my job is one of my top priorities, and I'm not going to cut consumption down to the point it degrades my ability to support my family. Most people I know ultimately face the same situation - they could cut down on some trivialities of no consequence, but beyond that, it quickly becomes a matter of survival.
The situation is even worse if you consider the developing nations, who are slated to have the biggest carbon footprint in the near future. Asking them to cut down on consumption is asking them to go back to living in extreme poverty. Not going to happen.
So sure, let's talk to our friends and relatives some more. But we need systemic solutions, and we need more alternatives with smaller carbon footprint.
What about we stop tiptoeing around the fact that we will have to hurt profit (especially for the gas/plastic companies) to do so, and enact change instead of just trying to profit out of this situation as well?
Perhaps instead of all of these feel-good blaming the end user for systemic issues we could actually solve of the low hanging fruit surrounding climate change?
I'm tired of the blaming of regular people for not composting or recycling instead of the corporations who routinely behave poorly on a global scale.
Instead of CO2 generated by computers we could talk about CO2 generated by heavy industry? Which is actually a large emitter?
Or maybe we could talk about regulating corporate giants who routinely abuse environmental regulations by doing them in the 3rd world such as Conagra, Shell, or Dupont? These are companies which release untested chemicals and incentivize rainforest burning and yet we give them a free pass to focus on trivialities.
No! Implying that this has to do with lifestyle is the same trite that BP came up with when they pushed the PR spin of "carbon footprint" to deflect attention onto consumers.
What you suggest would push many Energy companies and the entire Oil&Gas complex into insolvency. So I can guarantee that politically there will be no "trade-off".
Of course emissions per capita matter but this constant spin that consumers drive demand and depiction of industry as a passive agent victim of consumer desire is naive at best and malicious at worse.
I was a bit cynical with the absolutism it is true. I know you aren't wrong on your other points too, believe me. I implement a lot of your suggestions already even. It's just that it will be for nothing if we can't convince our politicians to force the hand of industry to change.
As well, while you and I are doing the right thing, it's likely we are the minority, and for many it's just due to the economics of their situation. We have built a societal appratus that pollutes, it's not fair to put the onus of change on the individuals when they have the least agency of all. Although of course we can do our various parts to help.
My cynacism is probably better seen as exasperation, because it is absolutely mind boggling that we are at the point we are yet the only levers we have are to eat less fruit, or take a bus. Why isn't one of our levers "ban fossil fuel entirely in industries where there are alternatives"? Why is it up to us to correct for profit chasing industrial practices?
I think it's dangerous to turn a complex and global issue into a binary social signaling device. We do terrible things to the planet. We should stop. Combining "should", goals, and politics only turns the majority of the planet against you. The global economy, global politics, national politics, and climate are all extremely complex systems. Ban plastic straws and cows and you may think you're helping, but end up being an example of failure to others. Make an electric car that is cheaper, more efficient, and outperforms gasoline, and you've taken a solid step towards saving the planet. When it's a binary issue, you lose the nuance of having choices. You burn witches before even figuring out if they were helping or hurting with their heresy. Is nuclear worth the risk and waste to offset carbon? Is the wind farm worth it if it destroys a bird's only habitat? Those are cost benefit questions. Believer or denier is a witch trial.
Agreed, appealing to people's conscience to buy the more expensive, but more environmentally friendly option doesn't work at scale, because only the upper-middle class can make that choice consistently. Most people cannot afford it, and won't make the choice.
But once the most environmentally friendly choice is the cheapest choice, then, as if by magic, everyone will switch.
Car pollution too high? Make electric cars cheaper to buy and own,and everyone will switch.
Coal power plant pollution too high? Make solar power plants cheaper, and everyone will switch.
Meat industry pollutes too much/uses too much water/is unethical? Make synthetic meat cheaper, and everyone will switch.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Just make sure everything you do is sustainable and nothing you do prevents future generations from doing it. This means avoiding activities that will generate CO2 and avoiding CO2 must become voluntary and automatic.
There is no way you can get the entire population to collectively reduce CO2 emissions if they feel like they will lose out. Most people are "lazy" (in the sense that they cannot care about millions of different problems) which means high moral standards for CO2 emission reductions will turn them off.
I feel like you are all over the place. Or maybe just two places. Those two things:
1. We can “save the planet” (whatever that means to us) by forcing companies to change: ultimately it is we who have to change because the change flows from us
2. None of this matters: it’s just about personal integrity
Because these two can be combined: if everyone just had sufficient integrity/character then we could “save the planet”. We wouldn’t be trying to do that, as individuals, but that would be the emergent result.
What I’ve been complaining about all along is just the apparent idea that we can help the environment by voting with our wallets. But if this is all about (2) then I don’t give a shit at all: I don’t care about the personal finance aspect, the frugality aspect, or the “living your values” aspect; I simply think the idea that we as consumers have more power than companies is wrong. And specifically when it comes to “saving the planet”.
But if “saving the planet” is not a concern then we are just talking past each other.
And all of that crap about “excuses” is just you projecting your living-your-values mission onto others; I don’t care, for even one second, about that stuff. At least the way you present it.
It is, by the way, funny how you think that “companies” want us to think that we are powerless. Well sure, maybe they do. But they have indeed invested money in the idea of the all-powerful consumer. The now famous “carbon footprint” was an invention by British Petroleum: the idea that we should, as individuals—always as individuals—just turn off the bathroom light and maybe not drive on Sundays. The “carbon footprint” is of course the fault of individuals, not of entities like BP. British Petroleum and you would at least agree on that much.
Maybe the perfect consumer (as far as companies are concerned) does feel powerless. But she also has to feel a sort of paradoxical guilt for using about ten planets worth of resources (if extrapolated to the human race).
And yet another trick is to reduce people to consumers (as in only that). Hence your fallacious conclusion that my line of reasoning is that people should feel powerless. But that ignores the fact that people are also citizens, and they have more potential power as citizens (political animals) compared to your don’t-tread-on-my code of conduct.
That said, if I were in charge of Exxon's marketing apparatus, I would absolutely campaign to get people to think that they could personal-responsibility their way out of this problem. Go environmentalists! You can do it! Put your back into it!
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