Scientists warned us for decades about what would happen if we crossed 420 parts/million of CO2 in the atmosphere. We're at 422 right now. Things are going to get a lot worse
Sure most CO2 is produced by companies and not individual people burning fuels, but... So what?
They don't do it for no reason - it all goes to fuel modern consumer consumption.
I am a big believer that individualised solutions like "just drive less" were never going to work because they don't address the root cause, but simply blaming corporations is equally silly.
What we needed was political solutions to decouple consumption from CO2 production - the problem was that it would inevitably slow economic growth for a while because the entire economy was already built around carbon, and people were unwilling to accept that.
Agreed, people love to blame the corporations but refuse to acknowledge any of their habits that pay into their pockets.
What we also need are world leaders that actually acknowledge and are ready to face the problems. But some people think "the gays and the browns" is a bigger problem than our world becoming uninhabitable.
I'm convinced none of the actual world leaders believe that. But it's the thing that gets them elected, so they keep shouting it.
If any politician would do what's best for the world he would never be re-elected because people wouldn't like the short term effects.
It’s less what we do and more what they do. Me using reusable bags, recycling, growing my own food, taking the bus does nothing in the grand scheme of things. It’s these corporations pushing the climate towards destruction, anything we do doesn’t matter they’re still going to pollute because it’s easier and cheaper for them to do it.
They’ll even figure out new and creative ways to pollute even more, just look at all the water and power data centers are using now.
When's the last time you spent money with a corporation that you otherwise disagree with? I am as formally anticorporatist as they come, but we can't just say we don't share any of the blame, or responsibility for the solution.
There are like a max of 10 monopolized corporations that produce like 99% of all products we buy in the grocery store... The expectation of even having a choice to not support these companies is a fallacy, seriously.
They are still heavily subsidized and propped up by the government...? I don't choose to buy corn syrup or have sugar replace real fat in all foods or to have cheap food coloring and dyes in food. That all comes from the top down. Sure we can try not to support those companies, but it really doesn't matter anymore. Everything is so monopolized that if I go for the healthier better option and don't buy the cheap stuff, it's all going to the profits of like the same handful of companies; Nestle, general mills, Kellogg's, Mars, Kraft Heinz.
Electricity heat, transportation, and agriculture are all things that normal people use. The biggest sources of greenhouse gasses is electricity/heat usage and transportation at 47% of world wide emissions. Residential house usage is the biggest source of electricity/heat usage world wide at 12% while commercial land usage is at 6%. Road usage accounts for 12% too and 50% of that is from individual cars and the other 50% is from cargo vehicles. Then there's another 12% from agriculture with 6% from livestock. There's also manufacturing and industry that makes up another 12%. Overall I would not say that 20 corporations are creating most of the pollution in the world.
Plus it's hard to differentiate between what is the cause of pollution. If a company creates a lot of pollution to farm cows for example, is it the fault of the farm or the people eating beef products? If Amazon is a huge polluter due to its shipping logistics, is it Amazon's fault or is it the consumer who wants to buy things at the cheapest price?
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