This exactly! We need to go after the corporations with policy changes but that doesn’t mean that we, as individuals, are completely blameless or that individually actions are inconsequential. If nobody chooses to drive less or to take the bus then collectively we’re telling the major oil companies to continue with business as usual at if nothing’s wrong. The corporations are to blame but we’re all active participants!

It’s too fatty.

If sociopathy can be transmitted by prion disease, that’ll be a quick way to find out.

💀

1. They arnt banning coal/wood fired pizza ovens.

2. They are restricting particulate emissions not Co2 emissions. It’s not a climate change thing it’s an air quality thing. The pizzareias need to filter out the particulate, not get rid of their pizza ovens.

3. Even if they were banning coal/wood fired pizza ovens it wouldn’t effect pizza. Pizza ovens get up to 900f and the pizza cooks in 90 seconds. There is no time for any smoke flavor to penitrate the pizza. A natural gas or electric oven is going to yield the same result so long as they hit that 900f temp.

Maybe they aren’t forcing us to buy shit directly, but a lot of the things they sell, particularly oil and gas are things we depend on because that’s how society is built.

A lot of these completely blameless companies you are defending hire lobbyists to make it harder for individuals who are trying hard to make a difference to have any real effect on government policy. This ensures said companies can keep operating in the way they currently are to maximise profits.

Yes, we could all be doing more, but it’s hard when huge multinational corporations are not only not working together with us to help, but spending billions of dollars to oppose legislation that could help because it would hurt their bottom line.

I heard with some things it’s actually becoming cheaper to be green, as a result of engineering innovations leading to improved efficiency. Hopefully that trend continues.

Especially when some geniuses finally work out viable nuclear fusion. Real Engineering had a video on a US company working on some next-level fusion reactors, that seem really close to being actually ready.

Edit: of course, at the end of the day, the big oil companies won’t go out quietly. So in addition to all that wholesome stuff, maybe we should partake in some classic literature, such as How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

Exactly, corporation and individual behavior is predominantly emergent of the system. Theres some blame that can be passed on to the consumer or the corporation but only so much, it’s not my fault I can’t afford an electric car. It’s not my fault installing solar panels on my house won’t recoup the cost by the time I leave/sell.

If you want people to eat less meat you need to make it worth people’s while to eat less meat. You don’t need to outlaw meat, you just need to make it less attractive from a financial perspective.

If you want people to use less gas you don’t need to outlaw gas cars you need to make it less attractive.

You could write individual incentives and disincentives but a carbon tax is simple and hits at the crux of the problem. Remove beef, oil, gas, solar, wind, hydro subsidies and implement a carbon tax. Boom, meat alternatives are now cost comparable. Green energy is now handily cheaper than oil and gas. Theres also a sizable amount of conservatives who are for a carbon tax since it’s a “free market” solution instead of picking winners and losers.

Guys do you think he made it across ?

There is less kerosene burned in all aviation in the world than is used in lamps and cookstoves in Africa and Asia. Aviation is really not the driver of climate change. Of all transport emissions aviation is 8% (in the US). 80% is cars and trucks.

Moreover, the aviation industry has a profit motive to reduce emissions because ever gallon of jet fuel saved is money saved.

The same applies to shipping (11% of global emissions), modern container ships are so fucking massive and slower than some wooden sailing ships from the 19th century because efficiency is the only real way they can make more money.

that makes sense though, their 15 mins is prolly worth more than enough to justify the jet

I live in Germany and while not perfect, I’m glad we have such a thing.

The problem is when a 10 minute car drive takes an hour with public transportation

Ok. If you don’t? There’s still countless aspects of your life that you interact through the economy to fulfill that have the potential for change and improvement.

Still buy new clothes from Old Navy or JCPenney? Maybe think about going to your nearest GoodWill or local thrift shop(s) (and on a regular basis) to see what gems pass by now and again. College towns right after the end of the semester are ripe for this, and I would wager that you have a college town somewhat closer to you than any kind of public transit. Not saying that you have to do this for your entire wardrobe, but choosing used over new means that resources are avoided in making that new garment, such as all of the fuels needed to move resources to and from each factory along the value chain, all of the solid waste destined for landfill or incineration from the scraps of cutting-and-sewing that new garment, all of the water pollution associated with dyeing or printing your new garment, or the potential human rights violations that could pop up throughout the value chain. A lot of these can be mitigated by buying more sustainable brands that seek to minimize these things, but a cheaper alternative is to buy used too.

Still have an air conditioner? Maybe think about hooking up a smart thermostat or equivalent and enrolling in peak-load demand response initiatives so that your AC or furnace works a little less hard in exchange for the entire grid not having to provide as much power (the alternative is blackouts or brownouts where everyone turns their AC on blast but kills the grid so no one has power anymore). Doing this means that demand curves by customers don’t reach as high of historical peaks, which allows utilities to avoid using peak response assets like Combined Cycle Combustion Plants that use natural gas to operate. You in turn create a greener grid, that’s also better for the climate. And if having a warmer house isn’t enough for you, there are other ways of mitigating this, like setting up phase-changers directly to your bedroom so that it stays cool, unlike the rest of the house, or buying ice vests that you can wear on your person, or going to a public facility like a library or mall and centralizing cooling loads to there instead of decentralized cooling loads via everyone’s homes.

How old are your assets like cars, AC units, furnaces, fridges, etc.? Perhaps if it doesn’t break the bank, look into purchasing models that are more efficient, as in those cars that have better mileage and/or that are hybrids and can be plugged in to a normal outlet to charge, or fridges and AC units that use coolants better and that have better insulation to keep things cooler for longer. These choices don’t necessarily have to be accompanied by the insane bits of technology and information that bigger companies want to shove down our throats with these newer, smarter devices.

Does your local grocery store carry organic goods as opposed to conventional ones? I know that ALDI near me carry those, and I’ve had to shop there for years thanks to the low prices they offer. If you minimize your costs while still going organic, maybe consider shifting your diet away from red meat and pork towards other options like chicken, fish, or straight up whole food, plant-based ingredients like vegetables, fruit, legumes, grains, nuts, seeds, mushrooms, etc. Or, if you’ve gone that far, have you considered seeking out local farmer’s markets near you that often offer these goods both organically (or “organically” since the official label is so expensive), in season, AND locally. A good resource for finding farmer’s markets near you is https://www.localharvest.org/.

Getting back to the public transit problem you bring up:

Is there public transit near you? Do you know for sure? Most major cities like Houston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and even the smaller ones like Cleveland, Oklahoma City, Las Vegas, etc. do have some version of public transit, whether that’s via subway, rail, tram, or bus, so perhaps there are more options near you thank you might think. And do you use these when you have the opportunity to? All of these services are offered via companies that use metrics like ridership and rider time to gauge how they might want to invest in these services into the future. If you start engaging with more and more public transit when you can, every human adds up on their balance sheets and can impact what happens with public transit in the future. I know that in my area, the public transit corp running our interurban train is constructing a new service line South, when it traditionally only extended East & West, which will capture an even larger portion of the market and make the service even more financially lucrative over time, leading to even more expansion and coverage. But I do agree with you on the lack of other interurban solutions like Amtrak. That service is downright terrible, and we as a country (assuming you live in the US) need to start demanding better service, as well as less of a grip on the railway network in this country by the railroad tycoons.

There are changes that can be made all around us that involve the economy and a corporation on the other side. All of the above examples I listed do. There are two sides to the economy, that economists tell us: Supply and Demand. Just because we can’t control supply outside of efforts like political action doesn’t mean we can’t control demand too. Little changes that every common person makes over time one way or another add up and show up on these corporations’ balance sheets.

Hope is not lost. Stay focused on sustainability and making what changes you can make in your life right now and into the future, including political action. All of this adds up.

Yes, the US has abysmal public transport (at least in houston, tx in my case) compared to even third world countries like Egypt. It’s downright embarrassing.

For me, it’s both more expensive and takes longer, to take the train.

nah, sorry, we’re on Reddit, so capitalism is to blame for everything and we individuals cannot do sh1t.

I mean, how stupid do you have to be to shift the blame for pollution from cars on car manufacturers and oil companies. But, no, no. It’s corporations polluting and I as an individual cannot do anything about it.

Are you dumb on purpose?

I have electric though. Worst case is the pollutants gone into the mining of the lithium and manufacturing of the vehicle. But how much of that can be controlled for mining and manufacturing?

Exactly. Saudi Aramco is wrecking the environment because (among others) Dow Chemical keeps buying their oil. Dow Chemical keeps buying their oil because Sterilite keeps buying the plastic that Dow makes. Sterilite keeps buying Dow’s plastic because people keep buying Sterilite bins to store all their junk. Ultimately if there wasn’t a person consuming things at the end of the chain, the oil wouldn’t be removed from the ground in the first place.

Ultimately it all comes down to people’s lifestyles. When you buy something that’s made of plastic or transported on a container ship, you’re giving these companies money they use to wreck the environment. If instead of kiwi fruit, you buy melons from an Amish farmer who brought them to market using a horse-drawn carriage, that lifestyle choice has an impact on the environment.

Having said that, it’s true that companies use lobbying to twist laws in their favour, and use sales and marketing to drive demand for their products. It’s hard to know whether a product you’re buying is damaging to the environment because the companies that damage the environment don’t want you to know and will oppose any law that makes it clearer. It’s hard to choose to purchase a less environmentally destructive item if you don’t know it exists.

But, it’s just ridiculous bullshit to pretend that nefarious companies are out there burning coal just for fun, while cackling evilly. Everything companies do is in service to making money, and virtually the only way they make money is to sell things that people want to buy.

australian coal producers:

It’s largely a problem of government that is exacerbated by the influence of the businesses themselves. It’s the governments job to enact policy change that force business to address these issues and develop more sustainable production process and product offerings, but since the government has essentially been bought out by those same businesses, nothing happens at all.

We can’t decouple business from government without policy changes that would place limitations on such influence, and we cannot enact those policies because of the influence from businesses. I don’t see a solution unless people wise up and elect a lot of people in the same election cycle not beholden to these groups, but I don’t know how that can be accomplished.

The average person isn’t wrecking the environment for no reason either, and yet they always appear to be the target for “environmental sustainability” snipes presented by mainstream media as fact. There are an innumerable number of practices that large industries can practice to limit their carbon footprint, but it is never a priority.