I really don't think they are given the alarming number of people who support parties that actively work against climate action. If people were appropriately worried about climate change anything but a robust, clear and effective climate policy would be a political death sentence.
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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And the people responsible for climate change want to make sure that this doesn't change.
it’s not that people aren’t worried, it’s that they have immediate concerns (many of which are manufactured by conservative parties) and humans are remarkably short-term thinkers
Yeah, also paper plate and bottled water sales would be at zero if people were worried, so.many industries wouldn't exist if we cared.
Everyone thinks it's someone else's job, everyone thinks it's a problem for other people to solve. 'I only contribute a little, it's the system thats the real problem...- ignoring that the system is just what we call the result of everyone's individual choices
I feel you but if 'everyone needs to make the individual choice to change their behaviour' is your view on solving the climate crisis we might as well give up now.
The system itself is a lot more than the collective sum of all our choices, it determines which choices are available to you. A good example of this is plastic bags, they were optional and you could use re-usable bags for your groceries for a long time. Some people did, most didn't. Then where I lived single use plastic bags were banned, overnight everyone is now using a reusable bag.
Individual action is a positive and commendable thing and we should be doing what we can but the reality is it is a systemic problem and requires a systemic solution. I think voting and doing what you can to influence the politics in your area is by far the most impactful thing you can do if that option is available to you.
Yeah, stop telling my poor ass about it. There's literally nothing I can do about it. I conserve and do everything possible and a billionaire will undo my lifetime of work in a day. Stop telling the little people at the bottom with no power that it's their job to fix this, all it does is raise collective anxiety. Go bother the billionaires and corporations, go make their lives hell until they help. But what am I supposed to do??
But, if they don't keep yelling at people at the bottom, the people at the bottom will then realize the people at the top are the cause and get angry. Same thing with that 1970s commercial with the "Native American" (who was actually Italian) crying on the side of the road over trash. It was a corpo smear campaign to cover up the fact that the lobbying corps that were running the ad were the real polluters.
If only we could eat the rich.
I've been ready for so long. I got the sweet baby Ray's ready and I'll fire up the grill, I'm vegetarian but hell I'll take a bite just to prove a point. Problem is you can't even organize protesters enough to knock over a garbage can, let alone form up and go all French Revolution
Well we could by starting to tax them properly
I just posted this, but we need more votes https://www.tax-the-rich.eu/
Tax The Rich
European Citizens' Initiative We want a European wealth tax to finance the social and climate transition and help countries hit by climate change.
There are two sets of things you can do:
- Work to change the politics to favor collective action in the country you're in. In the US right now, that means getting involved to support a lot of the better Democrats.
- Take steps which reduce your impact and enable you to shift community norms around you in that direction. That can mean things like installing a heat pump, putting up solar panels, riding an ebike to work on a seasonal basis, or the likes.
Lol you're very hopeful. I'm old so I know those things in #1 are not real or effective. You can't influence politics or policy without having the money to lobby (bribe).
And again I do everything possible for my part. But then I look over and see a rich guy undoing it all in a day and facing no consequences and it gives me a sense of "what's the fucking point?"
That's utter nonsense; I've seen people have a pretty dramatic impact on a shoestring. Especially at the local level, where simply showing up to comment at municipal government meetings makes a real difference.
The end goal is to eventually constrain the impact the wealthiest have.
Again I could be at such a task all my life, fighting against government to help the environment for four lifetimes, and a billionaire will undo all my life's work with the snap of a finger and a location wedding for their rich friends.
We are all going to die!
About the only thing that's sure in life: it eventually ends.
But that's not a useful way of looking at stewardship problems like climate.