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BP oil company pushed the idea that our individual carbon footprints matter so that everyone can share the blame of what the fossil fuel industry has done.
Don’t fall for it. Only corporations pollute enough to matter. Only corporations can provide alternatives to fossil fuels. Only corporations can make a meaningful reduction to greenhouse gas emissions.
The most significant difference individuals can make is to create political and legal pressure by voting and protesting.
Not only that, but only collective action and politics can give people the choices they need to reduce climate change.
It’s no use telling people not to drive if there’s no public transport system. And people can’t individually will their energy to have a generation mix.
BP oil company pushed the idea that our individual carbon footprints matter so that everyone can share the blame of what the fossil fuel industry has done.
The article discusses this, yes - along with how the carbon footprint is a good metric for individual consumption even if corporate propaganda abuses it.
The most significant difference individuals can make is to create political and legal pressure by voting and protesting.
I agree with you that political action is vital. I don’t agree that it’s necessarily more significant than personal action. Feminists used to say “the personal is political”, and it’s still true. How you act in private demonstrates your commitment to the values you endorse in public and gives your voice more weight when you speak your values.
If you reduce your personal footprint, but never talk about it or encourage other people to do the same, your impact is limited to yourself. If you reduce your personal footprint, and make your actions contagious by talking about them with people you know and encouraging them to do the same, you can impact many more people, encourage them to follow your lead and reduce their footprint, and then they can encourage others to reduce their footprint, and so on and so forth.
Limiting the damage from climate change takes collective action. And collective action requires a community, and a community requires communication.
If you assume you are a lone individual and your personal decisions have no effect on anyone else, it’s easy to imagine reducing your personal footprint is meaningless. If you see yourself as part of a community, and by reducing your personal footprint you encourage others in your community to do the same, you can see how much larger your impact can be.
So you’re repeating the BP talking points.
Again, carbon footprint is not a BP talking point. It was a pre-existing concept that was appropriated by BP to prevent climate change legislation by shifting responsibility for climate change to individual consumers.
And then, some years later, once corporations had more solid control of legislatures and were no longer afraid of legislation, they started using the carbon footprint idea in reverse as propaganda - they claimed individual responsibility was a myth, only legal action against corporations will help with climate change, so eat whatever you want and buy all the gas you want and buy all the corporate products you want, and don’t feel guilty about it, because it doesn’t matter.
In reality, both individuals and corporations bear responsibility for climate change, and both of the above arguments are corporate propaganda aimed at getting you to give up, do nothing, and buy shit.
Saudi Aramco accounted for more than 4 percent of global emissions, Gazprom clocked over 3 percent and Coal India accounted for roughly 3 percent.
Total global emissions in 2020, including land-use change, were approximately 40 Gt. This means that Australian emissions are approximately 1.2% of global emissions
There are 26 million people in Australia. That 1.2% is obviously all Australian emissions, but let’s exaggerate and say that’s purely from individuals. That the footprint of all Australian citizens combined was 1.2% of global emissions.
If literally all Australians then brought their personal carbon footprint to 0, it would be a reduction of less than 1/3rd of Saudi Aramco’s emissions alone.
From 2016 to 2022, 80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions were produced by just 57 companies.
But I’m supposed to believe that I, with my ~ 1/26 million of a percent footprint, have an affect. You’ll have to try a lot harder to convince me of that.
Your vote is also 1 in 26 million. Do you believe that has an effect?
I think you misread. I don’t account for 1 in 26 million of emissions. I count for 1% divided by 26 million of emissions. 1 26 millionth of a percent.
This would be like if there was some kind of global election, and ALL Australian votes added together were worth 1.2% of the total vote.
That means my personal vote/emissions in this scenario would be 0.000000046%
And then there were 57 corporations whose interests were largely aligned that accounted for 80% that also got to vote.
Imagine a school/college/workplace had votes that everyone could participate in to make changes to it. But altogether, the student/employee votes could account for at most 20% of the vote, and teacher/management accounted for 80% of the vote.
Would you believe your vote has an affect in such an election?
(and this isn’t even continuing the analogy to the point that there are like 200 classes/departments and yours accounts for like 1-4% assuming you’re in one of the larger ones, and there are 26 million or more people in your department, meanwhile there are 57 teachers/managers that mostly agree with each other in protecting what they want/their interests)
Why do you think BP produces emissions? They may be evil, but it’s not out of malice, it’s for profit. People, like the 26 million residents of Australia, pay BP to give them more fossil fuels.
A top-down response, where governments just outlaw all extraction and burning of fossil fuels, would be a lovely, quick solution to the climate crisis. By all means, try and make that happen, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
One thing you can do today to make an impact is to adjust your lifestyle to give less money to the fossil fuel industry. An individual carbon footprint is small compared with a company, just like the money they give to BP is relatively small, when compared with their total profits. But when you add up all the customers, their money adds up to the revenue of the industry, and their carbon footprints add up to the footprints of the relevant companies.
Tell me you’re a fossil fuel shill without telling me you’re a fossil fuel shill
We’re actually to the point where wanting people to consume fewer fossil fuels makes me a fossil fuel shill.
Wow.
The absolute state of rhetoric today.
some years later, once corporations had more solid control of legislatures and were no longer afraid of legislation, they started using the carbon footprint idea in reverse as propaganda - they claimed individual responsibility was a myth, only legal action against corporations will help with climate change, so eat whatever you want and buy all the gas you want and buy all the corporate products you want, and don’t feel guilty about it, because it doesn’t matter.
citation needed
Sure. The Google term you’re looking for is called “discourses of delay”.
Tldr: The propagandists recognize the global consensus, that climate change is real and must be addressed, is too strong to attack directly. Instead, they work to discredit potential solutions and discourage people from acting. The hope is to delay action on climate change until fossil fuel companies run out of oil to sell.
The four ways corporate propaganda encourages climate delay are by redirecting responsibility (“someone else should act on climate change before or instead of you”), pushing non-transformative solutions (“fossil fuels are part of the solution”), emphasizing the downsides (“requiring electric vehicles will hurt the poor worst”), and promoting doomerism (“climate change is inevitable so we may as well accept it instead of trying to fight it”).
And here’s the thing. We need both individual and collective action to mitigate climate change.
Arguing that only individual action can stop climate change is delayist propaganda used to discourage climate action.
Arguing that only collective action can stop climate change and individual action is useless is also delayist propaganda used to discourage climate action.
The propaganda takes an extreme position on both sides and encourages people to fight with another instead of unifying and acting - much like how foreign propagandists in the United States take aggressive, controversial positions on the far left and far right to worsen dissent and discourage unity.
European scientists last month catalogued what they call the “Four Discourses of Climate Delay”—arguments that facilitate continued inaction.
1 Redirecting Responsibility
U.S. politicians blaming India and China, Irish farmers blaming motorists, organizations blaming individuals—these common techniques evade responsibility and delay action.
“Policy statements can become discourses of delay if they purposefully evade responsibility for mitigating climate change,” the scientists say.
The scientists label as “individualism” the claim that individuals should take responsibility through personal action. I asked if it weren’t also a discourse of delay when activists insist that individual climate action is pointless, that only systemic action can address the problem.
That too is a discourse of delay, replied Giulio Mattioli, a professor of transport at Dortmund University. The team considered including it under the label “structuralism,” but decided it’s not common enough to include.
(Depends on where you are. I’d argue that’s very, very common among high consumption American activists.)
A fascinating study about how much people have internalized these discourses of delay is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024000797#:~:text=Consisting of four overarching narratives,with its own emotional resonance)%2C
That’s the opposite of what you were accusing corporations of doing.
The fossil fuel industry has spent a lot of money making us dependent on them. They have been so successful that the majority of us would not be able to survive without their products whether it be to get to work, power our cities, heat our buildings, etc.
So what’s a realistic approach to the problem:
Getting billions of individuals to change across the planet? Which requires most of them and their families to die?
Or
Changing a few dozen companies?
How do you expect to change those few dozen companies?
Especially if the majority of us really wouldn’t be able to survive without them?
By voting and protesting to get a revenue neutral carbon tax passed. Passing legislation to end our dependence on fossil fuels. Creating the political will to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the damage they’ve done. Taking their profits and use it to fund the work needed transition everyone away from fossil fuels not just those that can afford it.
So what’s a realistic approach to the problem:
Getting billions of individuals to change across the planet? Which requires most of them and their families to die?
AND
Changing a few dozen companies.
Changes like this don’t happen in an empty space. If you have an Eco aware consumer base it help a lot.
Your plan is to require every individual on the planet to make sacrifices that could kill them and their loved ones? You think that’s actually achievable?
Did you forget we couldn’t even get everyone to wear masks during the pandemic?
Of course that plan would never work. We can prove it by showing that greenhouse gas emissions have still been increasing after the fossil fuel industry started this carbon footprint marketing campaign.
Changes like this don’t happen in an empty space. If you have an Eco aware consumer base it help a lot.
No one is saying we don’t want eco aware consumers and the top polluting companies on the planet are not “an empty space”.
This is a systemic problem that requires political and legal action to fix.
Paper straws don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Your plan is to require every individual on the planet to make sacrifices that could kill them and their loved ones? You think that’s actually achievable?
No. I complete not registered the second half of your sentence while quoting it. No fucking idea how that happend. Complete brain fart on my end.
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Think of it like this - companies are contaminating everything with lead, because it’s slightly cheaper for them
People get concerned for good reason
So some companies pay to make lead free products and sell them at a premium. They put it all over the packaging
Other companies see this, and start putting it on their packaging, despite still having an unsafe lead content
All of them do media campaigns and lobby the government, further confusing the issue
People need to buy food, and are working with limited information. They don’t have the time to educate themselves over every purchase - you’d need experts dedicated to testing and compiling the data
So, for the good of everyone (the companies included) we made that. You can go to the grocery store and buy food, confident it doesn’t contain large amounts of lead.
People definitely care, but systematic problems can only be solved systematically
Those are important, but the act of doing things like installing solar panels, or a heat pump changes minds — and when you do it, others around you see and imitate.
Corps make and sell what we buy.
Arguments like yours seem to condense down to “I won’t change until a corp forces me to” which makes no sense to me.
Tell that to the marketing team BP hired to say the same thing you’re saying.
Notice this response isn’t “that’s wrong and here’s why” it’s “someone else also said this”.
Even if it were true that I was repeating BP taking points, that’s not a good reason to discount it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
To help drive the point home, how many widgets will a company make if no one is buying them anymore?
What’s more realistic to change? A few dozen companies or billions of people?
Obviously it is easier to change the companies. That is why fossil fuel companies pay marketing companies to shift the responsibility onto billions of people. Because they know it will never succeed.
So whether you are a fossil fuel shill or not, you are doing the work of a fossil fuel shill.
That’s cool, could we also compare that to what would happen if the wealthy and corporations also put in their fair share of individual action too?
Having a consumer base that is aware of and cares about the environment is going to help a lot on that regard.
What if every company did something?
I mean if every one stopped ordering from temu, it’s already one problem solved and we move to the next one
Sounds good. I’ll start by telling all my corporations that blast the majority of CO2 emissions worldwide into the air to slow it down a bit.
They’re mostly not blasting it directly; they’re selling fossil fuels for others to blast. Changing how you commute or heat your home helps change social norms around those and lowers the rate of emissions
By God, you’re right! It was me all along. I am to blame for Climate Change! Sorry guys. I’ll stop Climate Change this instant. Sorry again.
I’m not saying that either. But we are at the point where it takes people showing neighbors the changes that everybody needs to make.
Good start. Then go vegetarian of even vegan and you should be good ;-)
That’s all it took. The crisis has actually been over for ages ever since I have stopped eating meat. I’ve done it.
you should be good
Good news, the planet is now no longer on a direct course towards being rendered inhabitable due to being destroyed for profit. I. AM. GOOD.
Problem solved. Thank you so much on behalf of all future generations of the planet.
I could tell you the facts, like how stopping eating meat is one of the easiest ways to make a huge change. I could give you some studies, show you how almost every report on climate change in the last 15 years has listet going more plant based is part of their recommendations. But you know what? I’m just fucking over with people that aren’t grown up enoth to even do the slightest little change in their lives.
We deserve the future that awaits us.
I’m slightly fed up with being promised that going meat free will get me a livable planet when I retire because I have fucking delivered my end of the bargain. I want my livable planet now.
It’s like
“You can improve our situation if you grab a thimble and start scooping water out of the boat now.”
“There’s still the giant hole in the hull that brings in a lot more water than my little thimble can deal with. What do we do about that?”
“Shut up and keep scooping :D”
Yeah. The beef thing has become the main call to action while ignoring that beef consumption has been falling since the 70’s. It’s also not clear how much of that carbon is part of the existing carbon cycle.
The solution is adding less carbon to the existing cycle which means stopping pumping including and especially “natural” gas.
Everything else is performative.
Only when we stop adding it to our environment can we have any hope at sequestration.
If the one thing is redacted a billionaire, you would only need 3200 people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/22/business/starbucks-ceo-commute-jet-brian-niccol.html
Don’t forget, that he could just move like the rest of the employees had to.
Free solar panels for everyone.
Free heat pumps for everyone.
We need everyone on free clean electricity now and cut all natural gas lines to homes, businesses and factories. Nothing else comes close to the impact of those and it will drive a change in other sectors like transportation when there is free clean electricity everywhere.
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What if everybody did something to slow or reverse climate change? Like organize democratically to overthrow capitalism.
A better standard of living could be achieved with 30% of current production because of how incredibly wasteful and redundant capitalist production is. That leaves a ton of headroom for treats, and we can still strike a metabolic balance with our planet.
Amen!
My gas stove was leaky and could have blown up my house. So we replaced that with an induction stove, and it’s all around a better experience. Same with the water heater and the EV. All of these things plus insulating the attic have been improvements to our lives with the added benefit of reducing natural gas consumption more than 20% over the past year and saving about $100/month on utilities and gasoline. It’s nice that we aren’t pumping air pollution directly into our house when we cook anymore.
Every bit of change we make helps, because the climate crisis is not binary. but more importantly the people who can make these changes receive the greatest upfront benefits.
Thank you we’re cured now. Signed planet earth.
People have already done that for the last 30 years or even more, and the saves just went into elon musks jet gas tanks.
Sure, it’s good trying to do “your part”, but it’s worthless if everyone and especially companies aren’t forced to do the same as they won’t do it if they don’t earn money by it.
It’s really depressing how any internet discussion about global warming is full of comments like this which only exist to downplay small but existent improvements that others have made. It’s whataboutism, plain and simple, and only serves to discourage people from doing anything at all.
This guy getting a more efficient stove isn’t going to save the planet, but at least it helps. Your comment (and many others in this thread) doesn’t do anything at all about our climate problem, and mostly serves to make other people feel stupid and inadequate for even trying to do something.
There is so much, so fucking much, that needs to be done to save our planet. If you think that political change is the only thing that will “really” matter to save the planet (it’s obviously going to be a huge factor), and you are so deeply committed to the ideal that the only things worth doing are those which directly further said political change, then you have serious work to do on your messaging strategy because what you had to say here clearly isn’t causing global change.
Alternately, if you think the situation is so impossible that nothing can be done to save it, go find a different void to yell into and stop trying to drag down those of us who still have some hope.
I effectively think that only political will can “fix” our climate crisis, and that propaganda about how to use less water or bike to work (or whatever change your stove or other buy-things bs) is just deflecting from the real problem so that people like you can do literally nothing to stop the big polluters and still get the fuzzy feelings.
Also, as you see, it effectively stops discussions about climate change at an extremely low level.
Yes political will can fix it. But for that we need people to vote in mass for such politics. Thus every individual will and actions counts because it can show a change is possible, as mentionned in the article people reacts when confronted to new behavior around : oh my neighbour installed EV heater and insulated his roof, maybe it can improve my house too, oh my colleague is biking to work, he is fit and healthy and saves money, maybe if this cunt can do it I can try too it will save me gas money and gym subscription.
And when you begin to pay attention to an “healthy” way of life, you enlarge the spectrum : e.g. I try to save water so I do not want to support big companies that pollute it (oil, intensive farming, chemical, electronics…) and I will try to avoid buying their products (sure I can’t cut all but I will try to find alternatives) etc…
I’m sorry but these things drive me bonkers angry
You can’t ask billions of people to do shit whilst < 2700 billionaires refuse to do shit because they need their private jet to buy an apple. You can’t ask me to do a huge thing with zero impact whilst oil companies actively sabotage every effort to improve the climate so that shareholders can get that extra dollar.
Conclusion of the article sums it up best:
“Our true responsibility is to use our choices as political agents in the world to try to shift power, take power away from the people who are blocking the transition away from fossil fuels and give it to people who will lead into a livable future,” [Genevieve Guenther, the author of “The Language of Climate Politics”] said.
Do what you can by yourself, sure, but only as a supplement to doing the hard work to solve the problem via collective and political action.
All who works for a big company and do all they shit for them are not better than the corporatives. Follow orders is a coise.
That’s mostly a waste of time.
The big companies and massive organizations are the ones really doing the damage. This isn’t really a tragedy of the commons.
But individuals do need to make the changes they can, because if every company and government did the right thing, we still wouldn’t be all the way there. Climate is an impossibly big issue, and need everything and then a little bit more to get out of the mess.
Stop buying their shit!
Who do those big companies and massive organizations (?!) produce for?
Edward Bernays
Generally consumers, and I agree with your overall sentiment, but other major exchanges of goods and energy include things like military and essential services.
I’m making changes where I can, but I can’t just refuse medical services because my doctor doesn’t use a free-range organic MRI, and me bringing a reusable bag to the grocery store does nothing to reduce the amount of toxic waste the US military lights on fire every year.
I need internet, but there’s only one provider in my area. If my house is on fire or I call an ambulance, I don’t care what kind toxic gases are coming out of the first responder’s tailpipes.
I’ll still continue to fly less, buy less, drive my EV, swap my gas appliances, procure renewable electricity, and use more sustainable products. It’s not going to solve all of the worlds problems, but I do think collective action has the potential to drive a significant amount of the global transition to lower emissions.
The rest is done at the polls.
