I think if you want to uncouple individual action and collective action organised by the state, you're close to asking for a dictatorship.
They do not exist in isolation. A nation merrily chowing down on all the steaks they can eat that expects the government to reduce beef farming is not how it works. A person who argues there should be less air travel who is busy jetting around the world every week is easily made to seem a fool and a rogue. Being prepared to do something on an individual level is part and parcel of the same attitude that drives encouraging wider change in society and government.
Except again big companies not wanting to sacrifice profit and happily using outlets they own one way or another to push ideas to help them. Not hard to do.
People are willing to do the things if it can be done fairly easily.
The public has far less sway over corporations than corporations have over the public. There is already loads of public awareness about our impact on the environment, and plenty of people who try to do their part. There's even plenty of people who actively try to fight against it.
Plenty of people care and try to reduce their carbon footprint, try to make the change, but that's hard to keep up when you see that it virtually makes no difference as the people in power continue on on the same foot. If people actually ate less beef, I doubt those who are in charge of beef production will just go 'well, people aren't asking for beef as much, guess we'll just reduce production and not make as much money'. They'll still flood supermarkets and restaurants with beef and spend millions on lobbyists to keep their production line flowing.
Then there's the large percentage of people who are poor and obviously don't have the luxery to give a shit about reducing their carbon footprint.
It puts it into perspective really when you realise if everyone in the world made a change it would make 3% difference. That includes all celebs.
Then you put into context how running Dicaprio's yacht for 1 day is the same carbon emission as something like 90 people flying half way round the world. So the average Joe? Yeh your changes are tiny compared to the wealthy who aren't showing signs of giving up their private helicopters and yachts yet.
How does someone eating a quadruple quarter-pounder burger tell another person people should eat less beef and expect to be taken seriously? The government contemplates impeding beef production and the beef industry inevitably object, throw their profits at lobbying and provide graphs of huge beef consumption. So what on earth is the government's motivation to carry out a change that many indicators suggest their population don't really want? Individual action has ways of driving action by signalling public will.
Be a celebrity, make a show of caring, hope people don't look into or realise the hypocrisy going on.
How many companies who were touting their green credentials are jumping on NFTs now?
So do rich/middle class people, and poors have to reglament way more.
Well often cheaper stuff preferred by poorer people as it's more affordable don't last as long so say you buy a very cheap appliance it's likely to break sooner than a more expensive one normally to a point so it does become an issue.
I think that is rather extreme. However, I think it is worth bearing in mind that future generations may be looking at a vastly more authoritarian world, because those same states are going to have to start making some very difficult and morally dubious choices. Even in a relatively good scenario, not everyone is going to live, and the people who are not going to live will mostly see that outcome coming, so they will need to be managed. There will undeniably be a huge amount of cruelty involved, and it may well be that the political classes in many states will begin to feel that they can longer afford to allow themselves to be governed by the moral conscience of their citizens.
Hey now we're not quite at Utopia kill loads of people with a genetically modified virus stage yet. But yeh there will likely have to be some stuff happen I'm predicting population limit stuff or attempts at it in 5 - 10 years.
There is a lot that could be done quite comfortably I'd imagine with little issue to start with:
- Better public transport
- Actual decent green energy funding
- Stopping energy companies gouging customers and then not spending the money on upgrades but instead giving all profits to CEOs and shareholders etc
- Stop dumping in rivers which has been found to be an issue in the UK again
- Stop accepting the screwed up argument of "Well we don't have the money to make the changes" from companies pulling in millions or billions in profits
- Better more reliable green energy funding. I'd take a small wind turbine or Solar water heater system if offered but I'm very much not going for Solar for a number of reasons unless it's funding a joint project to build a farm in a proper location rather than just bolting panels onto a house roof.
Yes but consumers are the end-users, all companies aren't just only making yachts and private jets they are making personal computers, phones, steaks, toilet paper, poorly build EVs(Tesla), and other consumer goods. As for obsolescence, it speeds up advancement in processors, and battery life for small devices. I personally believe phones should be near 100% modular with the ability to cheaply swap the battery, but if you buy a device on Apple's OS you have no choice to play by their rules and the same with android which while being freer just follows Apple's trends.
Yes consumers are the end user but can you tell me which phone brand uses sustainably sourced materials and has the best sustainability policy? I know which one it is and I'm wondering if anyone else does.
My present phone is coming up to about 5 years old and I'm considering upgrading just for more storage capacity on the thing but I often reuse and repurpose my old stuff with old Phones becoming media player devices. My computer? 7 1/2 years old and the last 2 I stripped down to make external hard drives when they stopped working entirely. Steak and in actual steak? I eat maybe once a week at most maybe closer to once a month.
Modular stuff would be cool to get I must admit though for stuff.
The thing is government regulation can hugely help consumers especially punishing companies that try to profiteer by passing on costs to consumers while still raking in millions. Look at the stuff Amazon was doing with crushing and destroying returns for a while before that was stopped by government pressure. Or as a very good example energy efficiency ratings on appliances pushing companies to make there's now look like the most efficient and trying to optimise for efficiency because now that info isn't obfuscated from consumers so they'll willingly make a choice because it also benefits them.
To show the corporate issue take the idea of veggie food. At present many are more expensive than even their premium meat counterparts. The argument is "well as more people eat it then it will get cheaper". When what incentive have a company got to make it cheaper when they could keep it the same price as more people eat it and make even more money? This is where governments can and should be coming in to work on this stuff.
