A lot of the initiatives are ineffective by design because the real goal is to give the consumers agency over the problem. Corporations have known that individual effort is a drop in the bucket but by framing the problem as not not a "corporate" problem but a "society" problem, they can keep not fixing it, for profit.
BP created the concept of a carbon footprint to make customers feel responsible for climate change. The reality is that consumer choices make no difference in the face of China building a dozen new giant coal power plants each year. This needs to be tackled diplomatically, and nations need to be willing to negotiate with much more force. China emits more than double the CO2 of the U.S. That’s just CO2. There’s PFAS, methane, plastics, and hundreds of others pollutants. They’re destroying whole oceans with their huge bottom-trawling fishing fleets. It’s time we get serious about tackling the major polluters first.
I gave up hope when I learned that the blue and green recycle bins in my area are really only there to make the consumer feel better about how much we waste as a society. A lot of the stuff we put in those bins still just winds up in a landfill.
Also incineration as "energy recycling" - https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/waste-energy-controversial-power-generation-incineration
Today's initiatives are theater.
100 companies are responsible for 71% of the worlds emissions. The rest is also mainly companies. The idea of a carbon footprint is propaganda invented by BP (this sounds like a conspiracy but I swear it's true, look it up). Before anything you personally can accomplish can make any difference, we would first have to significantly change society.
It's just not true that we can't make a difference though - it's just easier for people to think that. Even if corporations, China, people on private jets etc. are damaging Earth and its inhabitants, our habits still make a difference also. You know, we can do what we can do personally at the same time as voting, campaigning and protesting for the change we can't control.
While they have close to no value from practical standpoint, they do allow to start the conversation about the seriousness of climate issues.
I think very soon we’ll look back on virtually everything we’ve done to help the planet/climate as stupid and inadequate sadly.
The paper vs plastic thing sucks because both are bad. Paper needs trees to be cut down and single use plastics are horrible for the environment
At least paper can be produced through sustainable farming practices and any waste is almost entirely biodegradable.
But I do agree that the debate sucks. What we should really be doing is forcing corporations and governments to 1. Adhere to very strict sustainability levels and 2. Pay for clean up efforts out of the salaries of their board of directors. Any corporation that declares a profit or gives a bonus to someone in managment without meating their sustainability requirements results in large fines for the company as well as every individual member of the board of directors. And anyone who claims they can't pay within 12 months is given jail time and stripped of all assets instead.
Sounds harsh, sure. But till we start holding them accountable, it's not going to matter how many people are using reusable plastic shopping bags or soggy paper straws. It's not going to make any difference
I mean, in theory, dumping paper into a landfill is a carbon sink
Which is essentially what happened to create coal in the first place, kinda sorta.
Literally everything that isn't investing in Nuclear Fusion and electrification.
I think most people who want to do something about regulating climate change to prevent creating an uninhabitable world already think today's measures are stupid and inadequate. People won't be thinking much of anything in the future when we're all dead.
Ha, look at this optimist who thinks there'll be people in the future.
There won't be a "we" to look back on them, so I wouldn't worry about it.
Whatever is being done, it isn't enough. Lots of countries are lying about their carbon emissions and it's basically the worst it's ever been. Quick intro video
It's a difficult topic, those of us already engaged with the problem are already aware that the current solutions are inadequate, but, every year we are making improvements.
Is that going to be enough? It depends on what you define as enough. I'd describe myself as short term pessimist but long term optimist.
By that I mean, short term there are far too many vested interests (stranded capital, the income of various nation states, nationalism in general, the 8 hour day, our built environment and the car centric nature of its design) to do the sort of immediate changes that we needed to have averted this problem. We needed to have started meaningfully perusing this in the 70s, not the 2010s.
But that shouldn't take away from the fact that the ever increasing rollout of renewable energy generation is better than continuing to use coal and gas. Every ton of CO2 we don't emit is a ton we don't have to get rid of later. That is as true today was it was 50 years ago, or 50 years in the future.
Long term, I'm optimistic that humans will continue to develop new technologies and the political and economic will shifts to meaningfully tackle climate change and we ultimately will survive, but I am expecting billions to die explicitly due to climate change - ie from floods, droughts, famine, war caused by the preceeding, internment of fleeing refugees, etc - in the interim. I won't be surprised if towards the end of my life terms like ecocide start to shift to mean genocide of humans via negligent climate policies, eg when Bangladesh goes under water.
The next 100 years is going to be a brutal mix of exciting technological breakthroughs, coupled with soul crushing deaths of people in countries who predominantly did very little to cause the problem.
Do not let perfection get in the way of progress.
The vast majority of these initiatives are just pointless "greenwashing".
The embarrassing thing will be that we did nothing to limit private jets.
If everyone but world leaders had to fly with us poor's, wed be doing a hell of a lot better than we are.
We never address the easy, large targets because those targets are rich people and they pay for it to not be addressed.
It's embarrassing that we have an Internet and are unable to come together to fight such a small group of people.
I think it’s safe to say the whole climate change episode will go down as this era’s “How could they be so stupid or bad like that?!” Like Germans during the Nazis, slave owners in the US, medieval superstitions during the plague etc. All of it will become a lesson in what not to do and how not to think.
Collectively our generation will be marked as that which had all the means and privileges one could hope for but the foresight and wisdom of bricks.
If a large percentage of people can't even utilize resuable bags for their groceries we're already screwed. So much apathy and people not really committed to take even the smallest of steps to help our environment.
I'd say that blaming individuals for fundamental architecture of our society is the essence of the problem we have.
Fundamental architecture? Being adverse to making environmentally conscious decisions is a choice. When other solutions are available fundamental architecture sounds more like a cop out to me.
By fundamental architecture, I mean things like suburban development. Suburban development enforces commuting by personal motor vehicle which is far less efficient, from a pollution perspective, than public transit like intra-city rail. Another example could be planned obsolesence. This is part of the fundamental architecture which imposes a cycle of pollution into the replacement of consumer goods. These aren't individuals' choices, they're the fabric of western society.
It's systemic.
Sure but have you tried goin grink?
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