this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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Environment
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I respectfully disagree. The powerful people (which have considerable overlap with the wealthy people in a Venn diagram) can set the narrative and potentially influence new policies, but their power comes mainly from those who follow them.
Pretty much everybody in the market for a new car could choose to buy one with a smaller engine - precious few people actually need a pickup or SUV with a V6 or even V8.
Long-haul or intercontinental flights are mainly luxury items - even more so in a post-Covid world where pretty much any business can be done much more efficiently by video chat.
Many, many things are thrown away that still work or could easily be fixed, but the replacement has this fancy new feature and really doesn't cost that much more, all things considered.
etc.
These are all things that most common people could decide to do differently at no additional cost to them, but very few choose to do.
The same goes for new laws. If you* really care about the environment, you could just work on your environmental footprint out of your own free will instead of waiting for a law or regulation that forces you to. It's not like e.g. conserving energy is illegal until a new law makes it mandatory.
ETA: * 'you' in general, not the person I'm replying to specifically.
I also respectfully disagree with your argument. If someone were to walk into a known minefield and be killed by a mine, I would not consider that person deserving of their fate but would ask why they thought it was appropriate to walk into a known minefield and what may have influenced them to think that way. When we are considering people, including ourselves, we have to consider that we are dealing with limited information and biases. You are correct that the average person is probably making decisions that ultimately support the most destructive organizations on the planet, but why are they doing that? Do the people who financially support the companies most responsible for climate change have any real understanding of the consequences of their decisions, or is it more likely that they are influenced by the culture they live in and the information they are most commonly exposed to? If the latter case is more likely, who is responsible for creating that informational environment? I do not believe that anyone is a rational actor 100% of the time, so to me the blame lies with those organizations propagating information which is profitable to themselves in the short term and destructive to our species in the long term. Us humans aren't consciously making that decision by weighing all the variables; it is happening because the system we exist in which benefits our most powerful individuals primary rewards quarterly profit rather than the ultimate survival of humans.
I feel that you are both right and there's something in between. I don't think really anyone can plead ignorance to environmental damage at this point. There's nobody alive who doesn't know that cigarettes are bad for you, at this point, but still, all smokers choose to take that first puff, and people have differing amounts of fervor about stopping, if they do at all.
Still, you have a point that nobody is a rational actor all the time. And even rational actors are subject to the tragedy of the commons. And some, rich or not, are just not interested in morals or the long term good.