That's an odd way to spell "what the insatiable greed of like seven corporations has done to us."
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Those 7 corporations. Would those be companies whose products we keep buying?
They have trained you all your life to blame the victims.
Who is consuming their products? I'm doing my damn best not too while striving for structural change, and I'd bet the other user is too. What about you? People taking your stance are usually the ones trying to make excuses to keep consuming mindlessly.
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I'm sorry, I can't stop using electricity or gas to go to work because I need to eat and pay rent to live. Because that's the world those rich people made for everyone else.
Whether you do or not, other major corporations do, and while the money changes hands between a few dozen rich assholes, the planet burns and they laugh while you blame me.
You mean the products they designed to be as cheap as possible with no care on their impact on the environment, and then brainwashed the population through marketing to make us think we actually needed them?
You don't even need to brainwash. Just make sure their wage stays at a level where their survival depends on buying the cheapest of cheap, necessity will do the rest.
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Yeah, if people really wanted, they could make their own phones and all they own by hand. These damn socialists!
"We can't make our own phones, so there's literally nothing we can do!"
Do you have a plant based diet, or try to reduce meat consumption to the best of your abilities?
Do you walk or take public transport when you could walk?
Do you avoid buying things you do not need?
If you answered "yes" to all that, then congratulations! You are part of a different 1%, and you are also just arguing for the sake of arguing.
If you answered "no", then you're part of the problem. You can pretend otherwise all you want, but you are one cog that keeps the system going. The system isn't magical, other wordly, or some fundamental law of the universe. The system is people and their choices.
Yes, those people are part of the problem. But reality is that those people don't need to lead the change. There are too many literal individuals involved. Tackling the problem from the head down with regulations is much more efficient.
Blaming individuals for climate change is incredibly naive. Doesn't help anyone. No vegan will save the world. And no omnivore will destroy it.
Yeah to those 3.
However, I wasn't intending to argue with someone with such a simplistic view of how the system works, anyway. If you think it's all up to the customer and the corps nor the system have no blame in comparison, it's just a lost cause, so sort yourself out.
If you think it’s all up to the customer and the corps nor the system have no blame in comparison
When did I or anyone else say companies and the government do not have any blame? Can you link me the comment and quote the relevant bit?
Those 7 corporations. Would those be companies whose products we keep buying?
The very first comment I replied to :). Shifting blame from the corps onto the customers. Once again, feel free to sort yourself out.
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Those corporations sell products that end up in consumer's hands.
Billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars of propaganda are just a coincidence.
And a century of research into more powerful and crushing propaganda. Just a coincidence.
Those seven corporations all sell consumer products. We can make changes but we are unwilling to make them.
I did make the changes personally. Everything must be perfect now in the whole world! You’re welcome!
How ridiculous. We need to be honest about power.
We do need to talk about power but we also have to stop pretending individual sacrifice especially in the West is not required. For example we should all be going fir a plant based diet ASAP
Most reasonable viewpoint, but it requires something of people, so of course it's downvoted.
And that's the rub. There are things we as individuals can do but we choose to ignore that.
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I did make the changes personally.
Then congratulations! You are part of a different kind of 1%, and you perfectly understand what the other user is saying and are just arguing for the sake of arguing.
The reality is, most people don't want to make any changes. You can't change the system if the people themselves are not opening to change.
Though experiment:
Tomorrow is election day in your country. The stout environmentalists win control of the government and proceed to make the following changes:
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Carbon tax, which increases the price of gas, which itself results in an increase in shipping anything. It also directly raises the price of anything that produces carbon in its manufacture process, such as anything made of plastic.
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An end to meat subsidies - maybe even a tax on it - and an increase to subsidizing other types of farming.
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A ban on single use plastics.
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And anything else you think might be necessary.
Now the questions: How long until they get kicked out? How long until the protests and riots? How long until a new government undoes it all?
I'm assuming you're not naive and you don't live in a bubble. You should know the majority of people will not be fans of any of that; and with the way it usually goes and the pendulum swings, the government that follows it will be a far right one.
Cue that "badass" bird from Kurzgesagt 'voting with their wallet'.
Neoliberalism put us in this situation, so you know what will save us? More neoliberalism!
Show me how to stop using oil. SHOW ME.
What I, an individual, can do. And don't say: consume less. I need to eat to live. And don't say: vote for politicians. We're doing that and it isn't fast enough. So, what can an individual do to stop this? Go on. We're all waiting.
You probably can't stop but you can reduce your power consumption. There's a lot of studies suggesting if Westerners stopped eating meat and shifted to a plant based diet that we could reduce a lot of our climactic shift.
So your solution is: austerity for the poors. Not for the rich. But we can slightly reduce our carbon footprint by not eating meat.
OK. This doesn't stop climate change. This just makes life harder and less pleasurable for the majority of people. This is what the rich push.
I never made any comment about anyone's wealth. That is moronic bullshit you added for no reason.
The West going to plant based diets would significantly cut emissions. It is what YOU as an individual can do.
You asked what YOU can do and that is it.
The West going to plant based diets would significantly cut emissions.
Nowhere near enough to matter. I mentioned wealth because the vast majority of people are not "rich". And it's the rich who own the corporations that make these decisions that affect the climate and how fuels are used.
I.e. you are proposing austerity for the masses that will NOT stop climate change. You are the problem as you are shilling for big business. My point is there ISN'T anything individuals can do to stop climate change. We have to hold the rich and corporate owners accountable.
There's very little, without systemic change. But blaming the 7 companies is too easy, as well. Imagine, if you will - what happens if the 7 companies tomorrow simply say 'you convinced us - we will completely cease operations tomorrow'. Lots of dead people.
It's easy to blame them because it's true.
At this point, many of them are too stablished to just go away with the power of the wallet.
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New York times being new York times
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I find articles like this so frustrating. It feels like it is aimed at being a wake-up call to the reader, but at the same time offers no solutions, no advice and still lays the blame at the feet of the average person for not doing enough. "What we have done to ourselves" is not advocate enough I guess?
Perhaps I'm not the target audience for the article. I grew up in an environmentally conscious home we'll before it was trendy and have been worried about climate change for as long as I can remember. It's hard to see an article like this as anything other than an effort to drive traffic...
I'd be happy to hear what others got out of the article if it was more positive than my read of it.
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we didn't do shit. big oil companies on the other hand...
We've likely kicked ourselves from a path where we would see 4C of warming by 2100 with further warming thereafter to one where we see about 3C of warming by 2100 with further warming thereafter. That's an improvement, but not what we need, with is actual stabilization under livable conditions.
Again with the "we".
And who bought the gas? Who bought the oil? Who bought the plastic made from the oil? Who bought the food grown from the fertilizer made from the oil?
If you don't live on North Sentinel Island your entire life relies on the products of the corporations that have destroyed the environment. You are complicit. Your parents were complicit. Your children, if any, will be complicit.
Blaming corporations or capitalism or "big oil" is just a way of dodging personal responsibility. It's an excuse for not making inconvenient personal changes in your own lifestyle. It lets you tell yourself that when big corporations consume so much there is no point in you lowering your standard of living to consume less.
The fact that corporations are worse than you does not absolve you of your responsibility for your own decisions and your own environmental sins. We all have to do better.
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We deserve everything that's coming We took this world to our graves, We made its creatures our slaves Shattered the hourglass, an un-erasable past Humans, Demons, deranged and depraved
"we"
I feel it's time for people that care to start moving on the the acceptance phase of our future. Whether that is beginning to accept austerity in what we eat/wear/do and wait for the collective "we" to join us when they need to adapt more rapidly than we chose to, or if we give in and join the "it's already too late, let it burn" side.
I try to stay positive, because I've always tried to conserve and be responsible, so it isn't too bad, but I feel bad for the next generation or 2 at least. They asked for this even less than we did. But I feel the sooner we get on acting like this is a done deal the better, because most people aren't going to care until they're hurting.
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And if you all supported human expansion into space decades ago, this might not have happened. 🤷
Space isn't the answer. Save earth.
Space is the only answer at this point that makes any sense. Without human expansion into space, we can't solve climate change.
Oh fuck off. We could have solved this decades ago without the need to be in space.
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