When I was in elementary school, the cafeteria switched to disposable plastic trays because the paper ones hurt trees. Stupid, I know… but are today’s initiatives any better?
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.
Those companies pollute to produce goods and services that individuals buy.
What does holding corporations accountable look like if not refusing to give them our money while advocating for regulation?
Throwing your hands in the air, doing nothing to change your destructive habits and just saying “but corporations” isn’t gonna help anything.
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.
One thing not working like it should doesn’t make your destructive habits less destructive.
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.
Those companies pollute to produce goods and services that individuals buy.
What does holding corporations accountable look like if not refusing to give them our money while advocating for regulation?
Individual change is changing society.
Throwing your hands in the air, doing nothing to change your destructive habits and just saying “but corporations” isn’t gonna help anything.
Yes, go vegan and stop driving if you actually want to change your impact.
And if not vegan then at least not beef
Beef is 10x more carbon intensive than pork
Going fully vegan isn’t hard tho :)
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Most people simply arent going to go vegan, and many need to take baby steps toward it. Cutting out beef is a great first step.
But let’s also not make it seem more difficult than it is, it’s very easy to avoid animal products.
Shouting “BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO IT ALL THE WAY” every time veganism is brought up is a bit silly.
It’s really not these days, but it is much easier if people start at least reducing. It is also much more approachable to people still used to animal products. It is a natural transition and still helps.
The average British person emits 76 times more CO2 than the offset of one person going vegan for life. Even if everyone on the planet went vegan today, forever, their sacrifice would be undone by the number of new babies born in a single year, globally. Veganism isn’t going to solve climate change. It’s not even going to make a dent. We should be focusing on practical, real measures to reduce global CO2 output. For example, the move from coal to LNG halves CO2 output. This transition alone is an order of magnitude more impactful than the entire world going vegan for life. If you care about climate change you’ll invest your limited time and energy where it counts.
You can easily be vegan while advocating for other change like less coal.
You can easily be vegan while advocating for other change like less coal.
Sorry, but major lifestyle changes are not “easy.” It’s “easy” to lose weight, and yet two thirds of Americans can’t do it. I like eating meat but would be willing to give it up if the juice were worth the squeeze. It’s not. Instead of spending your time telling people to make major lifestyle changes with almost zero impact to the climate, why aren’t you focusing on real, sustainable solutions?
FYI the top four metrics in the image you linked are for agriculture, not meat production alone. Agriculture includes the production of plants, fruits, and grains. It’s all food production.
It really isn’t hard, buying the plant based products instead of the animal ones is easy.
I find it very difficult. It appears that what you find easy and what others find easy are not the same.
What’s hard about choosing the plant based option in the grocery store or restaurant?
It’s literally just buying a different product.I like meat a lot. Not eating meat will significantly degrade my standard of living.
