Governments and large industrial and commercial organisations are overwhelmingly more responsible for climate change than individuals like you and me
Right, but those governments and commercial organizations are supported by individuals like you and me; they do not exist in a vacuum. It doesn’t take a long conversation with an average person to realize they do not want to make the necessary changes to their life (either directly, or indirectly through significant change in the system) to fix the problem.
If most people were actually in favour of strong action to make significant change, then most democratic governments would be more in favour of more significant action as well, because at the end of the day most of them just want to be elected. But even in countries with a parliamentary system and multiple parties, greens barely have any power, and people keep choosing governments that either do nothing, or just the bare minimum.
For a small example of what I mean, just look how many people go out of their way to show up on vegan/vegetarian threads to talk about how much they love meat and won’t stop eating it - despite the fact it’s one of the largest contributors to climate change. And this is on Lemmy too, which is a lot more left leaning than the average social media platform, and even more than the real world. Then add in how many people are pro-car, especially gas, or how many people are addicted consumerists and can’t stop buying things they don’t need in plastic packaging; and for some more sprinkles you can also add all the “environmentalists” who campaign in favour of shutting down nuclear plants despite the fact that a) it’s the second safest energy source b) even with nuclear, by 2026 fossil fuels will still be responsible for over 50% of energy production.
If anyone wants to be a grown up and have a grown up discussion, then they need to stop shifting blame around and acting like governments exist in a vacuum and corporations aren’t selling anything.
If Coke decided to stop producing plastic bottles then Pepsi would up their production and their profits would skyrocket; if a government had the balls to issue laws about plastic reduction that would stop them from producing them, they would almost certainly lose the next election and there might be protests and riots; but if people just stopped buying soft drinks in plastic bottles, Coke and Pepsi would both stop producing them regardless of what the government does.
If anyone wants to be a grown up and have a grown up discussion, then they need to stop shifting blame around and acting like governments exist in a vacuum and corporations aren’t selling anything.
Right, but those governments and commercial organizations are supported by individuals like you and me; they do not exist in a vacuum. It doesn’t take a long conversation with an average person to realize they do not want to make the necessary changes to their life (either directly, or indirectly through significant change in the system) to fix the problem.
If most people were actually in favour of strong action to make significant change, then most democratic governments would be more in favour of more significant action as well, because at the end of the day most of them just want to be elected. But even in countries with a parliamentary system and multiple parties, greens barely have any power, and people keep choosing governments that either do nothing, or just the bare minimum.
For a small example of what I mean, just look how many people go out of their way to show up on vegan/vegetarian threads to talk about how much they love meat and won’t stop eating it - despite the fact it’s one of the largest contributors to climate change. And this is on Lemmy too, which is a lot more left leaning than the average social media platform, and even more than the real world. Then add in how many people are pro-car, especially gas, or how many people are addicted consumerists and can’t stop buying things they don’t need in plastic packaging; and for some more sprinkles you can also add all the “environmentalists” who campaign in favour of shutting down nuclear plants despite the fact that a) it’s the second safest energy source b) even with nuclear, by 2026 fossil fuels will still be responsible for over 50% of energy production.
If anyone wants to be a grown up and have a grown up discussion, then they need to stop shifting blame around and acting like governments exist in a vacuum and corporations aren’t selling anything.
If Coke decided to stop producing plastic bottles then Pepsi would up their production and their profits would skyrocket; if a government had the balls to issue laws about plastic reduction that would stop them from producing them, they would almost certainly lose the next election and there might be protests and riots; but if people just stopped buying soft drinks in plastic bottles, Coke and Pepsi would both stop producing them regardless of what the government does.
Exactly. Thank you.