interesting and not exactly encouraging survey and the guardian is going with the whole "look at these selfish and irresponsible plebs", but the big thing i take from it is mostly that climate messaging has been so terrible that nobody knows what the fuck to do, everyone is sceptical of the personal responsibility bullshit, and the most highly-rated thing is that people just want some fucking leadership on this (interesting that there were very few questions on what government/industry should be doing, i wonder why)
This is really it. There is absolutely no fucking incentive for the individual to make sacrifices when it is blatantly obvious that every other asshole in society will proceed rolling coal, converting defunct coal plants into bitcoin miners, building datacenters in the middle of Death Valley, filling three trashbags with plastic waste every day, opening their windows to regulate heat because their landlords won't install a fucking themostat, etc.
Putting this on the individual is FUCKING SUICIDAL. We need collective action not just to rebuild society around ecological principles, but to fucking bury the oligarchs and strike pure terror into the selfish overconsumers as the first order of business. We need a full blown cultural revolution against the waste. Modestly throwing cans into the recycling dumpster isn't going to cut it. We need to be throwing executives into the dumpster.
And no, we're not there yet. We're not even close. But nothing less will suffice. These people obviously don't fear Armageddon, but that doesn't mean they can't be terrified.
Sorry, I'm just really mad.
Well why the fuck should I?
I eat meat about once a week. I bike to work.
There are obviously limitations to what we can do through individual choices, but also if you're already doing a lot to limit your personal carbon emissions, I don't think you're the typical person surveyed here?
Love how the article glosses over the 78% of people surveyed saying they want governments to implement stricter regulations. Honestly why the fuck would you expect everyone to work off of principle when everything around them suggests to them to do the opposite? I want to just off the next person that pipes up about individual responsibility
Yea, like do I want to stop using single use plastics? No.
Do I want the government to make and everyone else? Yes.
People will take the path of least resistance and are motivated by short-term gratification so you need to cut off that path if it’s going to kill everyone.
George H W Bush basically said this thirty years ago. "The American way of life is not up for negotiation. Period." Guess what he was replying to.
spoiler
Criticism from environmentalists who were correctly laying the blame on the 'First World' for their disproportionate impact on environmental health and resource consumption.
Now I really want a story set in a world where you can pay off the enviornment, leading to more and more climate disruption as we commit more and more to increasing production. (Turns out we can just stop making the climate worse and that we are actually constantly increasing production cause of the rich, not because we can't fix the climate)
“Citizens are undeniably concerned by the state of the planet, but these findings raise doubts regarding their level of commitment to preserving it,” the study said. “Rather than translating into a greater willingness to change their habits, citizens’ concerns are particularly focused on their negative assessment of governments’ efforts.”
while there surely is some selfishness involved and lol at this articles framing of it, i just think most people are not convinced that their individual actions will actually do shit, and for most of these things theyve listed theres fuckall that individuals can actually do about them anyway, and people are pissed at governments for not doing any of the systemic shit that will actually make a real difference
Individual decisions (and other market-based nonsense like carbon taxes) won't ever lead you to choose to take an electric train line that doesn't exist, to your bullshit job that probably shouldn't exist, which is in a horribly energy inefficient glass tower where the windows don't even open, to suffer under the whims of your do-nothing boss who says that you're not allowed to work from your own home, which is a detached suburban house surrounded by abandoned shopping malls and empty parking lots, and where the nearest supermarket requires driving, and the only way to buy even something basic like milk is in single use containers made entirely or mostly of plastic. Who would honestly choose to live like this if other options were easily available?
i go to the supermarket and theres five brands of the same shit all in the same plastic bottles with the same fake recycling logo but one of them is a green bottle with a picture of the earth on it so maybe that means its slightly better for the environment in some unspecified way but maybe not and even if it does it probably offsets that by even worse labour conditions or something and im tired and i hate being in this fucking supermarket trying to be an expert in the relative environmental impact of detergent when the chemical company that produced it probably dumped ten times as much toxic waste into the rivers while manufacturing it, but hey im voting for the earth with my wallet, yay me
This assumes that "Lifestyle" is something that an individual has any real power over. Usually when you ask if someone is willing to "change" their lifestyle for the climate it means "Are you willing to live the life you are just without X." Like as an American I would never, in isolation, give up my car because to do so is basically to render yourself a non person in our society. Now if I had better choices that allowed me to live a full life without my car I would jump on it in a second. Like our lifestyles are largely outside of our hands as the products and choices provided to us are done so to maximize profit not to maximize use value or our happiness.
Like think about food, it is almost impossible to find healthy food options that you don't make yourself that are less than 500 calories. The pat answer that libs give for this is "Well if enough people demand X in the market place then the market will provide because that is where the sales are!" But that ignores the giant chain of value production of which the act of consumption is only the tail end. It also ignores the fact that largely our tastes are formed by the consumptive choices we are presented with. A good example of this is the popularity of turkey tails in American Samoa.
this is a way for them to say "you don't deserve political action on climate change"
There’s so many steps to take before we get close to curbing treats
- ground the military immediately, anything not nuke powered goes in dry dock
- suspend all drilling permits in federal waters
- end intangible drilling tax exemptions for oil and gas drillers
- halt all new pipeline construction
- mandate work from home
- public transportation infrastructure and housing investments to make it affordable to commute electric
Etc etc
I don’t blame people for being like fuck off, no when asked this question because as usual it’s just the same old liberal bait and switch of trying to get individuals to shoulder the burden of systemic failures
I would love to lead a life where all the uneccessary bullshit is cut out. Fuck new smartphones every year. Fuck 30 brands of mayo. Just give me a stable job, a place to call home and good affordable healthcare. Add to this some good public transport and accessable education. Life would be a fucking utopia.
socialist parties have SO much potential to radicalize people who genuinely care about climate change by providing an actual concrete message
(an already hurting proletariat is unwilling to submit to further austerity)
The media:
:shocked-pikachu:
I am willing to change my lifestyle to include more walking, biking, and hunting oil execs for sport
If any of you sickos wanna joking my pedal-powered mad max biker gang, we're meeting at my house in liberal mountain and there will be hummus. This could be us!
:stalin-gun-1::sicko-biker:
:maduro-katana-1::sicko-biker:
I bike commuted to work for years and it didn't end climate change. I don't get it.
