Not to be the bad guy here, but as an average person, somewhen you reach a point of feasibility where it is just so freaking hard. Like, ok, we don't own a car, we don't drive. We rely on walking, public transportation and biking every now and then. We barely ever eat meat. We try not to buy imported fruit and vegetables, that one avocado every other month is more like a celebrated treat for our toddler. Try to avoid stuff wrapped in plastic. We avoid, reuse, recycle. Don't buy new clothes, hardly buy clothes for us grown ups at all. Most presents our girl gets are pre owned, too. We line dry our clothes that we wash with as little detergent as possible, as rarely as possible, at the lowest temperature that still does the job.
But we live in a rental that heats with gas (as do a lot of Germans). We try to heat to a bare minimum despite having a small kid at home, we tried adjusting to cooler temperatures but below 18° room temperature during the day we just couldn't do it in the winter. Not to mention the mold. We buy the organic, fair trade coffee, knowing fully well that we shouldn't drink coffee in the first place. I type this from a phone that is not even 18 months old since my other phone got so unbearably slow it was unusable in everyday life.
And I feel bad about those things. I feel bad about every time I buy a coffee in a paper cup (and if I knew I would need a coffee to go I would have brought one from home to begin with so of course I don't have a reusable cup on me either). I feel bad about our toothbrushes because they have plastic in them and about my mascara coming in a plastic container. I feel bad about picking up a toy kitchen with a family member's car instead of using public transport. I feel bad I cannot afford to go to those shops where they sell foods unwrapped and that I cannot always get the organic options. Hell I feel bad because I don't know which option is the better one, the regional apples in a plastic packaging or the imported ones without or the organic ones from somewhere in between and I feel like I should know for every item.
But I just don't know how to go further. I don't want to brush my teeth with sticks and I don't want to make my own deodorant. But I feel like I will forever be at fault and owe my daughter everything until I literally live in a cave. Maybe it's like this 80/20 rule but I feel like 80 is just not enough. That kid deserves 100, she doesn't deserve excuses that something is too hard or not feasible.
We're trying. We really are, my dear. And I am so sorry we are failing you and we cannot give 100%, be it for financial or practical reasons.
Sadly not just boomers any more Gen-x and millennials are buying the Tonka trucks for big Bois and hiding their companies responsibilities to the environment.
More like "I don't trust people in power, even when they say fossil fuels are bad."
You don't have to trust people in power, you can just look at the climate disasters happening all over the world at an accelerating pace each and every year.
What climate diasters? Its hot in the summer? Hurricanes still happen?
Its a slow boil, and its hard to tell the progression. We all learned how you can lie with stats in high school, and it looks just like that.
I don't? Im saying that its hard to tell from the events that things are getting worse, or at least for a layman. And its easy to convince youself you're being lied to.
It's not hard to tell at all from the events that things are getting worse. One has to be utterly ignorant of what's happening in the world to claim that. The fact that somebody could genuinely believe what you're saying is frankly depressing.
