This meme is not true and missleading. I know it fits the narrative of “companies bad”. But it’s not based on fact.
It’s based on an article by the guardian.
Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says
The article is based on the Carbon Major Report.
It describes itself like this:
Carbon Majors is a database of historical production data from 122 of the world’s largest oil, gas, coal, and cement producers. This data is used to quantify the direct operational emissions and emissions from the combustion of marketed products that can be attributed to these entities.
As you can see, they speak about “entities”, not companies. Who are said entities?
75 Investor-owned Companies, 36 State-owned Companies, 11 Nation States, 82 Oil Producing Entities, 81 Gas Entities, 49 Coal Entities, 6 Cement Entities
As one might realize, only 75 are Companies. Most of them are either States, or producers of Oil, Gas, Coal and Cement.
The 71 % is not at all about global emissions. This is wrong.
72% of Global Fossil Fuel & Cement CO2 Emissions
So it’s 100 entities that are responsible for 72 % of the world’s fossil and cement Co2 emission.
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/05dfb9e1-ace2-4072-9fc5-7ed6f6eddfb2.png
Looking at them you can see how the top emitter are very much not companies. Also, it’s historical Co2, a fact made prominent by the former Soviet union beeing the top emitter.
Let’s look at some more findings:
The Carbon Majors database finds that most state- and investor-owned companies have expanded their production operations since the Paris Agreement. 58 out of the 100 companies were linked to higher emissions in the seven years after the Paris Agreement than in the same period before. This increase is most pronounced in Asia, where 13 out of 15 (87%) assessed companies are connected to higher emissions in 2016–2022 than in 2009–2015, and in the Middle East, where this number is 7 out of 10 companies (70%). In Europe, 13 of 23 companies (57%), in South America, 3 of 5 (60%) companies, and in Australia, 3 out of 4 (75%) companies were linked to increased emissions, as were 3 of 6 (50%) African companies. North America is the only region where a minority of companies, 16 of 37 (43%), were linked to rising emissions.
Here the report mixes state and private companies. The rise is most prominent in countries with state owned companies. Privote companies, as seen in Europe and North America, haven’t increased that much.
So, all in all: The idea that 100 companies are responsible for the destruction of earth is plain wrong.
I know the ideas that companies are responsible and to blaim for the current state of affairs fits our world view (it fits mine!!), but please don’t run into the trap of believing everything you read just because it does.
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Looking at the numbers you should maybe include Chinas Coal Industry in there, since it is responsible for about 25 % of global emissions alone, according to the up to date report.
And the people at Gazprom also deserve a prominent spot in that line.
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Wow, talk about a failure of journalism from a decent source
I mean it’s the guardian. It hardly qualifies as ‘journalism’
Yes and no. The Carbon Majors Report provides two ways of looking at global emissions: Cumulative and Annual. The table you showed reflects the Cumulative Emissions Since Industrial Revolution (1751-2022)
While not reported in the Guardian article, the same 2017 report stated 72% (p5) of global industrial GHGs in 2015 came from 224 companies, with the sample breakdown in the 2017 report, Appendix II (p15). As you can see, pretty much all of those producers are private/state-owned companies and much closer to the current picture of annual emissions. I’m not sure what counts as “industrial”, but crunching the raw numbers of 30565/46073 Mt (Global Emissions, statcan) it works out to about 66% of global emissions in 2015.
Why are you using data from the 2017 report?
You are referring to page 15, which shows emissions in 2015. In the up to date 2024 report this has been replaced with emissions after the Paris climate agreement, so 2016 till 2022.
As you can see, the same picture emerges as I stated in my first post: the top actors are Nations or state owned producers. The contribution to global Co2 emissions is listet, but still only refers to fossil fuel and cement Co 2 emissions.
Great question! The reason why I was using the 2017 report is that the Guardian arrival you originally referred to was from 2017, so I looked at the report they were working off of. While the article is still misleading (shame Guardian) the notion that a small proportion of companies, both state and private owned (100-200), are responsible for the majority (>50%) of global emissions.
Looking at the updated graph of annual emissions, it seems like this is still true, though I haven’t counted the companies. Again I agree the 72% figure is misleading, but I am pushing back on the alternative implication that relatively few companies are not actually making up the majority of annual emissions.
Great question! The reason why I was using the 2017 report is that the Guardian arrival you originally referred to was from 2017, so I looked at the report they were working off of.
That is sensible, yes.
I regards to the graph you posted, it shows how emissions from private comps is have fallen and emissions from nations and nation owned companies have rissen. I think this is a relevant distinction to make, because the meme and the report as they are show a one sided picture (capitalism is the sole drive of climate change) whilst, looking at the complete data, a more nuanced picture emerges (like the role of nations in upholding the capitals system).
This but sort of unironically.
Those 100 companies dig up coal, oil and gas. It’s us that apparently can’t break ourselves from it.
It’s all very well us going out and going “oh, you little poor brown people that don’t know any better: you shouldn’t be using this stuff, it’s killing the planet” when we’ve spent 150 years enriching ourselves off the back of it, and can’t even stop using it ourselves. The USA’s main export and import is still oil.
We’re completely fucked, and it’s very convenient blaming China when we’ve moved all our manufacturing there, but we were all responsible and we did precisely fuck all when it mattered. If a political party promised to stop using it all, they wouldn’t get in. We wouldn’t vote for them because we know we rely on it and costs of everything would go up in the short term.
I’m all for getting rid of fossil fuels, but I’m acutely aware that it’s just so I can breathe slightly cleaner air while the planet boils. Globally we’re still fucked.
I can’t find the quote but don’t expect poor people to want to stay poor. They will do whatever it takes to rise out of poverty. This privileged and naive attitude of ‘don’t do that it’s bad’ won’t work.
This is why we must lower the standard of everyone who isn’t poor.
This may sound naive, but I think that most people are good and would favour sound environmental policy if they could count on getting food, shelter, and healthcare without destroying the planet. It is no coincidence that republicans are pro-business and anti-healthcare. Oligarchs want people to remain so desperate that they can never act on their conscience.
The problem is GDP measurements leave out all the inconvenient but equally important stuff like sustainability, environmental concerns etc. Green GDP is the way to go but it’s still a relatively new concept that needs to be spread out and adopted far and wide, but alas, only when the last fish has been caught and all the rivers poisoned will we realize we cannot eat money.
The problem isn’t methodology. There are plenty of ways to predict, detect and measure pollution, its origins, and ways to prevent it. The problem is systemic: capitalism simply doesn’t account for pollution, and the ruling class which it generates actually fights against regulations. The result is what we see. To solve climate change, we need systemic change
Yes. I would go even further, and say that pollution is the necessary result of capitalism. Capitalism is the mistaken belief that exponential growth can continue forever in a finite ecosystem. My country targets 2-3% growth annually - this implies a doubling of the economy every 30 years or so. It has already been almost 2 doubling periods since human consumption began to exceed the Earth’s sustainable capacity. Even the fucking shithead most responsible, Jeff Bezos, acknowledges the problem. Does anyone really think going to space is just a ‘hobby’ for that sick fuck?
With their unlimited funds that somehow keep replenishing themselves. MAGIC!
I love this narrative of EVERYONE in Lemmy being so smart to not fall into the clutches and delusions of capitalism and at the exact same time, claiming to be a powerless entity, without any intellect, swayed away by the world, having no responsibility whatsoever in the decisions they make daily
It’s truly fascinating
And I find it fascinating that you’d unironically treat Lemmy as some weird hivemind and then criticize it for wanting collective action.
If only we had recycled harder
Honestly I’m starting to hate this narrative
For one, by far the most polluting companies are state owned coal companies in China and India. Then other state owned fossil fuel companies and then private fossil fuel companies.
So all those companies are just power generation. So it’s not like they can just stop, people need the electricity.
And it’s not like nothing is being done either. Like by far the biggest polluter is China’s coal industry, making up 25% of global emissions, but China is also THE global leader on clean energy investment. They are currently building more nuclear power plants than the entire rest of the world has, they are making the biggest most powerfull wind turbines in the world, etc.
And if people would stop consuming cheap, disposable shite from China, then they wouldn’t use so much electricity, so would burn less coal and also you wouldn’t make a bunch of shit that’s just going to end up in a landfill.
It’s a multifaceted issue, but don’t kid yourself
China weighs in at 14.5% for coal. Another 1-point-some-odd for their Petro Chem. The issue is that there are a lot of companies that make up the remainder.
Demand definitely plays a role in all of this, but I don’t think pushing green initiatives is a bad thing from the consumers and one of the only ways we can encourage these companies to do their part
https://mander.xyz/comment/15166141
I’ll refer to this comment where I showed why the article quoted here is very missleading.
It’s possible there’s a very specific tinge of racism and/or jingoism present in the comment previous to yours.
Multinational companies are to blame, not just India and China.
Really? I didn’t see the racist overtones you did apparently. I read that as ‘China is the largest pollution source, but only because of X Y and Z, and they’re doing more to mitigate it than anyone else’.
I hear your point there, you’re not wrong, but it does lay the blame at their feet then sort of back away from the stance.
The fact is, most people won’t read it all. They’re just going to see “blame India and China!”
“Phew, at least I’m off the hook.”
I don’t even like to admit the idea of the above but based on the last month (and let’s face it, very long time before that), people are willing to jump to all sorts of conclusions.
Hell, maybe I did about it sounding racist! But I don’t know the intent behind every message I read. I’m just feeling very skeptical and cautious.
You make some very good points. Being sceptical and cautious are important skills to have in this modern world :/
Power companies in Georgia, US are building more coal power plants. Consumers in Georgia, US don’t have a lot of choice in how the electricity they can buy is produced.
What kind of politicians are people voting for at the state level in GA? Separately, they’re also blowing ass loads of money on nuclear.
Why are the people not on the hook for electricity usage but they are for cheap crap? The corporations reselling the cheap crap are far more culpable. The problem is still capitalism.
Okay, we’ve identified the problem is capitalism. Now what? Are you not at fault when you buy cheap crap from China you don’t need or take your car somewhere you could have walked, because the problem is capitalism?
When crops are failing due to drought and kids are starving to death is pointing the finger at capitalism going to save them?
No, but it’s closer than all of us pointing it at ourselves and each other.
Your logic: “We’ve identified the problem is capitalism. Stop pointing at it and start pointing at something else, that’ll solve it!”
Now what?
Now we organise to abolish capitalism in historically achievable ways, such as unionisation of workers, creation of socialist and dual power structures, and the eventual revolution.
Your logic: “We’ve identified the problem is capitalism. Stop pointing at it and start pointing at something else, that’ll solve it!”
Nope, but nice try trying to strawman me.
I’m talking about taking actual individual action to stop the problem instead of merely pointing fingers.
such as unionisation of workers, creation of socialist and dual power structures, and the eventual revolution.
Okay, so we’ve unionised the workers, how does that stop oil companies polution?
We have socialist dual power structures, how does that stop fossil fuel emissions?
We have “”“the revolution”“” does that magically make fossil fuels go away?
My point is you can blame capitalism all you like, but at the very least in the short/medium term if we want to actually do something about climate change we need to change how we behave. As even under a socialist or communist system people will still use electricity, that will still be generated by fossil fuels.and people will still ship things in from other countries. And good luck pushing socialism in any major western country right now.
I agree so very much.
People around me fly on holidays by plane like two, three times a year, still eat meat, shower twice a day and buy shit they don’t need from Amazon, because they can. This needs to stop! Will it save us? Of course not, but who else is going to stop the global suicide machine? Trump? The fossil destroyers? Do you want to protest another 70 years or go blow up a pipeline?
We are billions, we have the power of “No, thanks, I don’t want that” every fucking day but the endless consumption of stuff is too tempting. Instead, we sit at home, comfortably warm, well fed and lonely, in front of our seethrough plexiglas RGB LED computers and point fingers at corporations that are exactly as greedy, selfish and irresponsible as every single one of us.
NO THANKS! This could be the easiest global movement, no violence, no riots, yet corporations would be powerless. But you’d need to change, and you don’t want that.Edit: If you downvote, please tell me where I’m wrong and what’s your counter-proposal in this actual situation right now.
Where you are wrong is that the majority of humans don’t have access to those luxuries of choice since around 50% of the world is still below the extreme poverty level. Where else you’re wrong is people like me that have solar panels, and electric transportation and access to mass transit that I use regularly. We also don’t have much of a choice, because we don’t make the markets those companies do.
Those companies are the only ones that have a choice because they control so much market share that no one else has enough power to make a change.
I already eliminated my carbon footprint, and it hasn’t done shit, because Starbucks has their own private jet that the CEO is using 3 times a week to fly between San Francisco and Seattle, because fuck the plebes.
The only solution I see at this point is mass protest and starting to assassinate CEOs, shareholders, and boards of directors, in self defense.
The only solution I see at this point is mass protest and starting to assassinate CEOs, shareholders, and boards of directors, in self defense
Historically, terrorism isn’t really a good way towards the elimination of capitalism. The creation of strong unions linked to communist parties (not in the “liberal democracy” sense of party, but in the communist sense) is a historically more proven way to fight against capitalist power structures. Unionise, create local dual power structures and mutual aid, join a militant communist party.
9% of the global population is in extreme poverty not 50%
Thank you. So many people are still living with data from 1970 in their heads
The point is that if everyone did what you (and I) do, we’d actually get somewhere. Seems like we’re in the minority though, unfortunately. That doesn’t make the person you replied to wrong, it just means most people continue to just blindly consume, and when they can’t consume as much as they want they blindly vote for asswipes promising them even more. That’s the cultural problem at the heart of this all. I’m running out of individual actions I can do too, but that doesn’t mean those were not helpful.
People aren’t blindly consuming though, they’re consuming mostly as a necessity, without much choice in the impact of what they consume. Us down here at the bottom of the class hierarchy don’t have a lot of wiggle room. In general, the lower and middle classes much more rarely consume for pleasure, but even still, why shouldn’t I get to take a plane for vacation once or twice a year, sucking the farts of the 300 other peasants in the economy class seats, while CEOs take single-passenger trips in their private jets every day? Do you see how that’s frustrating? My footprint is already incredibly low because on top of just not consuming all that much in the first place (compared to a billionaire), I do try to be as responsible as I reasonably can. Billionaires aren’t even trying.
I think the big point is, it would be magnitudes easier to get the 100 richest people to lower their carbon footprint than the 1 billion poorest (do you understand how monstrously difficult it is to convince 1 billion, or even 1 million people to work towards some common goal?), and it would probably have a bigger impact on the environment to boot. I’m getting tired of people continuing to advocate for individual action when actions by billionaires would be so much more impactful, for so much less sacrifice on their part. Work smarter, not harder, you know?
Obviously, the best solution is to do both, to tackle the problem from both sides. But in my personal opinion, I think we should start with the billionaires and see where that gets us first. They owe us at least that much.
We’re talking about two different groups of people here. The working class trying to survive get a pass on individual actions because they have no means. They should probably vote and organize and get engaged to better their outcomes.
I’m talking about the millions of people that have the means, but just don’t because they quite literally don’t care. I see them every day. It’s the millions of people buying new $60k trucks and SUVs every few years, and large suburban homes, and who have trash cans that are 5x the size of mine that still can’t contain their mindless shopping detritus, and spend tons of money on trendy home furnishings but “don’t think solar makes sense” or don’t bother trying literally anything that reduces carbon.
I’m saying that giving millions of these people a pass because a billionaire is worse isn’t helpful, and expecting these folks to magically work towards sustainable collective action when they spend their entire lives living the opposite of sustainability is simply not going to work. If you can convince neighbors to get heat pumps solar and give them a test ride on your ebike and show them how easy it is to live without gas you can probably get them to vote for someone that is focused on the climate. Sitting around you and your neighbors matching F150s blaming China and Bezos and speaking in abstract terms about “collective action” seems less effective to me.
Sorry for the rant!
I’m saying that giving millions of these people a pass because a billionaire is worse isn’t helpful
I’m not giving them a pass. I do my part, and I encourage others to do theirs. It’s billionaires who are getting a pass. There’s next to no consequence for large scale damage to the environment, if you’re rich enough.
and expecting these folks to magically work towards sustainable collective action when they spend their entire lives living the opposite of sustainability is simply not going to work.
I one hundred percent agree, it’s a tall task to get that undereducated, uncaring group to think about the environment.
What is a shorter task, is passing taxes, policies, and other financial incentives to make billionaires pay for the damage they’re doing. Which in all likelihood, will come in the form of not offering all those horribly irresponsible products. Kills two birds with one stone.
Yes, there is a difference between the elite and the lower class, but it’s only in resources and opportunities. If both sides switched positions the lower class people would go for exactly the same fun as the elite is having right know. Because that’s the way we are born and raised, greedy and selfish. Purging a couple of assholes and replacing them with fresh soon-to-be assholes won’t solve this. Our mindset needs to change. We need to agree on what is important, what is enough and what’s obscene.
That may be how you were raised, but most of us were taught sandbox rules. You don’t just grab everything you can because it won’t be there tomorrow, you share or else.
If both sides switched positions the lower class people would go for exactly the same fun as the elite is having right know.
Then it seems to me that the real problem is the capacity for damage that being a billionaire grants you, not the people involved. Maybe we need to start looking at ways to limit the damage billionaires can do, instead of focusing so hard on changing the behavior of the masses.
Purging a couple of assholes and replacing them with fresh soon-to-be assholes won’t solve this
I’m not suggesting a purge, I’m suggesting we change the behavior of the billionaire class. That can be achieved with taxes, policy, and financial incentives just as easily as with violence (probably easier tbh).
Our mindset needs to change.
Dawg, we’ve been trying to change the mindset since (at least*) the 90s, and it’s just not enough. You and I can reuse our sustainably sourced reusable hemp shopping bags all we want, reduce our consumption all we want, recycle all we want, it doesn’t change the fact that Kroger is shipping in produce from half a planet away on a daily basis. We need to go further, and make the upper class take their share of responsibility for the damage they do to the environment.
We need to agree on what is enough and what’s obscene.
Agreeing on what’s enough is hard, but agreeing on what’s obscene is much much easier, and I think it’s safe to say that nearly every billionaire in the world exceeds what we can agree is obscene. That’s a much easier problem to solve, one we have the tools to solve now. Let’s tackle that first, while we work through the harder problem of figuring out what’s enough.
I like this debate, yet it’s getting long and complex, this would be better face to face. That’s why I’m picking only one topic:
One hemp bag needs to be used +1000 times to replace a thousand plastic bags in co2 emissions (they degrade, so at least they don’t kill sea animals, though). I have like 50 of them at home (bought none of them). Recycling is a lie as well, most stuff is still useless.
My point is: People are all for saving the planet as long as it’s as easy as buying a different or even a new product. People love to consume. But we won’t save anything with this mentality. We need to go NO THANKS! and stop habits that really affect us. Kroger shipping produce is not the problem, look at the first graph here, the stuff millions eat daily is. So, no more flying, no more meat, no more Amazon, we need to ostracize this behavior. Clean energy, public transport, EV, you money at an ethical bank is great if you can afford it and will get us a long way.
Again: I know this won’t save us and I’m all for canceling fossil destroyers, holding billionaires accountable and putting CEOs in jail. But it’s much easier to change yourself than to change Tylor Swift.
I agree again.
So all those companies are just lower generation. So it’s not like they can just stop, people need the electricity.
I don’t know about you guys but Id rather have a habitable planet with breathable air than electricity.
It sickens me how convenience is valued over everything else.
People in hospitals will die without that electricity. You can be all sickened and uppity on your electronic device if you want, but the only realistic solution is replacing infrastructure.
People are already dying from the effects of climate change so I dont understand the point you are trying to make
You are asking people to let Gam Gam die so some random person they’ll never meet will live. “Just stop” is never. going. to. happen. Even the pockets of humanity left after the bulk of climate change will continue high energy use per capita.
The only realistic solution is greener energy.
Gam Gam’s life shouldn’t be worth more than “some random person”
If I ever need to pick who lives between a family member and you, dear internet stranger, I wouldn’t even bother going to your funeral.
I hate the narrative too. Just people avoiding responsibility and complaining instead of doing what they can and should.
Obviously our individual actions matter.
Obviously they should and do, but pretending the average human creates anything compared to oil and gas companies, coal plants, big tech, etc is boot-lickingly ludicrous
These companies exist and pollute because people are buying what they sell.
No. They exist because people buy what they sell. They pollute because they lack meaningful regulations on their practices.
If nobody buys from a polluting company, they die. Or adapt, but usually they die.
Be responsible for your own actions.
And everyone knows that there is always another option. There are no monopolies in this or any country and there’s always an alternative to your electricity, your food, etc. It must be so nice for you to live in a world with such a plethora of choice!
My point is, why do you think those oil and gas companies or big tech exist? Because there is a market for it because of consumer behaviour.
A profitable oil company is never going to just close itself down for the sake of morals. And even if they did, a different oil company is just going to take over their market share.
The only way we stop oil companies is by making them unprofitable, either through voting for legislators that will tax them or sanction them, or by taking away their demand.
And while your individual demand is tiny, the same as you single individual vote in an election. It won’t have an affect by itself, but if lots of people band together we can make change.
And the first step of that is acknowledging it.
My mate whinge all day about bad companies ruining the planet and drinks that Danone smart water bullshit.
Yeah, same people that get stressed about climate change then fly on jets without even considering the 100 liters/hour the plane burns to fly them and their luggage.
Well soon he will be smart enough to stop drinking it.
Humans self describe as intelligent. That always stuck with me.
Humans are so naturally stupid that they almost make AI seem intelligent.
Certainly that goes a long way to explain why so many think LLMs are actually intelligent.
This always gets me. They are producing stuff that we the people buy. They aren’t out there just for the fun of things. Inb4 Lemmy’s famous misreadings, yes it is an issue, yes we need regulation (which we will have to start again from scratch, hopefully in 4 years), yes we need renewables. But this simplistic “it’s just 100 companies” is misleading AF.
Those 100 companies have made it so it’s incredibly difficult not to buy from them.
Groceries? There’s like 10 companies that own all of the food supply. Good luck figuring out which one’s have child labor, and a horrendous environmental impact. They’ve very purposely masked that image.
Oh wow, everything is recyclable! No, those companies just slapped that logo on all of their products so we can ignorantly wish-cycle their garbage. Most of it ends up in the landfill.
Don’t want a car? Our cities are very deliberately designed to require cars. There is a very strong private agenda against good public transportation.
Then there’s the pollution. These companies pollute so much more than we know. Whether that’s dumping forever chemicals into our water, or taking private jets everywhere. It’s not like the label on your T-shirt tells you that.
Finally find a good company? They’ll buy it up, lobby against it, or coerce them out of business. Just look how many companies Luxottica has destroyed.
There’s layer after layer of obfuscation to hide what these companies are doing. It’s not just a matter of picking Product A over Product B. We rarely have much choice, or the information to make better choices.
I’ll GLADLY buy the alternative that doesn’t do those things. When it exists. One day.
I think the idea was “reduce consumption”. As a society we buy tons of stuff, way more than 50 or 100 years ago.
When planned obsolescence isn’t the cornerstone of the modern market, we might have the choice to consume less. Currently you cannot buy any product that hasn’t been intentionally designed to create as much waste as possible. That is on the companies, since they are legally people.
Corporate death penalty needs to be levied against the largest corporations before they kill us all with their greed. We don’t need them. They need us.
I agree with you on planned obsolescence, but I think there’s more to the story. The quantity of things/conveniences in our lives is greater than at any point in history. We have two younger kids and the quantity of… junk they have is astounding. As parents, we’ve sought out lower quality/throw away/gimmicky toys for things like goodie bags at birthday parties. Sticky hands, silicone squeeze toys, etc. To some extent, the internet is contributing to this since shipping and handling aren’t free and buying a single fidget spinner for $5 doesn’t sound like a good deal when you can get a bag of them for $8.
There are also plenty of instances of people replacing perfectly functional items because the newer version became available. People buy them for status or for a perceived increase in convince/quality. This is true for compute/tech, but has been extending into things like smart home (replacing a functional light-bulb, switch, doorbell, thermostat etc for a IoT device). I get that some people are into these things, but it seems disingenuous to say that the only thing driving this is planned obsolescence.
We have to move toward less carbon intensive means of production, but we also need to figure out how to change the endless stream of “better/faster/newer” that people feel compelled to purchase.
You seem like you have a consumption problem. Outside of a car, heating, and cooling nobody is forcing anything down your throat.
You choose and desire to buy whatever product you’re talking about.
When I am in a “having the shittiest take possible” competition and my opponent is IsThisAnAI
Have you somehow missed just how car-centric just about everything is? I mean, most public space out there is taken by roads and public transport is generally insufficient.
Granted, there are much better countries in this than others.
Ditto on other things imposed on people such as planed obsolence: Can you still buy a fridge that will last you a lifetime? Does your 15 year old original iPhone still work well? How many of the electronics out there are not repairable?
Then there’s all the pressure to make people consume, using techniques from Psychology (you can go read all about how the nephew of Freud introduced into Marketing techniques from Psychology back in the 50s). Absolutelly, people should be stronger and wiser than that, but most are not and just claiming that “it’s people’s fault” when others take adavantage of natural human weaknesses is just victim blaming.
Absolutelly, Consumerism is a big part of the problem and it’s a lot down to individuals to do less of it, but lets not deceive ourselves that the environment we’re all in not only promotes it massivelly and relentlessly, but plenty of decisions which were taken for us by others mean individuals often don’t even have a choice not to buy new junk or ride a personal-polution-device, and in Capitalism those decisions were taken mainly by large Companies directly or by the politicians they bought.
As you said, plenty of countries are better in terms of public transportation, but most people still insist on driving cars even in places with good public transportation coverage.
And the biggest counter to the “it’s not a personal issue, it’s companies who don’t give options” is diet: eating meat is far worse for the environment as well as more expensive than a plant based diet; but people hate the idea of eating less meat and they love to mock vegans.
Meat eating is actually a very cultural thing.
In India, for example, there is an area where most people are vegetarian and have been so for centuries.
My point about how people are psychologically pushed to consume also applies here.
Further, excessive meat eating (and the average meat consumption in most Western countries is at those levels) is actually bad for one’s health and life expectancy, so even from a pure individual selfishness point of view people aren’t doing what’s best for themselves, which would indicate there’s more to it than merelly individuals being selfish.
That said, I agree that people should eat less meat, it’s just the expectation that they’re informed enough (at various levels) to do it that I find unrealistic.
It’s another of those things which in order to change needs to be pushed as education to all of society, while what we really have is massive economic interests pushing in the very opposite direction.
The average person spends most of their time at work where they don’t control how environmentally friendly they are.
Except you’re wrong. In case your next reach is “It’s not the billionaires fault.” These companies could be easily be made more efficient if the billionaire class were forced to change but the government is too weak and corrupt to allow that to happen. We have wealth disparity that has surpassed American’s last gilded age. The billionaires don’t care about climate change because they already won they’re richer then us who cares if humanity goes extinct, they beat us.
You’re unfortunately about to get ratio’ed for the reasonable take.
Can we stop buying from them please?
That’s the best part! You can’t!
Thanks to the consolidation and vertical integration of the largest multinationals, as long as you choose to live — no matter how careful and conscious your purchases — a significant proportion of it will still funnel to most of these corporations.
Meat is one of the bigger polutters. Meat industry is subsidized by the state. Plant based diets are still cheaper. The vast majority of people still choose to eat meat and actively mock vegans. Just go look at beef (worse meat for the environment) consumption stats in the US.
That’s just one example.
People say they want change but won’t take it where they can, because deep down it’s a lie and they just want someone to fix the problem without them having to do anything.
Plant based diets are still cheaper
for some people
Can you elaborate on this? Maybe give me some examples?
Because for the vast majority of people in western countries (which have by far the most emissions per capita), it is much cheaper to eat a plant based diet. Rice, beans, and lentils are much cheaper and much healthier than eating beef every day of the week.
for the vast majority of people in western countries (which have by far the most emissions per capita), it is much cheaper to eat a plant based diet
I don’t think this is true
In 2021 Americans ate about 37.81kg of beef per capita per year in 2021, that’s about 0.73kg per week, or 1.6lbs.
Cheapest beef in Walmart that I can find, 1 pound for $5.93; so, for 1.6lbs, it comes out to $9.49 per week, for the cheapest Walmart beef. Keep in mind, 1.6lbs = 25.6 oz.
Beans (didn’t go for the cheapest): Can of black beans (15oz) for $1.42, another can of butter beans(16oz) for $1.54.
Lentils (not the cheapest): Iberia Lentils 12 oz for $2.59.
Mushrooms (16oz) for $4.34.
So a total of $9.89 for varied and healthy food, vs $9.49 for Walmart’s cheapest beef (which realistically would cost $11.86, because you can’t just buy 0.6lbs of that beef).
you’re not accounting for availability of convenient calories. it’s cheaper to stop at Burger King than to buy beans and spend my time soaking and cooking. the availability of similarly priced convenient calories simply isn’t there if you insist on avoiding animal products.
further, even when people are preparing their own food, if they raise their own, or hunt, fish or trap it, or if it’s subsidized or free, then throwing away those foods to buy beans is more expensive than eating what they have.
you’re beans don’t have the same nutrient composition on a per pound basis
being vegan doesn’t stop the growth of the meat industry. it certainly doesn’t shrink it.
How so? Meat factories exist to feed the people who buy meat. The more people go vegan, the less meat those factories produce, until they shut down. There is no “green version” for the meat industry, it just has to die, and the alternatives already exist and are cheaper. The power is all on people’s hands. The government won’t do anything about (not even cut the large meat industry subsidies) as long as people keep eating tons of meat, because they know that would mean protests and losing elections.
I don’t know if I could prove this, but I would bet there are more vegans now than any time in history, and I know there is more meat produced than any time in history. being vegan doesn’t stop the growth of the meat industry.
Yeah, because there’s more people in total. That doesn’t mean people going vegan doesn’t stop the growth of the meat industry.
Say 50% of people eat meat, and the other 50% are vegan. Then say the world population doubles. Now there will twice as many vegans, but there will also be twice as many meat eaters, and so meat production will double. But there’s still only half the meat production that there would be if 100% of people ate meat. And if you could get that value to 0% percent, there would be no meat industry.
there’s still only half the meat production that there would be if 100% of people ate meat.
production determines availability. there is no reason to assume we could produce more meat than we do, given land and technology constraints.
if you could get that value to 0% percent, there would be no meat industry.
meat production happened before trade. there is no reason to assume it will ever end.
Yeah, because there’s more people in total.
make any excuse you want
That doesn’t mean people going vegan doesn’t stop the growth of the meat industry.
all the evidence is to the contrary
Outside or raw materials, a cell phone, and maybe a car where are you forced to support corporations?
Food, shelter, hygiene prodcuts, clothes, furniture, fucking everything.
Yes, some of these things aren’t technically necessary but you did include phone and a car, so I am assuming we’re not just talking about base subsistence.
Unless you become a cave hermit or somehow manage to source everything from self employed artisans and cooperatives (and vet their material sources), you will support corporations even if you try to reduce your consumption as much as possible.
Pretty much all industries have been captured by massive corporations at this point, and vetting all companies and their supply lines is literally not possible to do.
Think with your head instead of just saying what feels right for once, please.
I buy my food locally. I buy my clothes local to my state. Furniture is made locally. All my hygiene but my conditioner is local. I generate more electricity than I use. But there you go, that’s all corporate
It’s just easier to buy corporate. Literally nothing you have stated needs to feed corporations. 100% bullshit.
Where do the local farmers get their tractors and tools? Where does the fabric, dye, looms, sewing machines etc. for clothing come from? Where does the furniture maker buy his tools and who makes them? Are your solar panels homemade? What does that electricity power?
Whether directly or not, some portion of the money we spend will end up in the hands of these corporations, even if it just means you paid the furniture guy for a chair and he used that money to buy his kids mcdonalds. And while it’s great that you sound like you’re actively trying to live in a sustainable way, I don’t think you get to deny that if you’re a part of the economy you’re still supporting corporations, simply due to the sheer depth and breadth of these companies.
You don’t think you can’t source cotton directly from farmers and make a shirt by hand? Jesus we really are screwed!
“I can’t do it all all I’ll do nothing” this thread man 🤣
I’m happy for you that you can afford such a lifestyle.
That’s all neat but there’s a few problems with advocating this approach as a solution to anything.
-
The supply chain problem mentioned by the other reply to your comment.
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The economic viability for this approach from both the side of supply and demand.
Local, especially “ethically” produced goods are usually much more expensive, and when people are barely making ends meet.
It’s also much harder to expand a business that sources their goods “ethically” and so on.
- This is just not a solution. It’s an individualistic approach to an institutional problem.
Companies are largely not accountable, there is largely no economic democracy (vote with your dollar doesn’t count), and increasingly all matters of government are once again captured by large corporations and wealthy individuals.
The solution here cannot be to just consume better, something needs to change drastically.
-
I don’t have the option to buy any of those things locally. Just because you can doesn’t mean it is viable for anyone else.
👌👍 if you’re actually like some help not being helpless let me know you area and I’ll find you summer local alternatives to the corps.
What are the corps and how would they change things?
unless your poor, then you buy the cheapest available.
Clothing, food, shelter, software, electronics, medicine, fuel, consumable goods like batteries and much much more. These are just off the top of my head.
See my other comment. Bullshit beyond the medicine, healthcare is fucked for sure. Oh and the $20 of rechargeable batteries. Real corpo bullshit buying a pack of AAA or Samsung batteries every 4 or 5 years.
You could buy from other company. But if you are buying the same product the pollution fingerprint would be similar on most cases.
You could just not buy the products. But if you buy things is to improve your quality of life.
So the best course of action is not to make people have less quality of life. Instead push for less people on the planet so they can afford more pollution per person.
We technically do. The day we don’t need to buy their crap is the day we are free from our chains.
Don’t let your dreams be dreams and just do it
We give them the ammo, they pull the trigger. We basically just choose the type of ammo. Buying from Nestle? That’s a .50 BMG. Beyond Burgers? .22 LR
If only it was that simple. We still have to eat, drink, clothe ourselves, get around…
I mean, we were not born into the universe having stuff
Uh, sure, I suppose not. But you won’t last long after birth without some amount of stuff. Even if you go feral in the woods, you’ll need to eat. You need some way to keep warm. You can try to consume thoughtfully but you can’t just stop consuming.
Rugged individualism strikes again.
Well clearly it’s the fault of everyone noticing the problems because like 100 years ago no one noticed the problems and so clearly they weren’t happening because no one noticed and if they were happening someone would have noticed so if people just hadn’t noticed they never would have happened and then no one would have noticed them which of course then means they double wouldn’t have happened
It’s just common sense if you think about it from that perspective
People having 6 children that pollute their whole lives on a overpopulated earth.
“How could insert external factor to avoid personal responsibility do this to me?”
The most polluting thing a human could do is having children.
Overpopulation isn’t defined by how much people there are, but by the total amount of sustainably produced goods and services divided by the total population. Fewer people producing unsustainably would also be overpopulation. We need to transition to sustainability regardless of amount of people, reducing population only leads to slower decline, not to a stop of it.
We need both.
Sustainability is defined by the amount of resources that a population can take from the environment without permanently destroying it. For a bigger population that amount of resources that can be used before reaching that threshold is smaller by person.
Just imagine a tribe living of a fruit tree that gives 10 apples a year. Maybe a tribe of 10 individuals can live of that tree but a tribe. But what happen when the tribe grows and suddenly there’s 100 individuals trying to live of a 10 apple tree? It’s illogical to take population out of the equation, because it’s one of the biggest factors, the second biggest factor is quality of life (how many apples we eat a year), and the only factor that you are considering relevant is the one with the smallest impact that is how efficiently we recollect our apples. That last factor is the one with the smallest impact in the whole equation, and it’s the only you seem to consider to solve our problem. We, of course, need to be efficient because it cost nothing, but efficiency by itself is not solving the whole problem.
Your own equation and your own logic is supporting my argument that we NEED to reduce population.
The only thing left against it is the dogma.
For the average person, yes, but that’s nothing compared to what a single stroke of a CEO’s pen can do.
Companies supply products to people.
If there were not 8 billion people buying shit and going places the stroke of that CEO won’t do as much damage.
Also if 8 billion people want a car to go on vacation to the beach… it doesn’t matter if the pen of the car manufacturing company belong to a CEO or a People’s Delegate, world is going to shit regardless.
Ok, that makes sense to me. So you would support government regulations on companies to prevent them from making the climate worse right?
Of course.
But the ideal course of action would be to also limit population worldwide.
So each human have a bigger pollution/resource consumption quota, thus being able to live a better life.
I think quality of life is going to decline worldwide because overpopulation (it probably already started in some countries) and the only government regulation that could prevent that is a regulation on the number of population.
I see where you are coming from, but I don’t buy it. I think we can sustain the our current level of population and pollute less in a sustainable manner.
Also, the laws required to reduce the population would really cut into happiness. And given the current political climate would probably be circumvented by the rich and used against the poor.
It’s kind of like asking whether the vital piece of a table is the tabletop or the legs, when you don’t have a functional table without either one. We don’t have a functional market system without supply and demand.
In a weird way, blaming the corporations is philosophically aligned with supply-side dogma, where the corporations (“job creators”) have an intrinsic motivation to produce. As if they just churn stuff out all day long, because that’s what they do when the government doesn’t get in their way, and it’s the duty of people to consume so the output doesn’t all just pile up in some great heap outside the factory.
There’s a reason some call that “voodoo economics.” Whatever their influence today, all corporations producing things evolved in a symbiotic relationship with consumer demand. We could guillotine all of the CEOs, and revoke every corporate charter, but it’d do jack for the environment, unless unless we also all change our lifestyle.
Blaming the corporations makes as much sense as them blaming us. It’s time to move past who’s to blame, and instead start fixing things.
We could guillotine all of the CEOs, and revoke every corporate charter, but it’d do jack for the environment, unless unless we also all change our lifestyle.
without those companies, the lifestyles would necessarily change.
If we don’t change our lifestyle, new companies would spring up to replace them. But yeah, that’s my point, no matter how it happens, our lifestyle has to change if we want a sustainable society. Production and consumption are two sides of the same coin.
Companies decide themselves what products to supply, how they are created, what materials are used, how they are packaged, how much they are transported, …
And all of those decisions only take money into consideration.
That is not on the consumer.
I don’t even know where to start.
If you want a car, a car has to be made. If you want to drive, energy needs to me used.
There’s a limited amount of damage reduction that can be done with a change in the economical system.
And I’m for ending capitalism. But it would be naive to thing that without capitalism everything will be fixed. Some things will be better, but most bad things will remain a problem.
No matter what economic system you try to make. There’s no place in the world for 8 billion cars. And I use car a an example, but every item or service we use needs some resources. Even if we are top efficient about how we made them… It’s still not enough with 8 billion people wanting the same.
Even the homeless are polluting above sustainable levels. More humans just makes it happen faster. Until we make a sustainable lifestyle possible, you’re directing your anger exactly where big oil wants you to.
You are making my point.
People pollute.
That sustainable level that you talk about is primitivism or utopia. I don’t want either.
Only solution is LESS people.
Why people have such a hard time understanding that we cannot grow infinitely (in numbers) in a world of limited resources?
I know, that the core of this is the dogma. The left removed the overpopulation problem of their dogma decades ago to gain support on certain communities and now we are paying with lots of people actively supporting the destruction of our planet and our quality of life just to squeeze a few more votes
But I don’t buy dogmas. I think by myself. And I see that with that many people there’s not any economical system that could work to provide a good life to every human on earth, it’s impossible, there are not enough resources.
Edit: big oil wants people to feel guilty for wanting to live good. That is what people who supports uncontrolled overbreeding are, consciously or not, defending. I support that people should be able to live good, and consume without feeling guilt. Again, only way to do that is if we had less people around.
Forgetting where on social media you heard about antinatalism is not avoiding dogma, or smarter.
My only social media is lemmy and Mastodon.
Overpopulation was a big issue on the left agenda in the late 90 early 00’s.
It just shifted away in favour of glorification of poverty.
I suppose it’s easier to tell people that showering with cold water is the best instead of putting up the work so everyone can have hot water.
The most polluting thing to do is to allow capitalism to exist, yet I don’t see you on the streets.
You haven’t been looking then.
I’ve spent quite a lot of time of my live trying to end capitalism.
