this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
743 points (90.4% liked)
The memes of the climate
1543 readers
1 users here now
The climate of the memes of the climate!
Planet is on fire!
mod notice: do not hesitate to report abusive comments, I am not always here.
rules:
-
no slurs, be polite
-
don't give an excuse to pollute
-
no climate denial
-
and of course: no racism, no homophobia, no antisemitism, no islamophobia, no transphobia
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Okay. I just want to slam on the brakes here, just a little.... Just a little slam.
There's a LOT of personal blame going around in these comments. As if everyone who ever had burned any fossil fuels ever is somehow personally responsible for everything that's currently happening.
Here's some news, we've been burning shit for more than a millennia. People, in and of themselves, don't require so much heat and energy to create a problem. At least not individually. As a whole, small problem. Individually, microscopic problem at most.
Everyone seems to have fallen into this trap of everyone being personally responsible for the climate change. The vast majority of the issue is companies. Everyone wants to point at trucks and delivery vehicles and whatnot as major contributors when they do talk about contributions from companies, and you're still way off base. It's not even the air traffic that's the problem. It's the fucking boats. Nobody thinks about it, because nobody sees it. Either the boats are off at sea, or they're docked in some yard, away from your vision. 90% of the time, they're sailing. When they're sailing, they're operating the motors 24/7. Each ship, when operating, will consume more fuel in an hour than any one person would use in a year.
Since it's mostly unregulated international waters, who are they reporting any of that shit to? So they don't.
Yes. Climate change is real. Yes, we, personally, should be doing what we can to curb it. The fact is, if all of us did everything possible (switching to all renewable power, using EVs and all renewable powered appliances, etc) it would barely make a dent. All of the "personal responsibility" arguments are just a smokescreen from the big, very guilty corporations, to victim blame the public into turning on eachother so they can continue to destroy the environment unchecked. Based on these comments, they're succeeding.
I'm not saying to not be mad. Be mad, get angry. Just be mad at the right people here. I'm not evil because I drive my 1.5L 4cyl sedan to the grocery once a week, and have a natural gas water heater. Sure, I should change that, and I'm sure I will be changing that when I can, but I'm not the problem. The greenhouse gasses I emit over my lifetime won't offset the emissions of transport ships in a single year.
Just.... Be mad at the right people. Stop making people feel bad for being given bad options because the automotive industry actively and knowingly rejected electric vehicles due to how deep they were with the oil industry. So people had to buy internal combustion vehicles because there literally was no other option at the time. I've had my car since 2014. In 2014, the model S (the only model at the time), was $70k USD to start. I didn't have $70k USD to spend on a car (I still don't). I spent less than one-quarter of that price on my vehicle, and I was barely able to afford it over a 5 year finance. Yet, based on these comments, I should be ashamed that I can't afford a BEV? Or that I live too far from everything that I can't ride a bike or something?
Come on people. You know who is really at fault here. Let's just be angry at the right people.
Thank YOU!
I am tired of this bullshit and all the bots/trolls/ai supporting it and passing on propaganda for the same people that created the issue in the first place.
So I fully agree with you!
"You know who is really at fault here. Let's just be angry at the right people."
Yep, and everyone is attacking me specifically citing boats, and yeah, boats contribute, and they're an example of things that people don't think about, but they're hardly the only problem.
Even if we isolate ourselves to just consumer vehicles, if you look at what vehicles produce the most greenhouse gasses and which are driven the most, all of that is generally done by and for the benefit of companies. Whether it's Joe driving 2+ hours to get to the office because his boss won't allow him to work from home for no practical reason, or simply vintage car collections owned by millionaires or billionaires, which are true to their roots and are super inefficient... Or overpowered SUV/limo/busses (like tour busses) driving all the time to get from one place to another for a small group of people who would probably fit into much smaller and more efficient vehicles. But no, all these yuppies are blaming Jack, who works from home, and drives like twice a month because he hasn't dropped $100k on an EV that he'll never use, to replace his Toyota Corolla from 2010, which still works perfectly. Yeah, Jack is the problem (/s).
Everyone is so hung up on pointing fingers at eachother and their neighbors for continuing to drive combustion vehicles. I paid around $15k for my vehicle, 10 years ago, and I've moved into a fully work from home position. It sits in my driveway 8 out of every 10 days, at least. The days I do drive it, I'm usually on the road for less than an hour. Yet the comments here would have me think that I need to go buy an EV. Why? My car works perfectly. I would literally be wasting more resources by throwing out my perfectly working car, to buy a new driveway filler... The heck?
I feel you! We are in the same (man powered) boat 🙂