solarpunk memes

I’m not saying it’s entirely the consumers fault. But the mindset of, oh well all these companies produce all these emissions or China increases their emissions every year greater than the total output ever for some European countries. It’s just not taking any responsibility for your own actions. If you have ever used one of those online calculators that tells you how many earths we would need to be able to sustain consumerism at your level , it’s frightening really, you can put in some pretty average western statistics and it will say some absurd number like 3 or 4 earths. And you can reduce that. If you do one of those calculators and its more than 1.5, realistically you can make changes to your lifestyle to lower it hugely.

If everyone on earth took up a plant based diet, we would almost eliminate the emissions from animal farming which makes up a huge proportion of emissions. Deforestation in the amazon would stop since there is no one left to buy the cows they would raise there.

Think about what one person can do to help the environment everyday, one little action, and times that by 8 billion. And that’s huge. Of course you can blame corporations, and you should. I’m not arguing to not. But at the end of the day, it’s everyone’s problem, and we should all try our best to solve it.

This is right. Of course we should take individual action. I have a set of things I regularly do. That doesn't change the fact that overall, people will choose the course of least resistance: the wasteful goods and services provided by corporations. At the same time, corporations will generally not self correct. They'll always choose the course of highest profit. Bottom line: if we are concerned for the future of our home, we must demand changes in corporate behavior through policy and regulation.

Unless you go live in a forest and grow your own food, your money will always end up in the hands of one of a dozen or two people.

So let's keep buying shit we don't need? Using the straw example: You don't need straws. They give a minor increase in convenience, while making the world a worse place. We don't need them, but we buy them in mass making the world a worse place, then when some try to get rid of them we kick and scream because "it's the corporation's fault!".

You’re not as clever or edgy as you think you are, you are literally licking the boot that is standing on your neck and think it’s a treat.

Someone's saying "don't give money to corporations" and "let's not interact with the system", and you're saying that and calling them lazy, all as an excuse to keep giving money to corporations. Look in the fucking mirror. Literally your entire comment is an excuse to participate in the system you claim need to have problems with. Take some damn responsibility, and stop saying you want things to change while not being whiling to change your way of life. The one who's lazy, is the one sitting at home making excuses to keep mindlessly consuming and saying other people need to find solutions and stop feeding your addiction - which they should, but that still doesn't change the fact you have an addiction.

I don't feel like writing another whole comment about this, so I'll just copy and paste something I wrote a while ago:

When people say it’s not “we” and it’s just a few people, or just companies, it always seems to me that they are - consciously or subconsciously - just making excuses for not having to actually do anything and hoping someone else will solve the problem for them. They want the problem to be solved, while not having to do anything or change their lifestyle.

There are some very obvious and clear examples of this; here’s two of them:

• Studies have shown most people are in favour of carbon taxes. But with carbon taxes, companies would just shift the extra cost onto the consumers by increasing prices. One thing affected by carbon tax, would be the price of gas itself. And when prices (especially gas prices) increase, that usually results in a lot of anger and protests. So why would any democratically elected politician ever implement a carbon tax? If they did, they would be voted out, and the next one to come in would just undo it.

• Another obvious example, is meat. We know one of the major protagonists in CO2 emissions is animal farming. Red meat especially is responsible for a huge source of those emissions. And yet most people don’t even wanna think about eating less meat, and they will still crack jokes about vegans and look at them sideways. And as for regulations regarding meat, the example from before still applies.

~~As you seem to be implying~~, what really needs to happen is a whole cultural shift. Trying to shift blame onto to a few people and hope they get the guillotine, won’t change anything as long as people keep demanding all the same things because then someone else will come in to fulfil that demand. Whether we like it or not, we have to accept that it’s the sum of all our actions that will determine the future, and our actions can influence other people’s actions; therefore, one way or another, we are all responsible.