I’m being a bit annoying about it because the companies don’t burn all that crap for fun but, as you laid out, for our collective consumption patterns. I developed the impression that the whole “x companies do y% of emissions!” thing, similar to “no ethical consumption” reminders tends to fulfill a function not aimed at motivating larger-scale changes (e.g. banning animal agriculture wholly instead of making an individual choice to not consume em; banning ICE cars from being produced/sold while creating comprehensive public transport instead of merely biking to work yourself) but at detaching oneself from the role we do actually play in society. (Also, smaller/individual scale weirdoes are a good source of activists that can radiate social structures out into general society)
To be clear: the direction I’d like to see isn’t ignoring larger-scale changes but embracing that these things are linked. Companies don’t burn fuel for fun, but for profit (or non-capitalist modes of resource allocation - if the central party committee decides to satiate the people’s hunger for meat and cars, that’s also a problem). And the profit there comes from all of us, individually as well as collectively. So action against that probably should also happen on both levels.
I think the issue lies in that the corporations have an incentive to keep the increased carbon footprint and the average person composting or sorting trash for recycling (typical footprint reduction suggestions) does nothing to reduce this incentive. Moving the markets desires away from items with high carbon footprints is a monumental task and one we should strive for but a faster method of reduction would be direct pressure to the corporations exploiting cheap labor that has a higher carbon footprint cost
I’m being a bit annoying about it because the companies don’t burn all that crap for fun but, as you laid out, for our collective consumption patterns. I developed the impression that the whole “x companies do y% of emissions!” thing, similar to “no ethical consumption” reminders tends to fulfill a function not aimed at motivating larger-scale changes (e.g. banning animal agriculture wholly instead of making an individual choice to not consume em; banning ICE cars from being produced/sold while creating comprehensive public transport instead of merely biking to work yourself) but at detaching oneself from the role we do actually play in society. (Also, smaller/individual scale weirdoes are a good source of activists that can radiate social structures out into general society)
To be clear: the direction I’d like to see isn’t ignoring larger-scale changes but embracing that these things are linked. Companies don’t burn fuel for fun, but for profit (or non-capitalist modes of resource allocation - if the central party committee decides to satiate the people’s hunger for meat and cars, that’s also a problem). And the profit there comes from all of us, individually as well as collectively. So action against that probably should also happen on both levels.
I think the issue lies in that the corporations have an incentive to keep the increased carbon footprint and the average person composting or sorting trash for recycling (typical footprint reduction suggestions) does nothing to reduce this incentive. Moving the markets desires away from items with high carbon footprints is a monumental task and one we should strive for but a faster method of reduction would be direct pressure to the corporations exploiting cheap labor that has a higher carbon footprint cost