- cross-posted to:
- donoperinfo@infosec.pub
- cross-posted to:
- donoperinfo@infosec.pub
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This meme is so wrong it is deliberate misinformation. The Guardian made an article which is probably this meme’s source. It even linked to the original source, the Carbon Majors Report. But blatantly misquoted the CMR. For example, CMR says something like “100 fossil fuel producers responsible for 71% of industrial GHG emissions”, but The Guardian (and meme posters) omit the italic bits.
What do they mean with producers? Not companies like Apple or Heinz, but simply organizations which produce fossil fuels. Duh. Shell, BP, but also entities like China’s coal sector (which they count as one producer, although it consists of many entities). CMR also states 3rd type emissions are included. Which means emissions caused by “using” their “products”, e.g. you burning gasoline in your car.
So yes, the downvoted guy saying “Consumer emissions and corporate emissions are the same emissions” is pretty spot on in this case, albeit most likely by accident. Rejected not for being wrong, but for not fitting into a narrative, which I call the wrong reasons. Please check your sources before posting. We live in a post-factual world where only narratives count and truth is just another feeling, because of “journalism” and reposts like this. Which is the infuriating part in this particular case. I guess you want to spread awareness about the climate crisis, which is good, but you cannot do so by propagandizing science and spreading lies.
All that from the top of my head. Both the ominous TG article and the fairly short report are easy to find. In just a couple of minutes you can check and confirm how criminally misquoted it was.
There’s a second more obvious component that people neglect in any statement like OPs.
These companies exist because people buy their products. We can blame companies, but fossil fuel use is a collective problem.
Exactly. If you eat bananas that arrive in a port on a ship, that ship spewed out a lot of CO2. If everybody changed their habits and ate something locally grown instead, those emissions would not happen (but other emissions might happen instead). Every CO2 emission by a profit-driven company is going to be the result of a person buying one of their products.
We live in a society, and the amount of difference one person can make is pretty small. Often all of the options available to us are bad. But, this meme is worse.
The ridiculous aspect of this meme is that it shifts the blame onto companies, and allows people to pretend that their lifestyles and choices deserve none of the blame, and instead it’s just some evil companies that are ruining the world. The unfortunate fact is that in this modern society, if you’re living like a typical European or North American, even if you think of yourself as an environmentalist, your lifestyle probably results in a ton of CO2 emissions.
How much do you think it will change, if people really do the minimum consumption within their possibilities?
And how much will it change, including people’s habits, if you make laws that force companies to consider their co2 output as a problem?
answer
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About maybe at max 20 - 30% probably much less.
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Probably about 60 - 90%.
The key is to do both because they are principally coupled and nothing happens as long as consumers and corporations just point at each other and use it as an excuse to keep on going like before.
Of course you are right that the focus should lie at changing CO2 output at the producer side because the influence is much more focused there. N my opinion it is also dangerous arguing that the companies only supply what the consumers want because that statement is based on the consumption and is biased too much by what the companies offer and at which price. Consumers usually socioeconomically do not have the choice to buy a product at 1.5 times the price, even if they would prefer it for environmental reasons while these companies have immense profits and can and must afford to reduce and finally stop emissions.
I mean of course, but laws will change people’s behaviour indirectly. If it is more expensive to consume co2 heavy products, people will buy the co2 less product.
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Consumer emissions and corporate emissions are the same emissions
Maybe if you’re on shrooms or LSD, yeah “it’s all the same if you use what they make maaaaaaan”
But only if you ignore the power dynamics behind wealth, and aren’t aware of the concepts of bribery, temptation, and unlimited influence.
Or the fact that people want greener options but they are intentionally unavailable, sabotaged, prohibitively expensive (but never subsidized), or publicly demonized in media with disinformation and propaganda.
Between consumers and corporations, only one gets to call all the shots
Sustainable energy is heavily subsidised in Europe. Thanks to that we have 80% renewable energy production in Austria (and buy some non-renewable energy from other countries but still, we’re on a good way).
except that consumers do not have meaningful control over the companies and the corporate leaders do
You have control over whether you eat pork or tofu, don’t you? You have control over whether you buy a new iPhone or a used FairPhone, don’t you? You have control over whether you plan a trip via airplane or via train, don’t you?
Shifting the blame to the individual plays precisely into the hands of massive corporations. People buy what is available and cheapest, and without government intervention that’s going to be plastic packaging wrapped in more plastic.
Why not both? Companies that peel bananas and wrap them in plastic for sale are garbage companies. And people who buy them are garbage people.
Environmentalists remember that disabled people exist challenge: impossible.
So you’re telling me that there are people who cannot peel a banana, but who can simultaneously peel the plastic off a container and then eat the banana?
a train ticket cross country costs thousands of dollars more than an equivalent class of airplane tickets so no, no I do not have that control
NY–LA via Amtrak: $291. Greyhound, a bus company: $139
Can you acknowledgedyou’ve moved the goalposts from train to bus?
I did provide the price for a train ticket that is significantly cheaper than Match!!’s “thousands of dollars”, didn’t I?
Tell me, who are these companies making all the emissions for? Are the global citizens consuming goods from another realm that don’t require companies to make?
No one but complete morons are asking to specifically make a product by emitting carbon dioxide. No company is emitting co2 for “the global citizens”. They make products to earn money. Emissions are an avoidable by-product no one asked for.
It’s 57 doing 80% now 🙃🙃Capitalism working as intended
EDIT: I was made aware that the headline is misleading
Maybe it’s a stupid question, but aren’t the companies that burn the fossil fuel responsonsible for the emmisions?
Lmao global citizens asking for that, when I bet most don’t give a shit
Because oil companies paid millions or even billions for propaganda that climate change isn’t real or not their fault.
