What if Everyone Did Something to Slow Climate Change? Researchers are looking at the impact that individuals’ actions can have on reducing carbon emissions — and the best ways to get people to adopt
BP oil company pushed the idea that our individual carbon footprints matter so that everyone can share the blame of what the fossil fuel industry has done.
Don’t fall for it. Only corporations pollute enough to matter. Only corporations can provide alternatives to fossil fuels. Only corporations can make a meaningful reduction to greenhouse gas emissions.
The most significant difference individuals can make is to create political and legal pressure by voting and protesting.
BP oil company pushed the idea that our individual carbon footprints matter so that everyone can share the blame of what the fossil fuel industry has done.
The article discusses this, yes - along with how the carbon footprint is a good metric for individual consumption even if corporate propaganda abuses it.
The most significant difference individuals can make is to create political and legal pressure by voting and protesting.
I agree with you that political action is vital. I don't agree that it's necessarily more significant than personal action. Feminists used to say "the personal is political", and it's still true. How you act in private demonstrates your commitment to the values you endorse in public and gives your voice more weight when you speak your values.
If you reduce your personal footprint, but never talk about it or encourage other people to do the same, your impact is limited to yourself. If you reduce your personal footprint, and make your actions contagious by talking about them with people you know and encouraging them to do the same, you can impact many more people, encourage them to follow your lead and reduce their footprint, and then they can encourage others to reduce their footprint, and so on and so forth.
Limiting the damage from climate change takes collective action. And collective action requires a community, and a community requires communication.
If you assume you are a lone individual and your personal decisions have no effect on anyone else, it's easy to imagine reducing your personal footprint is meaningless. If you see yourself as part of a community, and by reducing your personal footprint you encourage others in your community to do the same, you can see how much larger your impact can be.
@stabbycicada @UsernameHere I'm afraid I take the darkest view. That is that BP etc gave the public the full option to care about their carbon footprint, and the public decided not to.
At that point why should BP or politicians force it upon them?
Who exactly would be the "we" in that process who knows better? If it is some informed and passionate minority, that is not actually democracy.
It is a collective action failure.
The fossil fuel industry has spent a lot of money making us dependent on them. They have been so successful that the majority of us would not be able to survive without their products whether it be to get to work, power our cities, heat our buildings, etc.
So what’s a realistic approach to the problem:
Getting billions of individuals to change across the planet? Which requires most of them and their families to die?
Or
Changing a few dozen companies?
Not only that, but only collective action and politics can give people the choices they need to reduce climate change.
It's no use telling people not to drive if there's no public transport system. And people can't individually will their energy to have a generation mix.
Those are important, but the act of doing things like installing solar panels, or a heat pump changes minds — and when you do it, others around you see and imitate.
Conclusion of the article sums it up best:
"Our true responsibility is to use our choices as political agents in the world to try to shift power, take power away from the people who are blocking the transition away from fossil fuels and give it to people who will lead into a livable future," [Genevieve Guenther, the author of “The Language of Climate Politics”] said.
Do what you can by yourself, sure, but only as a supplement to doing the hard work to solve the problem via collective and political action.
I agree.
But the corporations and companies that have done most of the polluting need to clean their messes up if there's going to be any change.
You, nor my neighbor, nor any of our friends dumped so much crap into nearby rivers and lakes that everything is poisoned. The corporations and companies did it.
100%
That’s cool, could we also compare that to what would happen if the wealthy and corporations also put in their fair share of individual action too?
Having a consumer base that is aware of and cares about the environment is going to help a lot on that regard.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/22/business/starbucks-ceo-commute-jet-brian-niccol.html
Don’t forget, that he could just move like the rest of the employees had to.
What if every company did something?
I mean if every one stopped ordering from temu, it's already one problem solved and we move to the next one
If the one thing is redacted a billionaire, you would only need 3200 people.
Sounds good. I'll start by telling all my corporations that blast the majority of CO2 emissions worldwide into the air to slow it down a bit.
They're mostly not blasting it directly; they're selling fossil fuels for others to blast. Changing how you commute or heat your home helps change social norms around those and lowers the rate of emissions
Good start. Then go vegetarian of even vegan and you should be good ;-)
That's all it took. The crisis has actually been over for ages ever since I have stopped eating meat. I've done it.
you should be good
Good news, the planet is now no longer on a direct course towards being rendered inhabitable due to being destroyed for profit. I. AM. GOOD.
Problem solved. Thank you so much on behalf of all future generations of the planet.
We should all work towards curbing climate change by learning how to build guillotines
Amen!
My gas stove was leaky and could have blown up my house. So we replaced that with an induction stove, and it's all around a better experience. Same with the water heater and the EV. All of these things plus insulating the attic have been improvements to our lives with the added benefit of reducing natural gas consumption more than 20% over the past year and saving about $100/month on utilities and gasoline. It's nice that we aren't pumping air pollution directly into our house when we cook anymore.
Every bit of change we make helps, because the climate crisis is not binary. but more importantly the people who can make these changes receive the greatest upfront benefits.
Thank you we're cured now. Signed planet earth.
People have already done that for the last 30 years or even more, and the saves just went into elon musks jet gas tanks.
Sure, it's good trying to do "your part", but it's worthless if everyone and especially companies aren't forced to do the same as they won't do it if they don't earn money by it.
It's really depressing how any internet discussion about global warming is full of comments like this which only exist to downplay small but existent improvements that others have made. It's whataboutism, plain and simple, and only serves to discourage people from doing anything at all.
This guy getting a more efficient stove isn't going to save the planet, but at least it helps. Your comment (and many others in this thread) doesn't do anything at all about our climate problem, and mostly serves to make other people feel stupid and inadequate for even trying to do something.
There is so much, so fucking much, that needs to be done to save our planet. If you think that political change is the only thing that will "really" matter to save the planet (it's obviously going to be a huge factor), and you are so deeply committed to the ideal that the only things worth doing are those which directly further said political change, then you have serious work to do on your messaging strategy because what you had to say here clearly isn't causing global change.
Alternately, if you think the situation is so impossible that nothing can be done to save it, go find a different void to yell into and stop trying to drag down those of us who still have some hope.
Free solar panels for everyone.
Free heat pumps for everyone.
We need everyone on free clean electricity now and cut all natural gas lines to homes, businesses and factories. Nothing else comes close to the impact of those and it will drive a change in other sectors like transportation when there is free clean electricity everywhere.
I'm sorry but these things drive me bonkers angry
You can't ask billions of people to do shit whilst < 2700 billionaires refuse to do shit because they need their private jet to buy an apple. You can't ask me to do a huge thing with zero impact whilst oil companies actively sabotage every effort to improve the climate so that shareholders can get that extra dollar.
What if everybody did something to slow or reverse climate change? Like organize democratically to overthrow capitalism.
A better standard of living could be achieved with 30% of current production because of how incredibly wasteful and redundant capitalist production is. That leaves a ton of headroom for treats, and we can still strike a metabolic balance with our planet.
All who works for a big company and do all they shit for them are not better than the corporatives. Follow orders is a coise.
That's mostly a waste of time.
The big companies and massive organizations are the ones really doing the damage. This isn't really a tragedy of the commons.
But individuals do need to make the changes they can, because if every company and government did the right thing, we still wouldn't be all the way there. Climate is an impossibly big issue, and need everything and then a little bit more to get out of the mess.
Stop buying their shit!
Who do those big companies and massive organizations (?!) produce for?
Generally consumers, and I agree with your overall sentiment, but other major exchanges of goods and energy include things like military and essential services.
I'm making changes where I can, but I can't just refuse medical services because my doctor doesn't use a free-range organic MRI, and me bringing a reusable bag to the grocery store does nothing to reduce the amount of toxic waste the US military lights on fire every year.
I need internet, but there's only one provider in my area. If my house is on fire or I call an ambulance, I don't care what kind toxic gases are coming out of the first responder's tailpipes.
I'll still continue to fly less, buy less, drive my EV, swap my gas appliances, procure renewable electricity, and use more sustainable products. It's not going to solve all of the worlds problems, but I do think collective action has the potential to drive a significant amount of the global transition to lower emissions.
The rest is done at the polls.
Edward Bernays
