That's so very sad, especially because Shell just does it for fun. If, at the very least, there would be some kind of product we could reduce demand for to stop Shell from being so bad. But alas, we can only blame them and never challange our own behaviour - since you know, no one single person ever made any difference at all.
Great, instead of Shell, just buy BP, or Exxon.. Oh wait.. they're up to exactly the same shit, and are all together deliberately holding us captive and keeping any realistic alternative from being accessible to the masses because they know it will replace them..
Maybe we could stop them from lobbying so hard against alternatives to try and kill the development or adoption of them? Maybe we could stop them from bribing lawmakers to support subsidies for themselves while denying subsidies for alternatives?
Or wait, here's a good one, maybe we could stop them from spending billions of dollars on ad campaigns and BS propaganda that downplays their contribution while pushing a message that the real problem is all those awful individuals like us who are really the ones who should be sacrificing rather than the poor, misunderstood, multi-billion dollar international conglomerates?
Also, does it really take into account that Shell emit that much providing a product for people?
It’s how I feel when people blame Chinese warehouses for emissions. They’re making the stuff for you, you’re the ones buying it and by extension creating the emissions…
We need to pressure companies to protect the environment, but the best thing we can really do is reduce consumption.
Look the important thing is always that it's someone else's fault and if I were to change my ways it wouldn't make a difference anyway so let's just all keep doing what we're doing.
Agreed, especially western countries that have their CO2 targets, then barely make them and shout at countries like China for having big emissions. Yeah no shit, if you outsource all your manufacturing to China then you don't have any emissions at home, because the factory isn't there, it's in China.
Same thing with health and safety regulations, child labor etc. Look at us being all high and mighty, no children working here (except the US, we don't talk about that), we have proper health and safety regulations. Boo China why are you like this? Oh right, we made you this way.
And why did all the factories move to China? Capitalism...
but the problem is that we need to do both. we're not blameless, and throwing our hands up and doing nothing because they won't either is incredibly not helpful.
just like when voting, individual action may feel pointless and hard, but it's still necessary. we can still do things and make choices, but everyone is just giving up now because of this feeling...
of course corporations are polluting more, but so are we, and we can still force change through consumer action. just like conservatives are dumb for bitching about companies "catering to the left" when it's actually just the same things they always have and always will do: cater to the average. if more of us would stop and think "huh, this product uses less packaging, maybe that should be a factor in my purchasing decision."these companies would start using less packaging. but no, most people just open something over packaged, and either don't notice, or shake their heads for a moment and comment on the plastic waste before buying the same thing again next time...
we can't be defeated by the inaction of others. if we do, then even their action won't be meaningful if/when it comes. it's going to take more than just one side...
Ah, the old "this solution isn't 100% effective, thus I shall ignore it".
Shell is creating products you are buying. We can regulate them harder, but you can ALSO just not buy their product. We can do multiple things that contribute, you just don't want to, because it's slightly inconvenient for you.
Your personal action affects only your own carbon footprint, and if you somehow eliminate it entirely, you alone can reduce carbon emissions by 16 tonnes per year.
However, by funding climate research, educating the public, and most importantly: contacting your lawmakers, you can affect the footprints of many thousands or potentially millions of people. If you do even 0.001% of the work required for getting a law passed that cuts Shell's emissions by only 1%, you will have reduced the global carbon footprint by approximately 90 tonnes per year (58000000 * 16 * .01 * .00001 = 92.8). That's more than 5 times as effective a use of your time, assuming you were able to do each with an equivalent amount of effort.
Vote with your wallet, yes, but NEVER underestimate the power of campaigning for change. A person's actions carry further when they affect the actions of others.
Your personal action affects only your own carbon footprint
That's not true. If I take the bus, I increase ridership and resources for buses, which in aggregate can lead to improvements to the bus route, which can convince others to ride. the people at your local city government can have a much easier time justifying an increase to public transit spending if they can show high or increasing transit ridership. Depending on your individual circumstances one may provide better impact to effort than another but taking a bus is as much political action as voting.
It's basically impossible not to buy Shell products. Even if you don't buy from Shell directly, chances are there are products of Shell in the products you buy. And even if that isn't the case, chances are the factory the product is made uses a lot of Shell products and so do all the factories that made the components and so do the shipping companies that shipped all the stuff around the world.
Shell is freaking huge, they are everywhere and one of the biggest companies in the world. They don't just make gasoline, they have so many products and have their claws in a lot of industries.
This post is a call to action. You should take it as a call to action.
You should be going to marches.
You should be rallying and participating in your local politics.
You should be supporting groups fighting for better public transit, stricter regulations and the budget to enforce it, and right to repair.
You should be voting with environmental Policy in mind.
You can do personal changes too, and encouraging others to do the same. but the vast majority of humans will not change until it's easy and gratifying or they're forced to. It will take exponentially more work getting a meaningful number of people to listen to you're propaganda. Its much more efficient to target the infrastructure around them to incentivize the change.
Great, instead of Shell, just buy BP, or Exxon.. Oh wait.. they're up to exactly the same shit, and are all together deliberately holding us captive and keeping any realistic alternative from being accessible to the masses because they know it will replace them..
I'm very sorry you see absolutely no alternatives to driving a car, but I think it's a bit unfair to claim my head is up my ass because of your lack creativity.
Legit question, because I never really see a breakdown of these numbers. I always hear about corporations emitting n number cO2, but it's never really the whole story (I don't think) But, is this from developing their product, or is is it the development of said product plus the use of that product? Like in Shells' case, is it them making gas (I know they do more, but for the sake of argument...) and the use of their gas in vehicles across the world? Or is the use of the gas calculated into the individual person's number?
I'm not trying to start anyrhing, I am genuinely trying to understand.
This is my big criticism of these claims, because it really seems like the latter.
Yeah, it’s a disgusting mess. Yeah corporations are given far too much privilege. But if Shell weren’t around, there’d still be demand for oil that would be met by someone else.
The problem there isn’t Shell…not directly, at least (they’re certainly guilty of a lot, including lobbying to protect their position)…the problem is the oil. Redirecting to “the corporations” just ignores that.
You could say the same about the meat producers and the people who are clear cutting the rainforests and planting alfalfa in the deserts of Arizona to feed cows in the Middle East. Some seriously fucked chain of events must’ve happened to make that the logical and profitable choice yet, here we are.
That all depends on the industry in question. I'm not sure about Shell.
But the key point is that regulating individual action, or focusing on individual action, is only a small part of the problem. We need to focus on the big polluters first and foremost. And we know who they are, even if we don't know exactly how to parse the data.
This is a false dichotomy, the way you shutdown O&G is through political action, making personal choices to limit your personal carbon output is a political action. It directly hurts O&G and directly helps the alternatives.
Making a personal choice helps drive political will which changes how people make personal decisions which drives political will. Arguing about which step to bootstrap the process seems pointless. If it's easier for you to show up at Tuesday at 11am to city council meetings and yell for more bus routes do that. If it's easier to increase your commute 20minutes and drive up ridership to give ammo to the council people, do that. If it's easier to drop a big sum of money to lobby the government do that. Just do whatever you can that helps.
We are all drops of rain in an ocean, but without the rain the ocean would run dry.
You fell into the trap that this post is exposing. Of course personal action matters, everyone knows it and there's no chance we'll forget it, but the heavy polluting companies want to focus our attention on that alone, to keep it off of themselves. Please don't assist them in doing so.
I think this is the same carbon emissions : just split differently. Shell consumers are the very same citizens. Also 16tons is huge, even compared to other developed countries in Europe for example (almost twice as much !)
No they didn't. They clearly stated that we need to take political action which is the only way to force the companies to align with our goals. Policies that drastic need a lot of backup in the society that legitimises these policies, which is what they meant by "we are all raindrops"
Jfc, it's distressing to see how many people buy in to the personal responsibility propaganda and are actively not only licking the boot that's on all our necks, but doing the corporations' dirty work for them, gleefully, ignoring the entire picture (the deliberate spending of many trillions, and holding governments in their pockets to keep us dependant on oil and having no viable alternative) except the tiny little fragment they're comfortable confronting - other individuals. It's both gross and concerning.
addendum: this is not an excuse to do nothing on a personal level. you are just as bad as the corporations if you act carelessly like you can’t help change anything. go vegan
Whenever I say this I get gang downvoted by people on this site.
What most fail to understand is they are contributing to the emissions of shell and other major contributors to global warming by purchasing or using anything which relates to their products.
The wealthy humans can afford to avoid these products, but they cop out. Personally I've bought a second hand electric car and gone vegan over the last 18 months. It's more expensive than not changing my car but I could afford it and now I don't support the oil industry at all. Next on my list is my natural gas house boiler.
I've had people say 4 return flights a year isn't many flights and isn't a factor to climate change, especially compared to businesses which fly employees everywhere. Madness
I am not supporting shell here, just asking a question.
If I am correct in assuming that shell produces 928 million tons (58,000,000 * 16) that means if the average American reduced their CO2 output from 16 down to ~13.3 then that would offset the total output of shell?
Is that amount of reduction even possible for the average American without giving up too much?
Obviously every company should do everything they can do lower emissions, but per person changes can have effect too. The problem is the vast majority of the 340 million Americans simply don’t care.
They effectively sell all of our fuel. I'm doing my best to avoid them but I'm in a fortunate position where I'm wealthy enough to use the alternatives which are 20% or so more money.
Can't kill a megacorp like that this easily, they have ample time to invest their ill-gotten earnings elsewhere even in the most optimistic scenario. Most energy companies are branching out into renewables nowadays.