In this oil world, few hope to make some quick bucks while putting mankind's future at stake.
What are "our" options? As far as I can tell my option is to lose my job entirely by not buying any gasoline at the pump in protest. Or write my local senator/congressman who has little control or care.
It's not like there is a "shale oil" pump vs. a non shale oil pump at the local gas station. And asking the majority of the population to pick up and move close to their work (and then hope they have that job for eternity) doesn't really seem like a reasonable solution either.
I think it's entirely reasonable to lay the blame at the feet of the people actually doing it. Just like when the CIA was torturing Iraqi's it was entirely reasonable to lay the blame for torture at their feet vs. copping out by saying "the whole country is to blame".
We choose to buy suburban homes with large gardens. We choose to buy gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. We choose to fly thousands of miles for a week-long holiday. We vote for municipal governments that choose low-density zoning laws. We vote for politicians that promise cheap gas and disparage public transit.
We all have some responsibility to bear for this issue.
1. Buy an electric car. Live in a smaller home. Consume fewer material goods. Set your heat cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Do what you can and actually put your money and lifestyle where your mouth is.
The electric car will cost more than your gasoline powered car. You will be uncomfortable. Depending on your viewpoints about stoicism and hedonic adaptation, this won't actually be so bad. However, you will be actionably pulling society in the direction of living in a sustainable way.
2. Decide that you do not care about global warming. Either deny its existence, come to the conclusion that the net effects on planet earth will not be severe enough to be worth the cost to prevent it, or come to the conclusion that it is an unsolvable collective action problem.
Shaking your fist is virtue signalling. Do something.
Better: move to a city, sell your car and buy bikes for your family. Live in a flat.
Edit: as a comment to tw04's reply, do you really believe that the owners and banks of fracking companies choose to ignore changes in demand when investing in decades' long projects? If so, you should just fight capitalism because it would be the most stupid system of capital allocation one can think of.
Literally none of that will stop the immediate threat of fracking injecting chemicals into our drinking water. Which is the discussion.
In fact, fracking will have done all of its damage long before ANY of those things will cause a change in behavior by the companies doing it.
Buying an electric car will contribute on the margin to stopping fracking due to less gasoline consumption. It is action rather than yelling and virtue signalling.
You can't think of another option? Then do nothing, but I'm sure everyone else will think the same and nothing will change until things will start to collapse. At that time, we'll all wonder why we didn't try harder earlier.
I agree with you about the dilemmas but, personally, I believe it's time to recognize that our current economic system refuse to admit that there are hard limits to growths so I'm doing my best to disrupt it. I'm not pushing others to do the same, I'm just answering your question.
It's like "First they came..." but in reverse.
Who should we hold responsible? Aren't we all part of this dumb experiment?
Edit: I spent a lot on a tiny flat just to live in a dense city so I can bike to work and heat my place as little as possible. I can't do much more to limit CO2 emissions actually, but I'm certain that those who make $180k to do haircuts because fracking are responsible one way or another.
Yes. That's why blame is counterproductive when it comes to systemic injustices or unsustainable practices. Focus on incentives instead - why do the various actors do what they do? Is there a link that can be broken by creating an alternative or changing the payoffs to a certain action, and what's the cost of breaking that link?
A better perspective is to accept that this is how things are and that we have the ability to change it into something better, and then take that as a call to action to search for what that "something better" might be.
Why would you change if you are not to blame? And how can you convince/encourage others to change if you don't do it yourself first?
Maybe "shrinking away from the problem" is a good think when the problem is excessive consumption / pollution. Being uncomfortable is necessary sometimes, otherwise you can't experience the reality of the problem (we're killing us, yes, it's uncomfortable, for sure). Your better perspective seems to be wishful thinking. Just say things as they are, accept some temporary discomfort and act to make things better from there.
You call it blame, but that's the wrong word.
> Edit: I spent a lot on a tiny flat just to live in a dense city so I can bike to work and heat my place as little as possible.
That didn't help anything though. If you didn't get that flat, someone else would have. In the net you made no change at all.
> I can't do much more to limit CO2 emissions actually
Isn't that kind of the point the person you are replying to is making? You can't do anything else, and the one thing you did do, didn't even help.
> but I'm certain that those who make $180k to do haircuts because fracking are responsible one way or another.
And you don't see how this kind of attitude makes things worse? This is a system issue, not an individual one. If any individual (even a huge number of them) decided "I won't", someone else will, so their action did nothing whatsoever.
This isn't going to change at the individual level.
The person you are replying to has the correct idea: Change things so that naturally everyone switches to the better behavior, without blaming or saying "your fault".
Only the poor will suffer if you want things to change meaningfully, nbut they aren't stupid so you'll end up with yellow vests everywhere, and government will become even more authoritarian (if not dictatorial) to "restore order and stop the eco-bullshit".
Edit: I live a few blocks away from where yellow vests have been demonstrating for 20+ Saturday in a row. I had cars burning in my street several times now, so I'm just describing what's already taking place. Macron's government is getting more aggressive day by day, enough for the UN commission for human rights to send several warnings. Macron has made clear he won't change its policies one bit -- e.g out of the question to put back the tax on ultra riches (aka ISF) but poor people will have to pay more to drive to work... aaaaand we've now got the most violent protestations in France since the Algerian War!. The two former presidents (N Sarkozy and F Hollande) just said they expect the far-right to come to power very soon.
TLDR: Don't expect people to pay taxes on essential goods if the riches don't have to change their consumption too. Either we, collectively, change or we don't. The message is quite clear.
How many people are protesting at this point? Are the protests getting worse in damage and severity? Is the French government actually solving problems or just cracking down harder?
Just say it's yours (or bank's, startups'...), cause it sure ain't mine.
You should meet some people who try and do things differently. For instance, entrepreneurs who start cooperative, owned and controlled by employees and with no capital gains (we aren't hiding but the media sure don't like to speak about us).
At least it's (generally) EROEI-positive, finally (though much of that is a result of burning the lower grade stuff to fractionally distill off the higher grades, which materially contributes to the CO₂ problem...).