I really dislike this line of thinking. I don’t manufacture millions of tons of concrete or millions of single-use plastic shampoo bottles. Our current path is irreversible if drastic shifts in disposable consumerism don’t occur soon.
The answer is: we need all three. We will not tackle climate change without strong change on the personal, corporate, and governmental levels.
Also, nothing will change until people stop imagining that corporations and government are foreign bodies comprised of something other than their neighbors and themselves.
Societal changes are always about some group reaching a consensus on a topic and collectively acting on their decision. Governments and Corporations can sometimes be easier to deal with than 300+ million individuals when it comes to driving that consensus.
government and corporations. Individuals don't exist in a vaccum.
It doesn't prove much.
All in all, the only way to address the issue of climate change is collective mass action, including strikes, boycotts, divestments, ect from all large polluting entities, while simultaneously leaving governments no other options but to address these issues head on.
Set incentives to make the consumers choose the more environmentally conscious choice, via a carbon / plastic / waste tax to cover the externalities.
In some ways, consumers can make a difference, but only to serve as a trigger for political decisions (if we get lucky).
Also in your example, what comes first – the consumer’s choice or the carbon tax?
We have business leaders in the US claiming for more tax. At the same time we have 3rd world countries shipping trash back to the 1st world.
Governments could and should be doing more to price externalities and force innovation.
I cannot change labelling law to require impacts (emissions, habitat, sustainable) clearly shown to allow me to buy with wisdom. I can only guess. I am certain, despite having above average interest, I often guess wrong. I can't bring a carbon tax, packaging levy, delist companies that don't play along, or creatively rewrite corporate law to place survival as important as profit, or change international trade law.
One new oil rig, chemical plant or drilling field can easily cancel the individual efforts of an entire city, perhaps country.
So I tend to see it as government first last and everything; corporate at gun ^W legislation point, and individual as a matter of personal ethics and social acceptance. Despite having started with me - as far as I'm reasonably able.
Now the question is how to achieve the drastic shift. The popular opinion is that we need to vote in the right politicians and the change should come from the top. I used to think this way for a long time. I've changed my opinion recently. Think about any significant societal change in the last century or so. Women suffrage, civil rights movement, anti-war movement, gay rights. None of these changes have come from the top. None were initiated by the parliament. They all started as a popular rebellion, direct action and civil disobedience.
The other tool we have in our toolbox nowadays is consumerism. We can choose what to buy, so if there are alternatives that are more environmentally friendly and that are gaining momentum because of our shifting ethical and moral values, every other opportunist will want to, at the very least, not miss out on an opportunity. This is why I support extinction rebellion even though I find them quite annoying. It brings an issue into the mainstream conversation which will hopefully change our attitudes towards excessive consumerism.
So... do we have the stamina to ramp up our "protest" into something mildly violent?
Arguing that violence is never the answer and pointing to movements that had violent elements that then are regarded as successfully rising up against oppressive systems is nonsensical.
Sure, you won't be able to make a measurable impact by yourself. However your mindset quickly leads to a tragedy of the commons type response that leaves us all in trouble. We should all take a more proactive approach to this in both our private life and in our professional work.
Tragedy of the commons is caused by regulation. That's how you get commons in the first place—resources that everyone is allowed to use but no one has any investment in. It's solved by allowing the commons to be homesteaded and converted to private ownership.
That is exactly the point of the analogy. One single snowflake doesn't prevent the avalanche and therefore one single snowflake is not to blame. However if enough snowflakes are removed the avalanche is stopped. Similarly no single person is going to fix climate change. The only way we see results is if enough people band together to make changes.
It is also us who vote in people who do not care about climate change.
Ultimately, we are the ones who are willingly giving money to these companies. We simply don't seem to care on a grand scale because there continues to be high demand for inefficient goods. We are voting with our dollars.
If only we could collectively incentivize more efficient lifestyles.
An approach that focuses on decreasing the price of clean technology, rather than one that just raises the price of dirtier tech and assumes later rebalancing would be a much more effective approach, with possibly still having carbon taxes for corporations, but not individuals.
The same with appliances. People are too poor to buy A+++ electronics.
If you meant poor enough so I go hunting... then yes.
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-by-income-region
I'm sure there is some nuance there, but by and large, wealthier people produce more CO2.
Climate change is a problem of consumption and how economies are completely dependent on carbon emissions. You just cannot realistically forbid this and this without hurting the economy and its existing carbon-dependent infrastructure. Climate change will be fought on campaigning on consumers so that they call on their good will and shift markets.
I guess the only reliable way to make consumers change their choice is fear mongering about climate change. We need more climate change hard-scifi.
If consumers act like lazy sedentary irresponsible kids, the only way will be to instate hard measures: banning personal cars and adding more organized public transport, switching to reusable glass and steel packaging, reducing bullshit jobs to avoid useless transportation, economies of scale to avoid emissions, a big nuclear energy plan, etc. To be honest all those things should already be startups. They're not complicated. It's a matter of law and how salesmen are pushing consumers to make bad choices.
I've done no research on the company but I assume Graham is profiting off of its success. Since only collective action will solve climate change's effects on the middle and lower classes this is just cynical profiteering off of global disasters.
And this doesn't address that, it just attempts to price the poor out of flying... Awesome stuff.
This will have zero impact on the affluent, we'll continue to fly whenever and wherever we want.
A carbon tax could be used for a UBI, or for electric car subsidies, or for negative income tax