The Guardian coined the headline "Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed" to blame big oil for our collective greed.
As an example of how absurd it gets, someone in my local nextdoor group posted something along the lines of “why should I reduce how much I drive when X% of emissions come from N companies”. Those companies are polluting so that you can drive!
People disagree on where the blame lies regarding consumption vs production, and it's difficult to know what is posturing and what is not.
I can’t buy Big Macs and then blame McDonalds for farming the cattle.
And then the individuals will change what they do, based on what is still available.
But absent a carbon tax, the idea that I can morally just consume willy-nilly and blame “corporations” is crazy. It's a form of moral laundering. Exxon isn't spewing CO2 for the heck of it, they're doing so as part of a production process that eventually some consumer demands. That consumer should not be let off the hook so easily.
I recently had a conversation with someone about Canadian Federal climate policies and I found it very interesting that they seemed to think consumers should bear no sacrifice to solve the climate issue.
The two most popular parties have plans aiming to reduce emissions. The Liberal party has implemented a progressive and revenue neutral carbon tax, and the Conservatives have a regulatory approach that sees consumers receiving a monthly refund into a special savings account when they buy things like fuel so that they need not bear as much of the increased costs of petroleum products due to the regulatory approach.
The latter policy really emphasizes to me that that there are a large number of people who do not want to change their behaviour in any way, and would much rather have a corporate scapegoat to point at.
It’s as if they think that the oil industry just mines and drills for fun or something.
Realistically and politically, people will not bear any significant sacrifice to solve CO2 emissions. They just won't. They won't do it.
You can say that they ought to as much as you please. You can say that they need to. But they still won't. You aren't going to scold them into being different. You aren't going to lecture them into being different. And you aren't going to use politics to force them to be different, because they vote, and all the politicians know they vote.
For us to get anywhere on CO2, the non-CO2 path has to be better and/or less expensive. That's it. In the real world, with the humans that we have, anything else isn't going to get any traction.
I find this to be a fairly common perspective, when talking to Canadians online; and there's some data to support that it is[0][1].
The truth is that individuals are _hugely_ influential on carbon emissions, and changes to individual consumption, commuting, and so forth are necessary if we're to tackle climate change meaningfully. The Covid lockdowns made the impact of individuals irrefutably clear.[2][3][4]
0: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/election-poll-climate-chang...
1: https://globalnews.ca/news/8139537/canada-climate-change-eco...
2: https://pcc.uw.edu/blog/research/how-did-covid-19-affect-our...
3: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x
4: https://earth.stanford.edu/news/covid-lockdown-causes-record...
And yet there are no replies making a logical argument about why this perspective is wrong?
I also argued that the lockdown was good for combating climate change, and there are many people who are desperate to leave their bedroom communities, hop in their car, and commute to the downtown office.
Individual adaptations do not matter unless they are undertaken collectively. My personal lifestyle changes don’t impact the state of CO2 emissions in any significant way. Leading by example AND talking about it has more impact, but still negligible unless/until enough people do it.
Changing incentives, by making production account for the climate change externality, will shift more people into changing their lifestyle based on price alone. It’s the same reasoning behind targeting drug dealers and cartels more heavily than end-users.
That isn’t an argument against consumers being culpable though. We are all culpable.
Lifestyle choices do matter a lot. Do you buy the tiny condo in a walkable area and put your money into public transit? Or do you live on an acreage and drive a lifted Dodge Ram? How do your behaviours shape the culture of those around you? How will your children choose to live?
In a society where most people are overweight, heart disease and cancer are the biggest killers, our cities are designed around cars, and human social connection and community are fading, being replaced by superficial social media interaction, it matters very much how we personally choose to live. Our way of life tends to rub off on those who are close to us, and our children. A way of life that prioritizes human health, community, political cooperation, and respect for the environment over mindless consumerism is incredibly important to our long term prosperity.
Collective action requires personal changes. You, and everyone else, must alter your personal lifestyle. You are only a little bit responsible for the harm, but in aggregate, the collective you are enormously responsible. Each individual must change.
> It’s the same reasoning behind targeting drug dealers and cartels more heavily than end-users.
I don't like the drug dealer analogy because it implies that targeting drug dealers has been reasonably effective in combating drug use. It hasn't.
To combat substance abuse the users must be targeted; to combat climate change, the consumers must be targeted.
Perhaps the CFC problem is a better analogy. CFCs cause problems with the ozone layer, so CFCs were mandated to be removed from products that people bought like ACs and hairspray. In that instance, the supply chain was fixed, so the option to buy CFC hairspray was removed.
I think the same fix applies here. Renewable energy, ending single-use plastic packaging, etc. are all things that should be done in order to decrease negative effects. That’s not to say people don’t have to or shouldn’t also make our own personal changes, only that the impact of changing the supply chain is much greater.
[edit: rogue apostrophe]
Regardless, even though the edict eventually came from on high to stop using CFCs, it was the individual use of them that was ultimately responsible for harm. Punishing oil companies won't make a lick of difference if it doesn't result in changes to our collective, individual behaviour. Like how we stopped using CFC-laiden hairsprays, we're going to have to stop commuting by car, ICE or EV, and stop buying products from overseas, and stop flying.
There is no technological panacea that will allow us to continue to live our lives as we do now.
Only if people stopped using plastic straws we would reduce the plastic in the ocean by 0.2%