This is pretty scary. The worst part is nobody in charge really cares.
As an individual you can reduce, reuse, recycle, and do your part perfectly and it makes zero difference.
As an individual you can reduce, reuse, recycle, and do your part perfectly and it makes zero difference.
There are major problems out there in the world, and they can't be solved unless entities and individuals who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo actually change their ways.
"Be the change you want to see in the world" is increasingly more and more meaningless each day.
But boomers can only think about being made late for work
They also show up to vote, show up at town halls and call their electeds. It's only recently, largely due to Gen Z and newly-engaged Millenials, that the tide is turning [1].
[1] https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/gen-z-voted-higher-...
It's a good start. But individual action has always been meaningless. What matters is collective action. Ironically, repeating the meme of widespread nihilism (which isn't true, it's a vocal minority) degrades that capability.
Same goes for domestic water. 2 people own a single CA business that uses more water than all of LA. But angelenos are told it’s on them to take shorter showers to save water.
Lots of people. Certainly for Ukraine; it's an issue electeds are called about repeatedly. (I've called on it.)
> angelenos are told it’s on them to take shorter showers to save water
And then don't. California's water shortage is a political choice by, ultimately, its voters.
And what do the showers matter when two people have unilateral control over more water than the entire city? The voters have no power, they are just convenient scapegoats. Not to mention all the water we let drain into the ocean every year, just to have Gavin yell about the reservoirs being low the next, while he laughs all the way to the polling office, accompanied by the two senators he unconstitutionally appointed… “voters have power”. It’d be funny if it weren’t so terrible.
Recent shift and highly partisan [1]. Guess what's hitting the rocks in the House [2].
> Calling is pillow talk designed to appease the people into thinking they matter
How many electeds do you know? Senior staffers? Because every one I know, on both sides of the political aisle, uses calls and letters as a proxy for whether their voters care about something. Particularly if it's a novel issue, i.e. without polling.
Someone willing to call or write may also create a ruckus, or join a primary challenger's campaign. They're likely a regular voter, including in primaries. And if won over they might drive turnout over the issue.
> voters have no power, they are just convenient scapegoats
Come on, those people have control through the law.
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/513680/american-views-ukraine-w...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/us/politics/johnson-biden...
If they start boycotting and sabotaging established interests, to the point that they cannot be ignored or suppressed, they do have (collective) power.
Democracy is participation. The less you participate (not just in voting - in party meetings, demos, etc), the less power you have. Elites will always exist and do their own thing, but they can be forced to do the right thing by applying enough external force.
I think this actually misses the key point.
1. Every person only has control of their individual action, and has to find a way for it to be meaningful.
2. Individual action can't meaningfully address a problem like plastic pollution by acting against it directly.
3. The individual actions which do matter are mostly those which drive collective action. That means individuals need to learn to organize and do the work of organizing. It's hard work though.
4. People should be trained not to agonize over every individual food choice, or to rage at home about how bad things are, but to organize. Learn to do it, learn to teach it, and do the work.
100% agree. And look, if you’re trying to get single-use plastics banned, you shouldn’t be using them. But your Nos. 3 and 4 should be pinned to every discussion of this kind.
I'm not sure i believe this is the main explanation at this point. I rather believe in coordination problems or that it is very hard to make a very large amount of people agree on how to split the cost when it is also almost impossible to verify when any one actor has payed their part of the split.
This is the same discussion we'll soon be hearing about voting - the PTB try to convince the youth that one vote doesn't change anything, when the truth is that if everyone got out to vote at the same rate as the older demographics do, the USA would have a massive political and cultural shift.
This is the best time to step up and do what you can, even if it doesn't look like much.
I disagree with this, citation needed. _Much_ of government spending I've seen in recent years has been towards climate. Bans on plastic bags, carbon reductions, environmental tax deductions, electric cars, etc. And it shows in the data: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions . US, Canada, UK, have all had large decreases in CO2 emissions the last ~20 years. That's not by accident, many of the people in charge really care. Is it enough? Who knows!
That's why it's important to vote for the ones who reflect your beliefs/world you want to live in! But you have to keep your wits about you and do your research too. It's _hard_. There's no shortcut and there are no easy answers. It's all nuanced shades of grey. But that is life!
Much of the spending of a few western governments.
The majority of the world's governments do nothing except maybe wait for their "climate justice" handouts. And of course, as soon as the first-world nations have ended their dependence on oil and gas, both will get cheaper. So the rest of the world will "pick up the slack" and consume all the rest of the available fossil fuels, because they are getting real cheap now. Far cheaper than any renewable energy sources can ever hope to be since oil/gas-producing nations have to keep the good times (and the buck) rolling, in their own interest (or at least the interest of their ruling class).
What we do need is rather a closure of the world's oil/gas fields and coal mines, in the rather short term, by agreement of the respective governments or by changing those governments until they agree. Yes, this will be ugly.
But anything else is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Also, your hypothesis largely hangs on the fact that oil will become cheaper. But: oil becoming cheaper means _it's making less money_. So oil producing countries would start to lose interest in it. Unless they make countries dependent on it, and then they can start increasing prices/profit! But: then the other countries will start looking for other sources, like renewables.
Furthermore: although the act of oil production itself _does_ cause co2 emissions, the resulting oil isn't all converted to co2. Some go to producing materials like plastics. Vs like fuel in a plane, which will get "directly" converted to co 2. So even if countries reduce their dependence on oil for fuel, there is still a potential market in things like plastics.
In short: the problem is complicated and murky. I am very much not an expert, but there are a ton of variables at play. It's easy to say "everyone sucks no one is doing anything" or "it's hopeless the only way forward is to take immediate drastic action to optimise for one isolated variable ignoring all the others". But I just don't think that's the reality or the best approach. But again: I am not an expert!
The people in charge fund the research.