This is the truth right there. Gas prices went up two measly dollars compared to normal in 2022, and everyone flipped the fuck out. People were prepared to elect Republicans-- fucking Republicans- to office, they were so furious about it.
And don’t @ me about “100 corporations are responsible for like 90% of emissions”. Who’s buying those corporations’ goods? Who’s refusing to vote for politicians that’ll meaningfully regulate these corporations? Who’s spending all day fantasizing about Da Revolushun^TM that’ll never fucking come (and would kill tens of millions of civilians and likely result in fascists winning and seizing control of your country, if not the whole thing splintering into a bunch of warring fiefdoms controlled by ruthless oligarchs) instead of getting to actual work trying to effect real change in the real world? And I don’t mean “direct action” (read: looking edgy and getting photos for the 'gram), I mean actually fucking getting policy passed that’ll have a real impact on people’s real lives.
Gas prices went up two measly dollars compared to normal in 2022, and everyone flipped the fuck out.
Yeah, sure. They flipped out because the love their cars so much and don’t want to change anything. Oh, wait. No, they flipped out because companies and corrupt politicians made them completely dependent on cars so they will starve without them and kept them so poor that even increasing the cost of using the cars they dependent on just a bit again ends with starving.
And here you are babbling none-sense again about how it’s the stupid people buying products -as if they had a choice- and not the companies and politicians that are to blame.
Not immediately but they’ll stop producing if people stop buying. Just takes a lot of people to have any meaningful change. And that starts with every single one of us.
And that’ll never happen, because everyone else will ignore you and just buy the shit anyway.
It NEEDS to be regulatory change. Shaming consumers into not consuming doesn’t work. Oil companies want you to think it works, that’s why THEY invented the concept of the carbon footprint. To make everyone ignore real solutions that could actually work.
This is it exactly. We have to turn off the f*cking spigot at the source!
There is no amount of science or innovation that’s going to save us. It’s going to take “holy shit we’re all going to die horribly” panic from world leaders to forcefully cut off the source, which is oil and its byproducts.
Short of that, no amount of responsible consumerism can stem this tide.
They didn’t say we can stop it at our individual points of consumption. They explicitly mentioned policy. People need to be willing to support policy that will drastically change their own lives, likely in ways they don’t even realize, and be ready to live with that. Otherwise pretty soon we won’t be living with much at all.
don’t @ me about “100 corporations are responsible for like 90% of emissions”. Who’s buying those corporations’ goods?
Suggesting that the consumer is responsible for emissions at the point of production betrays a deep misunderstanding of climate change.
Suggesting that “people’s” willingness to support policy that would change their lives is holding back cuts to emissions at the point of production betrays a similarly deep misunderstanding of political power.
Supply creates it’s own demand. Capital knows this. That’s why they push your narrative.
It’s a regular liberal trick, to insist on looking at the consumer while the producer laughs at us on their yacht. In the meantime, their managers, agents, lawyers, and accountants work tirelessly to make sure that what they offer, in the form they offer it, are the only options.
They’ll buy a stake in public transport and run it to the ground so that people are forced to buy and use cars. They’ll drop the prices in their supermarket so the local grocer with local suppliers can’t afford to stay open. They’ll build obsolescence into every product so you have to keep buying new ones, and the old one is thrown into landfill. They’ll campaign against nuclear energy under the guise of green activism, then complain that wind and solar must be backed by fossil fuels. They’ll buy all the newspapers and news channels, ensuring the only narrative is theirs—dog eat dog and the activist down the road is coming for your way of life. They’ll buy the recording studios and reinforce these messages in film, TV, music: that petite bourgeois living is peak aspiration and that ‘there is no alternative’ as if we lack imagination.
Then the public will continue that good work for them. Condescending all who disagree. Arguing that capitalism isn’t the problem because humans are greedy or any of the other unassailable, facile, and trite logics that we’re forced to hear constantly but which have no grounding in reality.
It’s almost like our society is car centered, and raising gas prices directly results in worse outcomes for the majority of people. You can’t expect people to just stop using cars, but you can use the state to create massive infrastructure policies paid for wholly by the polluting industries who most heavily profit from our current situation. Use the next decade to build high speed rail, electrified busses and lightrails, subway systems, and other mass transit, and then when gas prices go up, people will have an option other than cutting back on their food to ensure they make it to work every day.
I replied to the wrong comment in this thread, but if I delete it’ll only delete from my instance, so I’m just gonna leave it.
Our society is 100% car centered. My kids’ schools are miles away from my house, my job is miles away, and you cannot convince me to ride a bike or walk when it’s over 100°F outside. Fuck that shit. I’m happy to take public transit, but any public transit available to me isn’t feasible because it would take literally 1.5-2 hours to get to work and back each way, which cuts down severely on my family time. And I can’t work from home either due to the nature of my job, which is maintaining the machines that build microchips.
Maybe don’t move somewhere that your job and kids school is hundreds of miles away? My child’s school is down the street, and I can take the subway to work in about 15min. This was a specific choice my wife and I made when we chose to live here.
If i could buy none polluting alternatives to anything i currently buy, you can bet your life that i would.
But i dont have alot of choice.
I do what i can.
Maybe ill give it all up and go live in the woods somewhere. Become self sufficient. Maybe the capitalists will notice im gone… or not… probably not.
Seems odd to say
And don’t @ me about “100 corporations are responsible for like 90% of emissions”. Who’s buying those corporations’ goods?
People bringing up the 100 corporations are usually calling for regulations on them, and the “you’re the ones buying the goods” people are usually calling for Personal Responsibility and Voting With Your Wallet.
