This meme is so wrong it is deliberate misinformation. The Guardian made an article which is probably this meme’s source. It even linked to the original source, the Carbon Majors Report. But blatantly misquoted the CMR. For example, CMR says something like “100 fossil fuel producers responsible for 71% of industrial GHG emissions”, but The Guardian (and meme posters) omit the italic bits.
What do they mean with producers? Not companies like Apple or Heinz, but simply organizations which produce fossil fuels. Duh. Shell, BP, but also entities like China’s coal sector (which they count as one producer, although it consists of many entities). CMR also states 3rd type emissions are included. Which means emissions caused by “using” their “products”, e.g. you burning gasoline in your car.
So yes, the downvoted guy saying “Consumer emissions and corporate emissions are the same emissions” is pretty spot on in this case, albeit most likely by accident. Rejected not for being wrong, but for not fitting into a narrative, which I call the wrong reasons. Please check your sources before posting. We live in a post-factual world where only narratives count and truth is just another feeling, because of “journalism” and reposts like this. Which is the infuriating part in this particular case. I guess you want to spread awareness about the climate crisis, which is good, but you cannot do so by propagandizing science and spreading lies.
All that from the top of my head. Both the ominous TG article and the fairly short report are easy to find. In just a couple of minutes you can check and confirm how criminally misquoted it was.
There’s a second more obvious component that people neglect in any statement like OPs.
These companies exist because people buy their products. We can blame companies, but fossil fuel use is a collective problem.
Exactly. If you eat bananas that arrive in a port on a ship, that ship spewed out a lot of CO2. If everybody changed their habits and ate something locally grown instead, those emissions would not happen (but other emissions might happen instead). Every CO2 emission by a profit-driven company is going to be the result of a person buying one of their products.
We live in a society, and the amount of difference one person can make is pretty small. Often all of the options available to us are bad. But, this meme is worse.
The ridiculous aspect of this meme is that it shifts the blame onto companies, and allows people to pretend that their lifestyles and choices deserve none of the blame, and instead it’s just some evil companies that are ruining the world. The unfortunate fact is that in this modern society, if you’re living like a typical European or North American, even if you think of yourself as an environmentalist, your lifestyle probably results in a ton of CO2 emissions.
While you guys kind of have a point, the specific argument you put forward is rather weak. Transportation accounts for an almost negligible part of the overall emissions of a product. Bulk freight cargo is super efficient. If you want to moan about transportation emissions, look at single people sitting in tons of steel making short trips.
The point you still have is that emissions are caused in the process of satisfying a demand. Consumers do have a partial responsibility. However I would object in that the problem cannot be solved from the consumer’s position. It is a market failure. Markets have no incentive to internalize their externalities, that has to come from a different place; e.g. politics. Carbon pricing is an interesting mechanic, since it utilizes that same argument for good.
I’m sorry, but this is just foolish and very naive.
Let me just buy some locally grown bananas, in the north… Or locally produced computer monitor…
It is totally up to the governments to regulate emissions, with regulations.
Now, WHAT governments are elected IS down to people, but unfortunately, caring about the environment is stil not a priority to prople (in part due to said governments being in the pockets of the biggest emission producers).
If I want a banana, I’ll get a banana. I will have no idea or information whether it’s shipped with the shittiest fuel burning ship, or an electric locomotive.
Now if the government regulated what fuel burning ships can enter the port, etc, etc, we’d have change. Fewer, more expensive bananas, of course (people will be unhappy about that), but at least the emissions would be reduced, with little to no change of the individuals’ habits.
How much do you think it will change, if people really do the minimum consumption within their possibilities?
And how much will it change, including people’s habits, if you make laws that force companies to consider their co2 output as a problem?
answer
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About maybe at max 20 - 30% probably much less.
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Probably about 60 - 90%.
That’s true. A lot more could be said about this, on various levels in various directions. Ultimately I don’t think this systemic crisis can be solved on a consumer level. The attempt leads to the status quo; different subcultures with some people paying extra to calm their consciousness, while most don’t care or cannot afford. I’m afraid if we try to work with individual sacrifice against economic incentives, the latter will win.
It’s also true that some companies use their economic power as a political lever, to influence legislation in their favor. Or as a societal lever, to sway public opinion in their favor. I guess this meme here tries to address that. I honor the motive. Just the chosen vehicle is broken. With mountains of evidence supporting the cause, however, there are plenty of other, perfectly fine vehicles available.
Sure, but why aren’t these companies having to pay for the damage they cause? People wouldn’t buy their stuff if it was the true price.
why aren’t these companies having to pay for the damage they cause?
Because it’s too difficult to measure, and it affects the entire world in a diffuse way, instead of affecting a small group of people in a really concentrated way.
If a factory’s process resulted in extremely loud noise for their neighbors, the neighbors would try to get the factory shut down. They’d get involved in local politics. They’d show up to town meetings, etc.
If a factory’s process resulted in a river getting polluted, affecting hundreds of thousands of people, but in a way that is hard to measure and tough to notice, they might get away with it. It would be hard to figure out exactly what damage is being done. Maybe cancer rates in the area are slightly higher than usual, but it takes scientists and doctors to notice that. Maybe that gets people outraged enough that some of them try to get the place shut down, but other people are going to be out there saying the factory is a source of jobs, and that maybe it wasn’t actually pollution that caused the cancers.
With CO2 emissions, the effect is global, and any one factory’s emissions are extremely tough to nail down. The affected people mostly aren’t local, they’re around the entire world. Even if they want a factory to be shut down, they have no leverage because they might not even be in the same country as the factory. And, since every factory does it, you can’t easily narrow the focus down on one individual factory. Plus, that factory employs people, and if you shut it down they lose their jobs.
So, that’s the problem with trying to focus on a form of pollution that is diffuse and worldwide.
The other issue is how would you determine the “true price”. The price of something being sold is based on the cost of the goods needed to produce it, any fees, fines or taxes the company needs to pay, what they think people will spend, etc. So, maybe you think the price should be higher. How do you arrange that? You could increase the price of the items the company is buying. But, that just shifts the problem to a different company. You could add fees or fines, but a lot of people hate the idea of carbon taxes, and when governments threaten them, companies threaten to move somewhere else where those taxes don’t exist.
It seems like you haven’t really thought this through.
~~they wrote a new one, which is about industry in general https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/04/just-57-companies-linked-to-80-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions-since-2016~~
EDIT: I was made aware that the headline is misleading
This new report is the same story all over again. From the linked report:
Applying this factor to the standardized production results in the emissions from the combustion of marketed products, comprising nearly 90% of total emissions tracked by the database. These are scope three category 11 emissions, corresponding to “use of sold products”
The vast majority of emissions attributed to these companies, nearly 90%, are those emitted by the consumers who buy the crude oil/natural gas/etc. But news outlets are obscuring that fact in their headlines, which makes it seem like the gas companies themselves are wholly responsible.
