We need political action and economic incentives. Individuals changing their lifestyle isn’t going to accomplish anything.
So using reusable cups may not on its own solve global heating... But neither will any single election, tax or international agreement.
Instead of telling each other “what you’re doing is not solving everything therefore it’s useless”, we should be saying “what you’re doing is a good first step, and here are other ideas for doing more”.
The way I see it, someone who makes the effort to switch to reusable cups is very likely willing to make another effort. They might just need you to point you in the right direction. For example, the issue of why we make so many non-reusable cups in the first place, where they come from, who has the power to stop them but doesn’t, and how they can be held accountable. Just a suggestion of course! :-)
I agree that a single individuals actions will have minimal impact, but isn't it the individual that makes up the whole?
"Individuals changing their lifestyle isn’t going to accomplish anything."
Why do you say that?
Does any evidence exist that individuals making changes doesn't do anything?
For example, my partner and I no longer own cars, that's hopefully two whole cars off the road for practically a lifetime. Does this have zero impact ?
Also think of it this way, imagine if all of the people in the world right now who couldn't afford to fly, own cars and consume as much as you, could afford to do so and proceeded to do so without thinking about the consequences, it would be 2050 pretty quickly.
I agree legislation and emissions trading schemes etc are important but i don't see it happening fast enough just yet. So why not take some ownership of your own and do your best in the meantime ?
An obvious observation: Individual change and collective change are not mutually exclusive, so I think the choice between them is a bit of a false dilemma.
To pick an extreme example: Me not stabbing anyone is not enough to end knife crime in general, but this individual action (of not stabbing anyone) can still be considered an ethical baseline, so it's still good for me to not do that. Similarly, you aren't going to stop climate collapse by not driving, but...
The impact is that you inspire others, which makes political change possible in the long run.
But beyond that... as long as oil is coming out of the wells, and it's legal to burn it, somebody will do it.
Therefore strong, decisive political action is mandatory. Individual actions, personal incentives can't be enough: we need an effort similar to what Great-Britain did when it entered "war economy".
Published CO_2 emissions would include an estimation of the total CO_2 emissions estimates of the complete production flow of each product you buy, the distance you travel for work and all other energy consumption.
Would that incentivize people?
(for the purpose of this argument, assume we can actually make such an estimate)
Right now it's almost impossible to know the impact of what you buy, or which is better. Or how the impact of some produce available year round varies across the year. I know buying a lettuce in winter is going to have larger impact than in summer, but I have no way to quantify it.
It would also be an excellent starting point for building a carbon tax, that could slowly escalate to punitive.
The only problem is: the general public knows nothing of this!
No, because, much like the "water crisis" in California, individuals didn't make the direct choices the led to the crisis. Shipping your food from half a world away was not a direct choice any consumer made. Making your clothing half a world away was not a direct choice any consumer made. Building all infrastructure around cars was not a direct choice any consumer made.
If you want to reduce CO2, you have to do something to bake it's price into wherever it is being used or created.
(The "water crisis" in California is actually an "agribusiness water crisis"--if every individual in California quit using water for drinking, showers, lawn watering, swimming pools, etc., the Central Valley agribusinesses would still be unable to irrigate without pumping out the aquifers. The only solution to the California "water crisis" is to shut down the agribusinesses and make them move to somewhere with water. We are actually seeing this with desalinization in California--desalinization can actually supply almost all the people but isn't going to do anything for businesses.)
You assume people are incentivized by price, but people are incentivized by status. That's why they buy fake Rolexes and put themselves in extreme debt.
Connect CO_2 emissions with status.
What's easy and effective is a CO2 emissions tax directly on the emitter. Anyone who burns coal or gas or oil has to pay.
But, what’s the new norm we want to establish?
“Let’s all use 20% less energy”
Vs
“Let’s produce all energy from renewable sources”
I feel like the second option is the only one that’s going to save us, and option 1 is a distraction.
If you were to, say, mount a solar panel on the roof of your electric car, that would probably be a better message to send than to drive less.
I'm quick to defend the belief at a 'meta level'. It seems good to pretend we each can make a difference, in the same way it's useful to pretend free will exists: if you act 'as if' such a thing is true, then you avoid the outcome of acting as if it is false, one that seems to me utterly terrible - 'you could have made a difference, but you chose not to'.
I'd rather bring important but optimistic goals down a peg than abandon them - thinking I may as well leave things up to Moloch [2] leads me to despair.
[1] https://www.restarters.net/about [2] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
I'm with though, people are too selfish and too short sighted to be mildly inconvenienced to spit on the fire and some government action needs to happen, I guess all we can do is be vocal about it and hope people cause science friendly politicians come election time
If we want to to beat climate change, we have to do the math. And then check it twice.
