this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Look, any progress being made about environmental awareness is great, HOWEVER; this bullshit concept of offloading the responsibility of climate change strictly to the consumer is never going to fix the problem.
The people responsible for the largest amount of climate change are the insatiably wealthy that give absolutely no fucks about how much their mega corp ruins the planet.
I don't know how the rest of the world feels, but here in the U.S., it's basically impossible to buy anything that doesn't come packaged in single use plastics, and half our population has been brainwashed to believe climate change is not even a concerning issue.
The companies that profit from blowing everything up should be responsible for cleaning everything up. I do my best to reduce, reuse and recycle, but my city doesn't even recycle plastic bags because it clogs the machines, and everything comes in damn plastic bags. Putting solar on your house now comes with a high possibility of having your insurance policy canceled, etc, it's literally one barrier after another, and my carbon footprint is pretty damn low.
Sorry for my rant, it is just very frustrating.
True, and single-use plastic wrappers are indeed a scourge.
But one thing is often omitted when ranting about "companies that profit from blowing everything up": They often produce stuff that we a) don't need and b) buy. Nobody needs new phones / computers every year, but they get produced. Almost nobody needs pickup trucks and SUVs, but the suburbs are full of the things. Nobody needs "fast fashion", but here we go.
It's true that international manufacturing companies cause a majority of CO2 pollution, but they produce stuff for everyone. If people bought less useless stuff, we'd be better off.
I do my best to conserve, I have a 10 year old car I keep up and try not to purchase frivolous items, but everything is from hygiene products to food comes in single use plastics...
Things start to make a lot more sense when you realize plastic is a patroleum biproduct. Just think about the insane amount of power the oil and gas industry have. They get billions of dollars a year in subsidies, as basically blackmail to not raise gas prices, plus you know the blatant bribery.
No doubt that is a large part of it!
Yea, i'm sure Greta would be angry with this headline's framing