Your personal action affects only your own carbon footprint, and if you somehow eliminate it entirely, you alone can reduce carbon emissions by 16 tonnes per year.

However, by funding climate research, educating the public, and most importantly: contacting your lawmakers, you can affect the footprints of many thousands or potentially millions of people. If you do even 0.001% of the work required for getting a law passed that cuts Shell's emissions by only 1%, you will have reduced the global carbon footprint by approximately 90 tonnes per year (58000000 * 16 * .01 * .00001 = 92.8). That's more than 5 times as effective a use of your time, assuming you were able to do each with an equivalent amount of effort.

Vote with your wallet, yes, but NEVER underestimate the power of campaigning for change. A person's actions carry further when they affect the actions of others.

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Your personal action affects only your own carbon footprint

That's not true. If I take the bus, I increase ridership and resources for buses, which in aggregate can lead to improvements to the bus route, which can convince others to ride. the people at your local city government can have a much easier time justifying an increase to public transit spending if they can show high or increasing transit ridership. Depending on your individual circumstances one may provide better impact to effort than another but taking a bus is as much political action as voting.

[–] Wilzax@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Riding the bus alone will discourage others from taking the bus because they'll see the busses as more crowded. Taking the bus and using that to convince others to also ride the bus by talking to them about your experiences will. Political action can include anything you do with the intent of influencing others to change their behavior. If you don't add that step, you cannot reduce other's carbon footprints.