Global warming appears to have shifted into a faster gear. After removing the effects of El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar cycles, researchers found that the planet has warmed at roughly 0.35°C per decade over the past ten years, compared with just under 0.2°C per decade from 1970 to 2015. The acceleration, which becomes visible around 2013 to 2015, appeared across five major global temperature datasets with more than 98% statistical certainty.
and yes, more putting the onus on us, when all of our individual yearly pollution barely amounts to a day of pollution released by average industry.
You know it was industrial propaganda that started the whole personal responsibility thing to begin with right? to shift blame away from themselves and onto you and me.
I mean, yeah, you can make yourself feel good by reducing, but its doing fuckall compared to industrial release.
I understand the sentiment, but doesn’t “the industry” essentially produce things that are for “us”, even if indirectly?
Factories don’t exist for their own sake, they exist to make an end product for people. So if you want to change that, we do need to consume less, like the parent you replied to said.
No. They produce for income. For brand imaging. To keep shelf space and maintain market presence.
And they do that by producing significantly more than the market requires. More than customers would ever want to buy.
They do it by making low quality slop products that they specifically engineer to be as unrepairable as possible, to fail as soon as they can get away with it, to force consumers to buy replacements more frequently than they would ever want to.
Do you go to the store and go “Wow, I wish this brand would generate more waste to take up shelf space so (competitor) cant have it?”
Do you look at a brand and go “I will only support this company if it fills the landfills every 3 months with perfectly usable products?”
Do you go “Wow, I wanna pay 500 dollars for this device thats gonna fail in 18 months and need to be replaced, because repairing it is gonna cost so much that its better just to get a new one again”?
Do you go “god, I like this product, I really hope entire communities lost their access to clean water to cool the AI’s that generated the design?”
No?
Neither do I.
Because they don’t serve the interest of the customer. They serve the market, which has taken a life of its own (which is especially apparently with the AI scam bubble, where companies keep making promises to buy future products from each other with the same imaginary trillion dollars that keeps getting passed around, generating endless imaginary value without producing anything… and when the AI bubble pops, its going to crash harder than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs)
If they served the interests of the customers, they’d keep prices low, and pay high, and produce quality goods that people would have the money to buy.
CEOs burning tons of fuel riding luxury jets does nothing for us. AI data centers clamoring for more electricity will do nothing for us.
I get what you’re saying. It’s a both are true type of thing in my opinion. Our impact pales in comparison to the ultra wealthy. What gets left out of the conversation is that the AI data centres, factories, and transport trucks exist because there is demand. Each and every one of us is part of that demand and by significantly changing our lifestyles we can change our demands.
Your argument is valid though, the wealthy need to be the first to reduce their demand and by the most. Also that they’re not going to do that without the threat of state violence, just like we’re obligated to be lawful on the threat of state violence. It’s just that we’re not absolve of our contribution to climate change because the ultra wealthy have contributed more.