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Opinion: You Are Not the Problem — Climate Guilt is a Marketing Strategy
(news.climate.columbia.edu)
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this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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We should feel guilty, but not exclusively. This is just swinging from one extrem to another. Our lifestyle choices have a huge effect on the climate and our emissions. Especially our eating habits & how we move around. But also exporting our emissions to other countries is kinda greenwashing our own emissions. Everyone blames the big corporations, but ends up using whatever they produce. Their emissions aren't coming from nowhere, they're there to fulfill a demand. People need to stop pretending they cannot do anything just to feel better about themselves, especially when they throw their weekly or even daily steak onto the platter, drive their fat ass SUV or even truck or whatever other city tank they have, and then go shopping at Alibaba while voting for non climate friendly parties, presidents, ministers, etc. that actually bring change.
If you're actually serious about this topic, do your part AND hold companies accountable. Vote for actual green parties and politicians. Don't point fingers to continue living a bad lifestyle, that's the same thing the climate denying boomers do.
People can't just choose not to participate. People need to eat. That doesn't mean that corporations need to burn down the rainforest to create farmland. Me needing to eat doesn't justify the corporate decision to maximize profits at all costs. That's a singular example, but it extends to every category outside of luxury goods. You need a smartphone to participate in modern society, you need a computer, in most US cities you need a car, you need clothes. Telling people to opt-out of the society that everyone else is participating in isn't an adequate solution. Sure, you can choose the most sustainable and eco-friendly options for those things, assuming you can afford it, but for a lot of categories there are no options. The major corps own the entire industry and they're all run similarly. We need changes at social, corporate, and governmental levels since an individual's power is limited to 1 out of 8 billion. Of course it's just my opinion, but an individual shouldn't have to pay eight times what regular soybeans cost just to get soybeans that weren't fertilized with the future of humanity.
Yes you need to eat, but you dont have to eat meat for every single meal. Yes, you need a car but you don't need the new giant SUV, a 5 seater sedan will work perfectly fine for most cases (unless you have more than 4 children), especially for cities where there isn't room to accommodate your vehicular ego machine. You can make these choices while also doing it within your financial means. You can walk more instead of driving. You can ride a bike or scooter instead of driving. But most people don't because that's not convenient to them, myself included in this btw. Our choice may be a bit limited but we absolutely do have the power to choose.
Unfortunately this is not the case in many US cities. I saw a post on Reddit a few weeks ago about how small European refrigerators are and someone asked how often they go grocery shopping. Someone said "Every day. The grocery store is only a half kilometer walk down the street". In many US cities there's nothing within a half kilometer, not even the next street intersection. I think many parts of the world massively underestimate how large and spread out the United States is. The single state of Texas covers half of Europe. Texas and California combined cover almost the entire continent. In most major cities with conservative governments, there's inadequate public transportation too. So you can't walk, biking takes forever & it's 110 degrees outside, and there's little to no public transportation.
I'm fortunate that I live in a city with both good public transportation, and good bike lanes. When I reported to the office every day I'd take the bus half the way there, and then bike the other half. But I had coworkers that commuted 50 miles by car each way, each day. There's no public transportation or bicycle that can handle that sort of commute, except for possibly the subway in NYC. Yes, people can choose smaller cars if commuting is their only need, but like you pointed out, some families are large and need larger vehicles.
The large family situation is honestly another area where we can improve for the future of our planet and species, but people treat you like the devil if you talk about it. The global population has more than doubled since I was born. There are 8 billion people on the planet and that number continues to grow exponentially. Our planet cannot continue to sustain the human population and its insatiable desires if we do not reduce our numbers. There's no need for huge families anymore in most parts of the world. Infant mortality is at an all time low, we have modern medicine, and we have security nets for catastrophe. Nobody needs 10 kids anymore, but for some reason it's still considered faux pas to say that.
Addressing your last paragraph, people get nervous about that because eugenics, my dude. But really what would actually help with this would be comprehensive sexual education and affordable, easy access to birth control methods. That's an easy fix but the religious groups are holding us all back on that one.
As for your other points, you're right. Cities should be more walkable and public transit should be more reliable. But that will never happen if people don't try to fight for it (if Musk would just drop dead/shut the fuck up anytime something is being proposed). But in all the different cities I've lived in, there are little pockets of places that could feasibly walk/bike/scooter to places, but they don't. Because they don't want to. A friend of mine and her family went camping and invited us once. At the campsite, the showers were maybe a 7 minute walk away amd guess what they did? They drove. The store was 15 minutes away and they drove. They do this for the 7/11 that's a block away from their apartment. We live in SoCal which means the weather is almost always perfect. They are not the only people who do this. One of my friends drives and SUV. They're single with no children. My mom drives an SUV. Her children are grown and out of the house, what the fuck do they need those cars for?
You make very very good points, and cities and public transit are places that should be improved to lead to more walking and better, safer public transit. But there is room for personal improvement despite the shit conditions we are currently working with.
I agree with the idea of voting for parties with strong green agendas... in principle. In practice, I find it hard to make it work because, at least in my country, pretty much every political party (even the conservatives) have environment policies in their agenda/manifesto and they all make sure to promise loads in this area to get your vote.
Everybody knows that's not how it works: they will promise grand green initiatives and then deliver 10% of that at the end of their tenure, passing the buck to someone else. So yeah, you could punish them by voting someone else at the next election but they'll do exactly the same (if they manage to get elected, that is).
Voting for "The Green Party" is not really an option either as these kinds of political organisation centred around a single problem rarely aim to run for government, so voting for them is a bit useless as the rest of their political agenda (education, health, economy...) is weak, nonexistent or batshit crazy (again, speaking for my country).
So, how does one solve this conundrum?
Depending on where you live, they don't have to be the entire government. If they'd hold the majority they could easily work on environmental issues while leaving the rest of the government to their coalition partners. Some crazy people are, in the grand scheme of things, a lesser issue compared to climate change, which is way too much of a priority to let some of those stop you. It's rougher in countries like the US and their two party system, because of how much they engage in contrarian bullshit.