this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
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Too bad the monsters in human skin suits doing this don't have names and addresses
Unfortunately, this one is on all of us. The people at the top carry a vast majority of the blame, but there's still a whole lot of comforts and conveniences most of us don't seem willing to part with for the sake of the environment.
I think there's a difference between the guy at the hardware store who doesn't call anything when someone cones in to buy rope plastic wrap a powee saw and all the lye they have in stock with cash and the person who overhears part of it from the garden section and the guy with the body in his trunk
The 12 billionaires at the top aren't the ones driving demand for beef. They aren't the ones making up NIMBY groups showing up to council meetings opposing everything from clean energy projects, to higher density housing, to increased public transit. They aren't forcing everyone to keep their air conditioner maxed out as soon as the temperature gets above 65°F. Yes their output eclipses any average individual's by far, but there's a whole lot of little things that would make a huge difference if multiplied by 400,000,000 people.
What's the primary organising factor that drives, say, 95% of everyone's decision-making?
The economy.
So please tell me how this isn't billionaires fault
At the end of the day, your choices are your responsibility. Fault can be shared, for sure, but that doesn't mean your decisions aren't your responsibility.
Sure, but me personally doing everything 100% perfectly for the rest of my life still won't solve the problem. One of the major factors in meat eating is the subsidized cost compared to plant-based alternatives, which is the fault of government lobbied by animal agriculture corporations.
Not really my decision whether I eat
I rarely consume beef. I actively advocate for clean energy projects, mixed use zoning, higher density housing, and free/cheap and reliable public transit. My AC is manually turned off right now as it is 72°F in my home right now, but since modern heat pumps are generally 300-500% efficient since they are moving heat rather than creating it, I wouldn't attack that in particular. But I'm doing all of the right things, yet I'm still reading victim blaming garbage like this for anybody daring to take up space and consume anything at all in their life.
The thing to note is that these billionaires own media outlets that run defense for waste and luxury that they enjoy. They're dumping resources into oil, gas, and coal; AI datacenters; strip mining; exploitative labor practices; and lobbying for favorable regulation and tax policies. At the same time, they're actively using misinformation and disinformation to steer the public to support those things and fight against social programs, higher efficiency, higher minimum wage, higher taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals, closing loopholes, etc. Generally speaking, billionaires are minmaxing wealth distribution from the bottom to the top in an extremely wasteful and harmful way.
The problem here is billionaires and capitalism. You can criticize people for using a Keurig all you want, but the reality is that they're using it at the office that insisted on having people commute in and spend dozens of hours per week in the building to contribute nothing of real value to the world in order to get enough existence tokens to exchange for food and shelter, and maybe they treat themselves to a burger once in a while for putting up with the hellscape we can't escape from.
You're right that people could and should make better choices. But out of decency, not because it could ever make any real difference to the climate. Recycling was never going to save the planet, but a public guillotine of the worst climate killers once in a while might convince some evil assholes to lay low and temper their greed enough to produce less of the shit that can't be reused or recycled, and broadly speaking reduce carbon emissions that are killing us all.
We could've avoided this whole problem if we'd started, 50 years ago, pointing a gun at every billionaire's face and telling them to divest or expect a closed casket funeral next week. Better late than never, I always say. It's too late to prevent climate catastrophe, but we can still save most species if we do something about these fucking parasites.
Sure, you have some valid points but the billionaires are absolutely the ones doing the following:
Don't go giving them a free pass.
To quote myself from two minutes ago
Yup, sure sounds like a free pass to me.
My only point is that the people at the top being the worst doesn't absolve the rest of us of our own choices.
It is a free pass. All the things you said they weren't guilty of, they are the driving force behind all of the consumption. Except maybe the air conditioning thing. That is just dumb. 75 is perfect for ac.
The billionaires are the ones who spread climate denial rhetoric.
They aren't you're sure the minions aren't innocent but they are influenced