People need to take responsibility at some point. All of us enable these industries. Without consumers purchasing their product directly, or indirectly (for example, via electric cars that use electricity derived from fossil fuels), these companies would not be in business. They started their businesses because there was demand for their product; industries do not create demand. They can augment it, certainly, but some level of demand must exist.
Moreover, half of these environmental disasters are driven by directly by people wanting to purchase more stuff for less money.
> People need to take responsibility at some point.
Such as by enacting environmental laws.
Advocating for boycotts as the only course of action is equivalent to letting the behavior continue, because they hardly ever work. If you want results, you need collective action - i.e. laws.
Enacting environmental laws enforces a boycott by forcing individuals to consume less of the thing. Any regulation on oil (which I'm not particularly opposed to) has the effect of increasing the prices of the things derived from it, which forces less consumption since people cannot afford it. Either way, the oil company is harmed. A similar thing can be achieved (albeit with more money for other government programs) by placing a consumption tax on oil and oil-based products. Great! But, that does not obviate anyone of the fact that their desire for oil-based products is what keeps these billion dollar companies alive. That is the reason why the exist
The article places the blame for the current situation on the oil companies. This is ridiculous. The oil companies started to meet a demand, not because some group of people met and decided to ruin the environment and then convince people they needed oil, which is what anyone accepting the article's main point has to believe.
I don't think it's that simple anymore, as there are other forces at play. The political influence of large, established industries can make sure that things stay as they are and the consumer demands will be met by them, not by new technologies. People don't demand fuel cars, they demand affordable, reliable long range cars.
Same holds for electricity, people don't demand electricity from a specific source. But currently some sources meet the demands more than others. Legislation could lead to alternative sources becoming better at meeting people's demands i.e. becoming cheaper, reliable etc.
Generally, large industries have momentum which keeps them going, and therefore the way the meet demand is not necessarily the optimal way for consumers/the environment.
Indirectly, you can. Fund research, or change regulations/taxes to make more environmentally friendly sources cheaper (if you're of a libertarian bent, you can think of this as pricing in the externalities). Since the alternative energy source is now cheaper, it receives more private funding, both for capacity construction, and for research.
Okay, but in none of these scenarios is the 'oil industry' the bad guy. They are simply one industry providing one good that people currently desire with great fervor. All your solutions, ultimately still require personal change. That is fine, since that's the way this will get solved, but none of your points even make much sense.
For example, in my area, our electricity is already generated cheaply by renewables, but we end up being required to pay the state mandated electricity company for 'distribution'. This unnecessary intrusion into the free market on behalf of the state is ridiculous, but again, the oil industry isn't to blame. Firstly, because the utility company is not an oil company, and secondly, because the ultimate bad guy is the state, not any private company.
It's a strange problem. Your actions individually are inconsequential. Logically your individual contribution to the environment is minimal vs the benefite you gain from using energy intensive resources. Thus it is actually logical for you to drive a car or use energy.
Each individual acting in his or her self interest in a rational way brings irrational destruction as a collective action. That is the tragedy. The tragedy of the commons.
It’s also a problem too large to place solely at the hands individual consumers or decision makers. The political economy is rigged against the 99.999999999%. Look how hard he US is fighting against changes to simply decrease gun mass killings and violence. Even if all the voters in the democratic-ish countries voted as a bloc, it wouldn’t be enough. Countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and China and the international mega corporations can/will override those choices with their choices and endowments.
He closed his article with this:
“All I need you to do is want a livable future. This is your planet, and no one can advocate for it like you can. No one can protect it like you can.”
It would take a Herculean effort to make a dent in this. Every act of the industrial revolution through to today has contributed to the carbon in the air. It will literally take more than all of the energy expended over all that time and those actions to sequester the carbon released since the industrial revolution. And not even that would get us back to where the planet was before we started releasing carbon.
> The political economy is rigged against the 99.999999999%.
You realize that's ~13x than the number of people on Earth, right? If anything was rigged against everyone but the singular top person in the world, it would only be rigged against the bottom 99.999999987% (vs 99.999999999%)
If 100,000 people stop driving/flying any more than they have to; if they make sure their walls, windows and ceilings are well-insulated against cold and heat, that's not a tragedy but a great start ... a victory ... which benefits them and 'the environment' we're an inextricable part of.
Yes, each of those 100,000 is an individual, but their collective action is the opposite of inconsequential. Mankind thrived for hundreds of thousands of years without the 'intensive energy' he's been talked into shooting into his veins.
> When you consider that the same IPCC report outlined that the vast majority of global greenhouse gas emissions come from just a handful of corporations — aided and abetted by the world’s most powerful governments, including the US — it’s victim blaming, plain and simple.
People need to take responsibility at some point. All of us enable these industries. Without consumers purchasing their product directly, or indirectly (for example, via electric cars that use electricity derived from fossil fuels), these companies would not be in business. They started their businesses because there was demand for their product; industries do not create demand. They can augment it, certainly, but some level of demand must exist.
Moreover, half of these environmental disasters are driven by directly by people wanting to purchase more stuff for less money.