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Big oil quietly walks back on climate pledges as global heat records tumble
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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We are over the edge of no return.
We should stop begging for change and act now. Politics must hurt them with reforms, taxes, and the rule of law.
We cannot stop climate change now, but we can try to de-accelerate by fighting against big oil, corrupt politics, and billionaire newspapers supporting them.
Too many people believe they can just continue living like they were 30 years ago - if big oil would stop producing stuff and plastics, gas and airplane fuels would not be available anymore then people would riot
Even threatening to increase prices to a level that would make sense to limit the use to absolutely necessary levels would piss off too many people to be a viable option because everyone just wants to believe that it's just for "the others" to change but not for themselves.
Everyone has to act and change their Livestyle...
Lol that's the world's largest prisoner dilemma, never going to happen. People are big children, and you need to treat them as such. You don't let the child decide whether it's going to eat candy or real food, you take away the option of candy because they cannot be trusted to make decisions that are good for them in the long run. This is no different, it's why we have things like regulations and the FDA.
Yeah exactly but in our situation we also have the children voting and one party is promising them to not take away the candy
I really don't see how this can ever work out... :/
Not to mention the “adults” in this comparison don’t actually care about the child or the candy, they just care about retaining the ability to control your candy and will do anything and everything to keep stockpiling that sweet, sweet money.
You do realize that they are children ruled by other children who shouldn't get that kind of authority? Do you know what children with power over other children do?
This is the truth right there. Gas prices went up two measly dollars compared to normal in 2022, and everyone flipped the fuck out. People were prepared to elect Republicans-- fucking Republicans- to office, they were so furious about it.
And don't @ me about "100 corporations are responsible for like 90% of emissions". Who's buying those corporations' goods? Who's refusing to vote for politicians that'll meaningfully regulate these corporations? Who's spending all day fantasizing about Da Revolushun^TM that'll never fucking come (and would kill tens of millions of civilians and likely result in fascists winning and seizing control of your country, if not the whole thing splintering into a bunch of warring fiefdoms controlled by ruthless oligarchs) instead of getting to actual work trying to effect real change in the real world? And I don't mean "direct action" (read: looking edgy and getting photos for the 'gram), I mean actually fucking getting policy passed that'll have a real impact on people's real lives.
Yeah, sure. They flipped out because the love their cars so much and don't want to change anything. Oh, wait. No, they flipped out because companies and corrupt politicians made them completely dependent on cars so they will starve without them and kept them so poor that even increasing the cost of using the cars they dependent on just a bit again ends with starving.
And here you are babbling none-sense again about how it's the stupid people buying products -as if they had a choice- and not the companies and politicians that are to blame.
Not to mention that the gas companies were reporting record profits after increasing the price.
Policy like regulating those 100 corporations?
Yes. I said so explicitly in my previous comment.
Seems odd to say
People bringing up the 100 corporations are usually calling for regulations on them, and the "you're the ones buying the goods" people are usually calling for Personal Responsibility and Voting With Your Wallet.
It’s possible to both think those companies should be regulated and that people are doing almost nothing personally to help, including electing people to enact those policies. For most people I talk to the “but 100 corps” is a total deflection of personal responsibility. This crisis will not be solved without a good heaping helping of both personal responsibility and aggressive government regulation. If nothing else because that aggressive regulation will never pass into law unless people acknowledge their personal responsibility and are willing to accept the sacrifices that will come with it.
In the US, unless you are willing to vote third party, you don't get the choice to vote for Anti-Capitalist politicians. And there are millions of liberals waiting in line to scold you for not voting for the parties of Capital.
Sorry, I'm so used to hanging out in left-of-center places I make the mistake of assuming everyone understands how BS the whole "personal responsibilty" shtick is and is onboard with strict regulations to fight climate change. So I tend not to explicitly call it out in my posts, assuming it goes unsaid. Which might be a bad assumption to make in more centrist / non-explicitly-liberal spaces.
Will try to be clearer in the future :)
Emissions can’t be stopped at the point of consumption.
They didn't say we can stop it at our individual points of consumption. They explicitly mentioned policy. People need to be willing to support policy that will drastically change their own lives, likely in ways they don't even realize, and be ready to live with that. Otherwise pretty soon we won't be living with much at all.
If i could buy none polluting alternatives to anything i currently buy, you can bet your life that i would.
But i dont have alot of choice.
I do what i can.
Maybe ill give it all up and go live in the woods somewhere. Become self sufficient. Maybe the capitalists will notice im gone..... or not... probably not.
It’s almost like our society is car centered, and raising gas prices directly results in worse outcomes for the majority of people. You can’t expect people to just stop using cars, but you can use the state to create massive infrastructure policies paid for wholly by the polluting industries who most heavily profit from our current situation. Use the next decade to build high speed rail, electrified busses and lightrails, subway systems, and other mass transit, and then when gas prices go up, people will have an option other than cutting back on their food to ensure they make it to work every day.
I replied to the wrong comment in this thread, but if I delete it’ll only delete from my instance, so I’m just gonna leave it.
Our society is 100% car centered. My kids' schools are miles away from my house, my job is miles away, and you cannot convince me to ride a bike or walk when it's over 100°F outside. Fuck that shit. I'm happy to take public transit, but any public transit available to me isn't feasible because it would take literally 1.5-2 hours to get to work and back each way, which cuts down severely on my family time. And I can't work from home either due to the nature of my job, which is maintaining the machines that build microchips.
Supply creates it's own demand. Capital knows this. That's why they push your narrative.
It's a regular liberal trick, to insist on looking at the consumer while the producer laughs at us on their yacht. In the meantime, their managers, agents, lawyers, and accountants work tirelessly to make sure that what they offer, in the form they offer it, are the only options.
They'll buy a stake in public transport and run it to the ground so that people are forced to buy and use cars. They'll drop the prices in their supermarket so the local grocer with local suppliers can't afford to stay open. They'll build obsolescence into every product so you have to keep buying new ones, and the old one is thrown into landfill. They'll campaign against nuclear energy under the guise of green activism, then complain that wind and solar must be backed by fossil fuels. They'll buy all the newspapers and news channels, ensuring the only narrative is theirs—dog eat dog and the activist down the road is coming for your way of life. They'll buy the recording studios and reinforce these messages in film, TV, music: that petite bourgeois living is peak aspiration and that 'there is no alternative' as if we lack imagination.
Then the public will continue that good work for them. Condescending all who disagree. Arguing that capitalism isn't the problem because humans are greedy or any of the other unassailable, facile, and trite logics that we're forced to hear constantly but which have no grounding in reality.
I agree with you.. It passes people off because their entire life is dependent on fossil fuels. When its been encouraged by society/government for decades and now people have to drive miles to get to the nearest grocery store/point of interest they don't have an alternative that isn't uprooting their whole lives.
If you are going tax gas what it should be taxed, you also need to simultaneously make changes that will help people transition to sustainable alternatives. An amount of people will resist no matter what but you need a carrot to go along with the stick.
I "kinda" disagree, because we have a lot of alternatives now. Some are more expensive, some need a bit more work, but the alternatives are there and are coming as well. And little changes can do good things, for example not eating Avocados is something everyone can do. If only 50k people stop eating Avocados, that's one hell of an impact in the rainforest areas. Because those 50k people don't eat one Avocado per Month, they eat a lot more (generally). A single Avocado Tree can produce 80-100 Kg per year and generally, avocados are somewhere between 500-900 g. So maybe 120-150 Avocados per year, per tree. Then there's meat - we don't have to stop eating it, we have to reduce and it would make a HUGE impact, especially considering Beef from Brazil isn't even that great, but the rainforest get's destroyed for it.
And so on. It even goes so far, that if people still want to drive their gas guzzlers, they can, but they need synthetic fuels which are expensive but 100% carbon neutral. So the Lifestyle does not need changing necessarily - it just needs some adjustments and especially more conscious consumption - especially in those countries, where capitalism is in "full effect" and where we "rich people" actually make impacts with our buying decisions. (Even if they are extremely small, if you tell friends you are doing things different, they may do as well)
Capitalism is in full effect in every country except about five. All those countries that get shit on by capitalism are as much of what capitalism is as those handful of countries (not the above-mentioned five) that prosper from it. It doesn't work, can't exist, without both ends of the scale.
Yeah... that's how we ended up in this situation. How do you think these giant corporations became so powerful? They "reformed" laws until they could do whatever the hell they please - that's what "reform" gets you.
It's really simple... the people with money get to dictate how these "reforms" work - that's it. It doesn't matter if you get a Bernie Sanders into a position of power - the "vested interests" will dictate all the little loop holes in the small script that allows for "business as usual" to continue, and that's if they bother to hide it at all. It's literally how we ended up in this terrible situation.
Politicians love their bribes more than they love the planet, so that's probably not going to happen. Dems and cons both
It's a cultural problem that we don't care to fix.
Remember, big oil doesn't exist in a vacuum. We survived without fossil fuels for most of human history, and many people still do. But we, as a culture, have decided that burning them at this level is appropriate.
It's about keeping up with the Jones'. Until we stop doing that, don't expect any of these problems to go away.
We already discussed the peak of oil and climate change since the 1970s and knew we needed to change before the shit hit the fan.
I agree it's an issue that we constructed and socially adapted as we can survive without fossil fuels. However, in our current situation, we cannot move away from it. I don't mean from an Industrial or scientific perspective.
The working and middle classes cannot survive and maintain their livelihood standards without fossils. We need to help and support them do the change. Electric cars, sustainable heating systems, and overall non-fossil alternatives need to be cheaper and politically supported to make change something possible for them.
We need to tax and make big oil accountable for their past behavior, invest in more sustainable solutions, and create transformational programs supporting workers and the middle class to take a step towards change.
Their loss of income and prosperity is more crucial than taxing the rich 1% more. Otherwise, cultural change, as you describe it, won't happen.
This is what's meant by 'unsustainability.'
Malcolm X has an old speech which applies very well to this issue as well. Too bad you can't vote for him anymore.
Ya right. When has prices went over 5 dollars a gallon in the US, people there list their minds. God forbid we should drive a bit less or consume less.
This is a consumer problem not big oil. The second biggest company in the world by revenue and by far the largest by profit is Saudi Aramco. And why are they so big and countries like Russia are energy giants? Because we are tax and regulated our oil companies significantly more while increasing our consumption. Instead of buying locally, we are now buying from countries like Russia and Saudia Arabia. Look how that is working out.