this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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Ah, the old "this solution isn't 100% effective, thus I shall ignore it".
Shell is creating products you are buying. We can regulate them harder, but you can ALSO just not buy their product. We can do multiple things that contribute, you just don't want to, because it's slightly inconvenient for you.
I'm not buying any Shell products. Yet they destroy my life and world.
It's basically impossible not to buy Shell products. Even if you don't buy from Shell directly, chances are there are products of Shell in the products you buy. And even if that isn't the case, chances are the factory the product is made uses a lot of Shell products and so do all the factories that made the components and so do the shipping companies that shipped all the stuff around the world.
Shell is freaking huge, they are everywhere and one of the biggest companies in the world. They don't just make gasoline, they have so many products and have their claws in a lot of industries.
Probably. It was a reply to someone writing that the solution would be for me to not buy their product.
I don't even know how to use the three shells!
Your personal action affects only your own carbon footprint, and if you somehow eliminate it entirely, you alone can reduce carbon emissions by 16 tonnes per year.
However, by funding climate research, educating the public, and most importantly: contacting your lawmakers, you can affect the footprints of many thousands or potentially millions of people. If you do even 0.001% of the work required for getting a law passed that cuts Shell's emissions by only 1%, you will have reduced the global carbon footprint by approximately 90 tonnes per year (58000000 * 16 * .01 * .00001 = 92.8). That's more than 5 times as effective a use of your time, assuming you were able to do each with an equivalent amount of effort.
Vote with your wallet, yes, but NEVER underestimate the power of campaigning for change. A person's actions carry further when they affect the actions of others.
That's not true. If I take the bus, I increase ridership and resources for buses, which in aggregate can lead to improvements to the bus route, which can convince others to ride. the people at your local city government can have a much easier time justifying an increase to public transit spending if they can show high or increasing transit ridership. Depending on your individual circumstances one may provide better impact to effort than another but taking a bus is as much political action as voting.
Riding the bus alone will discourage others from taking the bus because they'll see the busses as more crowded. Taking the bus and using that to convince others to also ride the bus by talking to them about your experiences will. Political action can include anything you do with the intent of influencing others to change their behavior. If you don't add that step, you cannot reduce other's carbon footprints.
Great, instead of Shell, just buy BP, or Exxon.. Oh wait.. they're up to exactly the same shit, and are all together deliberately holding us captive and keeping any realistic alternative from being accessible to the masses because they know it will replace them..
First remove head from ass, then form opinion..
I'm very sorry you see absolutely no alternatives to driving a car, but I think it's a bit unfair to claim my head is up my ass because of your lack creativity.
This post is a call to action. You should take it as a call to action.
You should be going to marches.
You should be rallying and participating in your local politics.
You should be supporting groups fighting for better public transit, stricter regulations and the budget to enforce it, and right to repair.
You should be voting with environmental Policy in mind.
You can do personal changes too, and encouraging others to do the same. but the vast majority of humans will not change until it's easy and gratifying or they're forced to. It will take exponentially more work getting a meaningful number of people to listen to you're propaganda. Its much more efficient to target the infrastructure around them to incentivize the change.
But that's the point. You can do both. You could do anything, just don't shrug and go "it's only corporations".
That's not point. Individualist solutions are weak in comparison - a drop in the bucket. Collectivist solutions are what will actually be the brunt of solution. You're pitching a patch kit for damage that needs a full rework.
By all means, cut you're consumption, but realize that your consumption change isn't going to do nearly enough on its own. That's the point of what's being said above.
And my point is that structural reform is neither fast, total or certain. It's preferable, but if you can change some things today, that's a great temporary thing in addition to maybe changing everything in 10 years.
Yes, and people are already getting hit with propaganda constantly encouraging them to recycle, take the bus, buy fewer clothes, and a bunch of other minute actions. Some people even followed through.
This post was explicitly about getting people to support action against corporations, and your response to it was to take a dig at the message and promote more of the most common environmentalism propaganda in the US - as if it wasn't promoted to high hell already.