I am working with a neighborhood organization to improve tree canopy in my urban area. I got involved with my neighborhood association and another org in an effort to build and strengthen my community. I would love to take more action but I’m not sure what or how. Starting to see now that working together with people helps make us more resilient
I attend public meetings with my city’s officials with the goal of encouraging the development of bicycle infrastructure. Ped and public transit too.
Not to derail this, because hey, nothing wrong with prepping/trying to help your community. But let’s not forget that 100 companies are responsible for 70% of emissions since 1988.
Woah, seems like I started something. I specifically said there was nothing wrong with doing your part, but that we shouldn’t forget it’s not our fault.
Just responding to your edit, I think it’s a great thing that you did start this wider conversation. I find it refreshing that on Lemmy people are having much more detailed conversations and raising these wider talking points. Back on the old place a lot of people would just try to drop short gotcha type replies that were repeated over and over just to get karma, it got boring.
The only thing I will say is I think you failed at not derailing the conversation slightly!
Yeah some very good reads in this thread, cool to see everyone actually having a conversation instead of contrarianism left and right (some of that here… but not as much). I think I was pretty clear, but some people seem to think I meant that you shouldn’t change your lifestyle.
I meant that we should be holding those companies accountable in conjunction with making personal changes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Then why are activists deflating SUV tires instead?
I fully understand what you’re saying and agree that on an individual level our impact is minimal compared to these companies, but I always wonder how fair it is to say they have to change and that’s the only solution.
My understand, and this is of the top of my head, is that 93 of those companies are oil/gas companies and the other 7 are cement. If they all gained a conscience today and stopped operations tonight, the world would be in chaos. People on an individual level would still need fuel to be able to get to supermarkets, and the supermarkets need fuel to get food moved around the supply chain.
Whilst I’m not saying it’s a solution and I’m using a simplified example to make my case, but if everyone prioritised buying electric cars as their next car, then manufacturers would speed up production of them and phase out combustion engine cars and vehicles. This would reduce the need for oil and at some point these top 100 polluters would either adapt or collapse.
What I’m trying to get at is the masses need to put pressure on these companies both through policy changes and purchasing power. I think it’s too easy to keep driving petrol cars and pointing at the oil companies as the bad guys.
It has to be a team effort, but those companies also engaged in a multi decade effort to underplay the impact of human activity (specifically theirs) on the climate and the dangerous associated with those changes.
Apparently due to a new clean fuel rule for ocean going vessels they stopped making sulphur oxide clouds and that is the main reason for there recent spikes in ocean water temperatures. It took 3 years to see a manual reduction in sulphur oxide pollution. No calamity in the world economy. Just an unexpected revelation of how much that pollution was cooling the ocean.
So yeah, we can’t just turn off the O&G sector. But we can set ourselves some pretty aggressive targets and make them.
I plan on killing myself if it gets some dystopian type shit where I have to suck water from cockroaches titty or some shit.
The single most effective thing you could possibly do for the planet, and something that’s dead simple and basically free: not having any children.
I live my life to the fullest, with my car and my travel plans and eating meat and with my pets (and hopefully family).
If we’re well and truly “fucked” (and I’m not convinced we are), I’m certainly going to enjoy life and focus on living it well.
I share similar thoughts. I know the situation is dire and likely to worsen, but I’ve stopped fretting about it as there’s no benefit from fretting. At the end of the day I still have my life to live and I just hope that I can endure and adapt to the hardships ahead of us.
