Americans misunderstand their contribution to deteriorating environment
Americans misunderstand their contribution to deteriorating environment
arstechnica.com
Americans misunderstand their contribution to deteriorating environment
34 comments
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Americans have been lied to by their corporate masters for decades about their contribution to deteriorating environment
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Let’s ask Charles Koch why he has spent billions of his own personal dollars to MAKE SURE people don’t understand that their house is on fire. The problem is murderous oil people perpetrating the most titanic crime in the history of earth. History’s most accomplished murderer is a free man, living in fucking Wichita for Christ’s sake. Arrest him and put him in prison with the other murderous sociopaths. There are others besides Charles, but he’s the most accomplished of the criminals.
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It's a bit like an adult lying to children. It's not really their fault but you'd hope at some point they would grow up.
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I'll never forget that scumbag who walked in with a snowball and said something like "how is there global warming if there is snow!?" Representative Inhoffe (Republican of course)...
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The word "misunderstand" implies an attempt at understanding.
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Misinformation is a powerful weapon
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Roughly one in two Americans said they are not very or not at all exposed to environmental and climate change risks. Those perceptions contrast sharply with empirical evidence showing that climate change is having an impact in nearly every corner of the United States. A warming planet has intensified hurricanes battering coasts, droughts striking middle American farms, and wildfires threatening homes and air quality across the country. And climate shocks are driving up prices of some food, like chocolate and olive oil, and consumer goods.
Something something 'muricans can't name 5 different countries in a map
Americans also largely believe they do not bear responsibility for global environmental problems. Only about 15 percent of US respondents said that high- and middle-income Americans share responsibility for climate change and natural destruction. Instead, they attribute the most blame to businesses and governments of wealthy countries.
"Me driving a SUV that's almost as big as a bus anywhere farther than 500ft from my home is not a problem at all!!" - average american, probably
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“Me driving a SUV that’s almost as big as a bus anywhere farther than 500ft from my home is not a problem at all!!” - average american, probably
SUVs are passe at this point. The hip thing is to drive a super-duty V12 king cab truck with a constantly empty truck bed to the store.
As an American burgermeister, it's also important to complain about the price of gas continually while doing this.
(For extra credit: be sure to idle for 50 minutes in an in-and-out or chik-fil-a line that spills out into the street and blocks traffic on your way home from the store.)
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Speaking of naming countries... I saw this posted on lemmy a bit ago and love it. It's a game where you have to name countries to get from one country to another.
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I know it won't fix it, and this is hardly a comprehensive list. But I feel like there are some stupid-easy things Americans could do to reduce the harm. Just a few that come to mind:
- Don't buy a big vehicle like a giant pickup truck unless you really need it. (A pavement princess for your ego is not a need).
- Book air travel as little as possible. Again, only if you truly need it.
- If you are growing something that requires a lot of water in an area that doesn't get very much rain...stop doing that. (If you have some kind of closed loop water system, that's an exception. But how many actually have that.)
- Telecommute if you can. If you can do your job from home and your boss won't let you, it's time to hunt for another job.
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Americans don't have the choice to do most of these things, or the choice to do most of anything.
They're locked into a system, things are decided for them. There needs to be a change internally in America before these things can be changed. Honestly, I think the will to change these things is small, most Americans don't know much beyond oxygen tanks and diabetes.
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Americans don't have the choice not to buy gigantic pickup trucks and SUVs? Gimme a break. I have never bought one, it's not some kind of one weird trick thing, you just literally don't fucking buy them and buy something smaller and cheaper instead.
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Americans don't have the choice to do most of these things, or the choice to do most of anything.
You have the choice what car to buy. You often have a choice of when you fly somewhere. I mean, you can always skip that California vacation and go camping somewhere local, I'm not asking you to skip your brother's wedding.
That post also misses the biggest thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. Eat less beef. Reduce the amount of beef you eat, substitute chicken or even pork, that will have a massive effect on your carbon footprint.
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Your missing the big one that most people don't want to hear, eat less / no meat. That's about the biggest decision your average person can make that will make the most impact, going vegetarian is about equivalent to not driving but most Americans need to drive, they don't need to eat meat.
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Meat consumption is huge, especially red meat. I would be happy to add that to the list of easy things for harm reduction.
I really don't think all the big dumb pickup trucks are needed, though. I understand some people like contractors and landscapers really do need them. But I also see parking lots for office workers filled with the stupid things.
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Oh look, it's the latest Big Company propaganda piece attempting to blame the average citizen for ruinous climate change that is pretty much solely on the back of corporate negligence and/or malice, because not being an evil douchebag costs the company 15 whole extra cents a year!
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Do you have some concrete examples of some things that corporations could do to significantly reduce (not just greenwash) their contribution to climate change that would not immediately result in all their customers picking up torches and pitchforks, or just move on to their competitors?
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Stop growing shit in stupid places, for one. Stop ignoring emissions standards or lobbying politicians to remove them. Those are probably the biggest bulk contributors to climate change at the moment, other than perhaps methane emissions from cattle, which I cannot in good conscious advocate against due to dietary requirements from allergies.
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Corporations aren't forcing you to buy a bigger house, a bigger car, to eat meat or to fly across the country regularly, those are personal consumption choices that are driving climate change. You can blame the corporations for pushing you to consume with advertising or not doing there best to minimize the impact of that consumption but fundamentally there's no way to make a carbon neutral meat burger that the average person could consume regularly. It's not just corporations that benefit from ignoring climate costs, the average consumer does as well
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Vehicles as a whole are a lost sunken cause.
34 comments
Of course politics made it worse as well... Anything "environmentally friendly" is now viewed as "liberal" (the left, not the general "free market" type liberal) in America by "conservatives" and they're brainwashed daily to not only hate anything the left says or wants, but they're also made to believe that it's "fake news"...
Some of these hateful chucklefucks actively "roll coal" by running their trucks extra rich, or making a toggle switch that will allow them to do it on the fly, so they can spew black smoke at cyclists and anyone driving a Prius or easily identifiable electric car...