I’m getting real sick of being made to feel guilty about something I have absolutely zero control over. No matter how much I try to help, a billionaire will undo my lifetime of contributions in an afternoon with their private jet and mansions. STOP TELLING MY POOR ASS TO FIX THE PROBLEM AND GO MAKE SOME BILLIONAIRE HEADS ROLL. No wonder this issue is never going anywhere, you’re yelling at the wrong people
If you want change, you need a critical mass of people to demand change.
If you want a critical mass of people to demand change, you have to recruit people to that critical mass.
And you recruit people by talking to them.
You do not have zero control. You vote with your dollars. You vote with your actual vote. And most importantly you talk to people to get them to vote with their dollars and their ballots. When you commit to a cause and you live the values of that cause, you can convince other people to commit to the cause, and they convince other people to commit to the cause, and so on and so forth. That’s how collective action works. That’s how all political change works. This is how you force billionaires to stop polluting and get laws passed that actually help the climate - by getting enough people to support climate action that politicians and businesses have no choice but to yield.
And you do this by talking to people.
Christ, the same people who insist get out the vote efforts work will tell you talking about climate change is useless, when it’s the exact same phenomenon - individual action inspiring more individual action and ultimately becoming collective action.
Unless your friends are all billionaires, talking to them about it wouldn’t have changed anything.
Having conversations with your friends about climate change is more likely to exhaust and bore them of you. Grassroots outreach is not how climate change will be addressed. It will require the entire world to stop using fossil fuels immediately, cease all plastic production immediately, cease all industrial fertilizer production immediately, remove the power structures in place that incentivize corporations to manufacture these things, and be okay with 50% or more of humanity starving to death. Then, and only then, will we hit our GHG reduction targets.
Everything is easy to fix with smaller legislations and choices
- Ban driving a car to work. Employers should have an ACTUAL valid reason to have you on site.
- Ban flights that fly less than x hours and set a maximum of fuel usage per person.
- Make public transit free and actually good to use
- Desubsidize the meat industry and tax it. Subsidize local produce instead.
- Ban single use plastics.
- Subsidize zero waste initiatives
- etc etc…
Many of the people on the ground are willing to listen and do what they can.
So let’s talk about it with the capitalists and the only options they put out in order to wreck the environment for $$. The real culprits creating mass production of plastic, unwilling to do anything unless it involves a far more expensive legal case than any one individual who’s willing to take a paper straw could afford.
Then talk about discomfort.
This is why you talk to people - ordinary people - and convince them to (1) buy less plastic garbage (2) vote for restrictions on plastic garbage.
And then the people you talk to talk to other people and convince them.
And then those other people talk to still other people.
And eventually you have a critical mass. And politicians listen to them when they demand changes in the laws. And corporations have less money because enough people are boycotting their products so it’s harder for them to hire lobbyists and bribe politicians.
And all this starts with you talking to people.
Yes it is the people who make the things we demand not at all the people who demand endless stuff.
Of course you think you’re blameless, just like everyone else does.
Meanwhile actual science shows that increased carbon dioxide has resulted in more plant life. Which is exactly what you’d expect given the basic biochemistry of how CO2 works in nature.
So this comic, showing a treeless wasteland resulting from climate change, is unscientific in its depiction of the effects.
See, this is why art appreciation classes are not a waste of class time. It teaches you that artists use metaphor and symbology to refer to complicated ideas in simple images, and that political cartoons especially are rife with simplified symbology because of the limited space artists have and the complexity of many political ideas.
If you understood art and symbology, you’d recognize the treeless wasteland on the right represents the devastation of climate change, the lack of trees symbolizes environmental destruction, and nitpicking how many trees would actually be left is missing the point entirely.
But the average American has the reading comprehension of a fifth grader, so how can I expect them to comprehend a fucking artistic metaphor?
(Also: at about 116° f, leaves can no longer photosynthesize. So it doesn’t matter how much CO2 is in the air - if summers get hot enough that leaves can’t photosynthesize during the day, it’s going to kill forests, and we are pretty close to that point in a lot of places already. But that’s completely beside the point.)
The treeless waste land was the result of the global wars that will be fought over dwindling resources.
Which resources do you expect to dwindle as a result of climate change?
Irregular weather means irritate food. I’m a farmer and am already feeling that.
Raising sea levels means docks will be too low and important trade slows down. Countries that rely on food imports will feel the squeeze.
Water, oil, arable land, people due to declining birth rates, good quality air to name a few.
The trees in the background are burning, and an increase in wildfires is definitely a part of climate change.
The question is, can nature produce enough new plants to match the rate that we increasingly emit CO2 into the atmosphere? My money is on…no. At some point, a feedback loop will occur and render the soil infertile.
“Enough” new plants for what? The new plants are a result of increased carbon dioxide levels. Carbon dioxide is basically an atmospheric fertilizer.
What do you mean by “enough” here?
After some googling plants will benefit from increased co2 levels until about 1000ppm and bad effects start at about 1500ppm so they would be safe even in the worst case climate change. Even humans can in theory survive as high as 5000ppm indefinitely at least in theory but at that point some CO2 poisoning effects would be felt. So basically a lot of other things would cause life to die before the co2 levels
Remember kids, if you don’t talk to your friends about climate change, the world will die. It’s all on you to fix it, so turn off yhe AC and never drive a car and don’t ask about how much corporations are doing to help or hurt.
guys, we will not enforce laws to combat climate change, we don’t want to impact corporate profits… so please just tell your friends to be less wasteful while corporations dump their muck in your waters and smoke in your air.
please buy more cars though because we won’t do much about public transit either. just let the billionaires have their jets and their yachts ok? they don’t have much. but if you shower for 6 minutes this climate is on you.
I lov ethe large open grass field in this one. Reall makes me imagine how cool and beautiful the world could be.
The amount of energy and resources that it would take to have so many non-aerodynamic non-lighter-than-air flying cars, not so much.
It’s because some stupid nerd hasn’t build a anti gravity engine.
Would be even better if it wasn’t a monoculture and had a thriving ecosystem of different plants and animals :3
Who is electing your government? Who is feeding the corporations by buying their products? If you think your three friends not caring, and my three friends not caring, and OP’s three friends not caring is all inconsequential and there’s no point in changing their minds, then how do you envision change happening? That is a geniune question; do you actually have a plan of action, or is it just “the corporations and governments are the ones who have to do something”?
Like the saying goes, “no individual drop of rain sees themselves as responsible for the flood”, or something along those lines.
Who is electing your government?
Not me or my three friends, or any of their three friends, or any person who isn’t worth at least 11 figures.
If you think your three friends not caring, and my three friends not caring, and OP’s three friends not caring is all inconsequential and there’s no point in changing their minds, then how do you envision change happening?
Material conditions compress to the point that people begin risking their lives and livelihoods for the sack of access to physical necessities. The institutions that subsist on a stable, pliant public begin to fail as more and more economic surplus gets plowed into law enforcement. Food shortage and riots, combined with public hostility towards energy companies, make working in the fossil fuel sector too dangerous compared to the money it brings in. Natural disasters do enough damage to domestic infrastructure that generating and transporting fossil fuels cannot continue at the same rate.
Like the saying goes, “no individual drop of rain sees themselves as responsible for the flood”, or something along those lines.
Floods don’t happen because a large number of water drops decide to spontaneously leap over the side of the river bank. You need the terrain to change. You need a lot more water or a sudden compression of space all at once.
Without that, the current keeps all the little droplets moving in the same direction.
Now, unlike water droplets, individuals can be forces of radical change. But they need to be prepared to take radical action. Telling your friends “have you heard about this thing called climate change” isn’t going to cut it. Telling them “have you heard about this movie How To Blow Up a Pipeline” isn’t going to cut it. Telling them that you’re decamping from society to form a guerrilla chapter of Greenpeace is a start, assuming you don’t think any of your friends will rat you out to the police.
But even then… its three droplets against hundreds of thousands moving in the other direction. And all the individual droplets know that.
As for the first part of your comment, I’m not fully sure that I understand. From the context of the conversation, it sounds like you disagree with me and are saying your plan is “food shortages will happen and civilization will begin to collapse, and that is how things will change”; and I’m not saying that won’t happen, but I am saying it would be morally reprehensible not to try and do something about it before it got to that point. If anything, the possibility of that happening is all the more reason to try and raise awareness to the problem before it gets that bad, so I’m not sure why you are disagreeing.
As for the rest, it sounds like you’re overanalyzing both what is just a simple metaphor, and what is a two strip comic panel. To overanalyze and counter your own analysis, the rise of the water is usually caused by heavy rains, which is what the “water droplet” part of the metaphor is referring to; and the comic strip is meant to be an oversimplified and funny way of saying we should raise awareness to the problem and convince them to take action - whatever action you prefer; it’s meant to be absurdist. It is not literally saying “you should tell your friends climate change exists”. And if your preferred solution is forming a guerrilla, then that is what the comic is telling you to talk to your friends about. You can’t form a guerrilla on your own; or, if you do, there’s no one to protect you or keep the fight going when you get taken to prison/killed.
And if for some weird reason your friends haven’t heard of climate change, then yes, that quite literally would be the start, unless you want your friends to think you’re a loon and call the cops on you.
But even then… its three droplets against hundreds of thousands moving in the other direction. And all the individual droplets know that.
Exactly, and that’s why you raise awareness by talking to people. If you get 3 friends and I get 3 friends, we now have 6 friends. And if each of those manages to get another 3 friends, then now we total 26 - that seems like a much better number to start a guerrilla with. And if you keep that chain going long enough, you’ll get enough droplets to change the current.
Sometimes when I have discussions like this with someone, I feel like we are standing in the rain and we both agree with need some kind of roof to shelter us. And then when I say “we should build some kind of support structure, maybe get some tools and materials” the other person turns hostile (or politely disagrees, but 90% of the time they turn hostile) and goes “No! What we need is to build a roof!”. Like I’m not even necessarily disagreeing with whatever your proposed solution is - a roof, voting, boycotts, blowing up pipelines, forming a guerrilla - I’m just saying that to get the solution you need a solid foundation.
how do you envision change happening?
By taking action. Words are cheap. Actions speak louder than words.
Apart from the fact that “taking action” is still not a concrete plan and your comment is still void of any real substance, are you planning on taking whatever “action” alone? Are you going to be a one-man army? Because otherwise you need to raise awareness and bring people to your side.
By “action” do you mean voting? Are you going to do it alone?
By “action” do you mean blowing up a pipeline? Are you going to do it alone?
Because otherwise you need to raise awareness and bring people to your side.
Taking individual action can be part of raising awareness if done publicly. Riding a bike around your community is an act against climate change, and an awareness campaign simultaneously.
“how do you envision change happening?”
You’re so close to getting it…
If I’m so close, then help me cross the gap. Just in your other comment you said you wished “we could have grown up discussions”, and now that you have an opportunity to have one and educate people you instead chose to go with a childish condescending jab with no substance or value behind it. Almost like everything you say is just virtue signaling BS fluff so you can throw blame at other people and avoid having to make changes in your life.
That’s how collective action works, yes.
I do wish we could have grown up discussions about climate change instead of this sort of thing. Governments and large industrial and commercial organisations are overwhelmingly more responsible for climate change than individuals like you and me. We individuals could not be more concerned about climate change already. Everyone wants to pollute less and live more sustainable lives. Our bins have multiplied and we learnt to comply with that. Plastic straws and bags went away and we learnt to comply with that. A lot of us are driving electric cars now or taking public transport and cycling wherever possible. Cities declared clean air zones so only the least polluting vehicles were allowed in them and we’re learning to comply with that. There’s all sorts of taxes on vehicles that pollute too and we’ve learnt to comply with that.
Meanwhile manufacturers pollute our rivers and skies and we’re all finding out how full of microplastics we are because of them too. How about that self righteous finger spending some more time pointing at them than at us eh? It’s just annoying how it’s always the end users who gets the blame for not doing enough about climate change.
And while I’m at it and no one is going to read this anyway how about someone with a brain actually spends some time on the branding side of “Climate Change”. It’s better than “Global Warming” because at least that reduced the amount of people denying there’s a problem every flipping winter but it’s still dumb. If you want people to understand the urgency of something you have to convey it in the language you use. Called it “Planet Cancer” or “Climate Apocalypse” or “Earth Burn”. Anything would be better than “Climate Change” which conveys about as much urgency as a hedge that needs trimming at some point.
(Edit: Looking at the guidelines for this magazine I can see how this post may be a little too negative. If it is I totally understand it getting removed.)
Governments and large industrial and commercial organisations are overwhelmingly more responsible for climate change than individuals like you and me
Right, but those governments and commercial organizations are supported by individuals like you and me; they do not exist in a vacuum. It doesn’t take a long conversation with an average person to realize they do not want to make the necessary changes to their life (either directly, or indirectly through significant change in the system) to fix the problem.
If most people were actually in favour of strong action to make significant change, then most democratic governments would be more in favour of more significant action as well, because at the end of the day most of them just want to be elected. But even in countries with a parliamentary system and multiple parties, greens barely have any power, and people keep choosing governments that either do nothing, or just the bare minimum.
For a small example of what I mean, just look how many people go out of their way to show up on vegan/vegetarian threads to talk about how much they love meat and won’t stop eating it - despite the fact it’s one of the largest contributors to climate change. And this is on Lemmy too, which is a lot more left leaning than the average social media platform, and even more than the real world. Then add in how many people are pro-car, especially gas, or how many people are addicted consumerists and can’t stop buying things they don’t need in plastic packaging; and for some more sprinkles you can also add all the “environmentalists” who campaign in favour of shutting down nuclear plants despite the fact that a) it’s the second safest energy source b) even with nuclear, by 2026 fossil fuels will still be responsible for over 50% of energy production.
If anyone wants to be a grown up and have a grown up discussion, then they need to stop shifting blame around and acting like governments exist in a vacuum and corporations aren’t selling anything.
If Coke decided to stop producing plastic bottles then Pepsi would up their production and their profits would skyrocket; if a government had the balls to issue laws about plastic reduction that would stop them from producing them, they would almost certainly lose the next election and there might be protests and riots; but if people just stopped buying soft drinks in plastic bottles, Coke and Pepsi would both stop producing them regardless of what the government does.
It isn’t shifting blame to talk about the biggest contributors to the problem. I don’t understand why people always feel the need to pretend like we’re saying “hey guys, don’t take any personal responsibility. Its not our fault!”
People talk about it because what else are we supposed to do? I don’t eat meat. I don’t drive a car. I’m sure its true for a decent number of other people. But how many more concessions do individuals have to make? How will we control what other individuals do? We can’t. Clearly. Like the example you gave about the people who come to vegan threads. How am I supposed to change their minds? How are any of us? There needs to be real systemic changes that directly affect the corporations and entities responsible for this, as well as us.
Yes, people love cars. Is it because they are addicted consumerists? Yes. But also because of a concerted and incredibly successful effort on behalf of automobile and fossil fuel corporations to lobby for car based infrastructure, and to spread propaganda that would inevitably lead to cars being seen as symbols of freedom.
People consume meat and dairy by the truckloads. But, again, how many campaigns were led by the companies producing this food to overblow its health benefits? Got Milk?
Do we place all the blame on the addict and none on the dealer? Especially when the dealer has more power than anyone else on the planet?
So what do we do then? Say nothing? Don’t complain? Just hope that someday people will just decide we are right? That they will undo literal decades of brainwashing and complacency because we believe in the power of personal responsibility?
Can’t we just talk shit about the horrible disgusting shit the corporations have done and will doubtlessly continue to do, without someone assuming we just want to laze around, buy thing, and leave the problem to solve itself?
Alright, I’m only going to address your first paragraph because … THAT’S LITERALLY WHAT IS BEING DONE. Like, wtf are you talking about?
Any time a post or comment says something about personal responsibility, in comes some one getting mad and complaining, trying to shift all the blame away, just like in the comment I replied to.
Meanwhile, the opposite never happens. I’ve never seen some who talks about personal responsibility who doesn’t also agree that governments and corporations are responsible.
Me and OP were not the ones to go into posts criticizing the government and corporations, and get mad and act condescendinly while saying that that it’s all about personal responsibility and you shouldn’t blame corpos and govs. I talk plenty of shit about them, I bet so does OP; the difference is that we don’t pretend like personal choices by everyday people doesn’t play into it.
If anyone wants to be a grown up and have a grown up discussion, then they need to stop shifting blame around and acting like governments exist in a vacuum and corporations aren’t selling anything.
Exactly. Thank you.
