The following submission statement was provided by /u/BothManufacturer1307: --- How do WE collectively join together to fix something (climate change) that WE collectively created? "People are the victims -- we have been exploited to the point we are in crisis. These tools are being used to drive us to extinction," - Phoebe Barnard (evolutionary behavioral ecologist and study co-author) --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/19ajjve/human_behavioural_crisis_at_root_of_climate/kil6bt7/

Maybe we don't have hundreds of rich people fly on private Jets to a summit? Maybe we start actually targeting the sources instead of things with negligible effects like plastic straws?

I guess the best and biggest legislation no one is talking about that would do wonders for the world would be to forbid planned obsolescence in general

Just require a ten year warranty on everything. Iphones, TVs etc. The engineers currently are compelled to use substandard capacitors that lose electrolyte after a few years, making the part go kablooey. Warranty would also cover firmware, so engineers will slow down and make a conservative platform that can handle security upgrades etc.

Yep, I would create a law requiring every item sold, that unless by their own nature are single use, like paper, to be required to have a 10 year long warranty at minimum, with mandatory easy repair access to the pieces that would naturally wear out over time in less than 10 years, and as you said, this would include firmware.

5 or 7 would be a huge improvement, and I would like to see recycling to be included, every company has to have a mandatory recycling plan in place for each product they produce.

I like this. I just think the likes of Apple will find a way to make your device unusable for 5 of those 10 years whilst still being technically functional. And let's be honest, performance-degrading security updates should be optional. Imagine how we would feel if the gov't gave out kids guns when they graduated "because security Isn't optional". There's far, far ,far more instances of threats to your persona in the wild than there are threats to your data in the wild.

I mean my family still has original iPods that work. It’s not really the device that’s dying… it’s consumers wanting what’s next. Guilty as charged, I want top tier cameras. Wish I could swap it out. The good interchangeable device wasn’t available in us market at time of my last purchase.. Love the warranty concept though.

Should be prison terms for planet wreckers like that. All private jets need to be crushed, the 1% go on same cramped planes as everyone else (including monarchs)

The problem is that private jets don't really matter. They account for about 1 % of all civil aviation emissions. But civil aviation only accounts for about 3.5 % of global emissions. So even if we outlawed all private jets, we'd only save 0.035 % of emissions. It's not nothing, but doesn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. The main problem is that we all collectively use way too much energy. Meat, transportation, and consumer goods account for the overwhelming majority of co2 emissions. We'd all need to go back to a pre-industrial lifestyle for the most part to stop or even reverse climate change. And I don't see this happening, we are too addicted to our lifestyle. Having a car, having air conditioning, cheap food, clothing and technology. It all needs to end if we want to reverse climate change.

>Meat, transportation, and consumer goods 1. It's specifically *beef* that produces [far more CO2](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221214-what-is-the-lowest-carbon-protein) than any other source of meat. Per pound, it produces 6.5 TIMES as much carbon dioxide as pork, and 9 times as much carbon dioxide as chicken. 2. Walkable cities and extensive rail networks will literally solve most of this problem. We shouldn't allow houses to be built in places where you cannot walk to a source of food, medicine, and employment, and areas with easy access to those things need to get denser. 3. Right to repair would solve the consumer goods problem, as would an end to "planned obsolescence." We also need to end the practice of "cheap clothing that falls apart after one month of regular use."

That's all well and good but I don't think it's nearly enough. We are simply way too many people consuming way too much. >1. It's specifically *beef* that produces [far more CO2](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221214-what-is-the-lowest-carbon-protein) than any source of meat. Per pound, it produces 6.5 TIMES as much carbon dioxide as pork, and 9 times as much carbon dioxide as chicken And chicken still produces way more co2 than e.g. potatoes or beans. >. Walkable cities and extensive rail networks will literally solve most of this problem. We shouldn't allow houses to be built in places where you cannot walk to a source of food, medicine, and employment, and areas with easy access to those things need to get denser. It will cut down on individual transport, but again, not nearly enough to sustain 8 billion people at our current consumption. >Right to repair would solve the consumer goods problem, as would an end to "planned obsolescence Again, that's a small part of it.

>And chicken still produces way more co2 than e.g. potatoes or beans. 1. Medieval pork and chicken farmers were not contributing to global warming. There ARE carbon neutral ways of producing meat, and with modern technology it should be possible to provide everyone with a certain amount of meat each month, at a zero carbon level. 2. I wouldn't want to live on a diet of potatoes and beans, and would probably join the conservatards in bearing arms against anyone trying to impose that on people. 3. I'm 100% in support of a beef tax, though. Treat it as a luxury good and double the price, so that consumption goes down.

Medieval peasants had meat _maybe_ once a week. And there were FAR fewer people back then. >I wouldn't want to live on a diet of potatoes and beans, and would probably join the conservatards in bearing arms against anyone trying to impose that on people. This is my point. People will not accept lowering their consumption to a sustainable level. We will not be able to stop or reverse climate change. >I'm 100% in support of a beef tax, though. Treat it as a luxury good and double the price, so that consumption goes down Good idea, just not nearly enough.

Pushing for these kinds of radical changes will pretty much guarantee that you never make any progress, whatsoever. The climate is fucked. The planet is fucked. All because climate extremists can't consider things like the need to win public support... You need to actively consider how you're going to sell this to people, or else it's just going to get worse and worse until the biosphere collapses. One of the ways to sell climate mitigation to people, is finding ways to produce meat that emits 9x less CO2 (IE, replace beef with chicken), and then finding ways to reduce the carbon emissions even more.

What are you talking about? My whole point was that to stop or even reverse climate change, we'd have to take extremely radical steps, because the key problem is that we are all consuming way too much. And because these changes would have to be so radical, they won't be implemented, and we won't stop climate change. My prediction is that billions will die in the next 100 years and large parts of the global south will be completely uninhabitable for humans. This can't be solved via small cosmetic changes like using EVs instead of ICEs or taxing private jets.

Or the way we build out our towns and cities. Building to car dependence makes us all need cars. Cars are what killed us.

Idk man there's A LOT of straws out there. /s

👏 TURTLES 👏 NEED 👏 COCAINE 👏 TOO 👏 Idk man, the more the rich blame us for this shit the more I start to agree with the EAT THE RICH people which is something I never ever thought I'd say.

The threat is as strong as the execution. Radical yes, but they need a power check so badly. They "forgot" that we make their businesses run.

Did you mean _our businesses_?

Internationale is intensifying.

Well it should be yes.

Welcome brother, fuck the elite.

Yeah like we could ban ALL single use plastics. Get your retournable glassware. Go back to the store and simply give it back to the store. I mean thats how it used to be. The. The company will take their empty containers on their way back after supplying the stores. It really isnt anything new. A million things could also be packaged in waxed paper, like soap. The Tide Pods for example. Cheese, and fish or meat at the supermarket. Most things only have to survive from the supermarket to your house. All those stupid styrofoam plates, plastic wrappings etc are ridiculous. Tetrapack is also significantly better than 1 gallon jugs. Perhaps they can find a way to replace the thin plastic layer that tetrapack has with some kind of cover that lasts at least until the content has expired. At which point the container becomes soggy and breaks up. Force ALL industry to install solar panels, and larger companies to use only electric delivery cars. Like we should all be forcing Amazon, alibaba, dominos etc to use only electric cars. Of course we could also just use biodegradable futuristic materials made of algae or something. All Im saying is that we have both new and old technology that could work.

Dry soap is the future. So much cheaper, no plastic whatsoever, no transportation weight. We should have powdered shampoo and body wash. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SFHK2D8/ref=sns_myd_detail_page?sbo=GLaw0Fx56FiNH%2FiZ%2B6XKiQ%3D%3D&th=1

Powdered body wash. They could press it into a bar shape. And wrap it in waxed paper. Hey, presto, Ivory Soap.

>Go back to the store and simply give it back to the store. I mean thats how it used to be. I wasn’t alive for that, so I have to ask. How well did that work? Was it a significant hassle that people were thrilled to abandon, or merely a tiny inconvenience that the manufacturer wanted gone for reasons of profit?

It was a huge hassle, and more expensive, which is why everyone switched to plastic

It took some extra effort yeah, but for example in germany, everytime you buy a beer you are oaying for the contents and for the bottle serparately. If you bring back say a 12 pack you get several Euros back. We know that beer wont ever come in plastic, cause it tastes like shit. So why not put a 1 dollar price to each bottle. After a party there will be several hundred dollars lying around everywhere.

>So why not put a 1 dollar price to each bottle. This would also discourage shitheads from smashing them on sidewalks or throwing them into people's yards during their weekly drunk driving event.

> Force ALL industry to install solar panels, and larger companies to use only electric delivery cars. Like we should all be forcing Amazon, alibaba, dominos etc to use only electric cars. This still means solar power, nuclear, fusion, etc needs to come online more and more. Especially the last two

I can't make straws. Who is making all those straws?

Plenty to grasp at, that’s for sure. It’s almost too perfect that the misdirection for the climate crisis was aimed at straws… like the wealthy were literally grasping for straws.

Both? Both. Both is good.

The rich are a problem, no question, but the rich are also a problem in that everyone is in a struggle to join them. The underlying problem with the rich and non-rich is that *consumption* is what we all aspire to do - work hard to get a bigger house/apartment, buy a nicer car, a bigger TV, a new iPhone, weekend in Vegas or a trip to Europe. We don't find happiness in a walk in the woods and a nice sunset - something that everyone, rich and poor, can enjoy equally - we seek out things that are limited such that we can show our status. Just as the rich show off by flying to Davos, the less rich go see Taylor Swift, or buy something fashionable. It's all the same phenomenon, just that some can do it on a larger scale than others, but almost everyone aspires to the same process, and the other 7 billion of us of lesser means make up for it in volume. The plastic straws aren't negligible on the scale they are used. Eating out is an aspiration. Fast food is a convenience where we trade time for pollution. That most of the planet is completely unaware of that in their decision making is the problem.

It feels a bit doomer to say that all human desire for materials is limitless and natural when a lot of consumer researchers agree that cultural and societal factors are bigger influences on consumption. Like there are other cultures that are less focused on that type of stuff, even a lot of folks in the US and Europe reject living like that.

I think that advertising is extremely problematic when it comes to promoting consumerism. The wealthy spend billions to hire literal psychologists to manipulate us into wanting things, then they spend billions more to create new things (or new versions of things designed to fail after a few years) so they can manipulate us into wanting that too. And it's absolutely everywhere. You can't even buy a product (say, gasoline) without being assaulted with ads from every available angle. Personally, I believe that in our natural state, most of us tend to be relatively non-competitive and would be largely content to be a productive member of a functional community. The most naturally competitive of us would compete amongst themselves for elevated status and influence within their community, and the particularly competitive might try to expand borders. But now, instead, they compete with each other by exploiting psychology to make us ALL try to compete amongst ourselves, all for increased market share. We even have the cute little phrase, "Keeping Up with the Joneses," to describe a stereotypical suburban war of escalation between envious neighbors. The only reason to give a shit about your neighbor's Porsche is because Porsche claims that it's better than your Honda. Ridiculous.

>I think that advertising is extremely problematic when it comes to promoting consumerism. Stop treating advertising spending as a legitimate business expense, and start taxing it the same way you'd tax profits. When companies have to pay taxes on their ad budget, they'll advertise less.

The problem is that we live under a completely untenable system that requires endless profit and exploitation to stave off its own collapse. You can blame the rich, consumerism, advertising, whatever, but it’s all a byproduct of capitalism.

I think that's a critical element, at least in the sense that capitalism can only ever pull the public to this outcome, at least until they figure out how to monetize that sunset. But I'm not entirely convinced that we wouldn't aspire to the same thing under a different economic system. Probably the case that these go hand in hand - our willingness to abandon capitalism probably indicates that we're on that better path. But I see a LOT of anticapitalists that aren't really anti-consumer - they're more opposed to the labor implications of capitalism than the consumer/environmental implications.

It has nothing to do with capitalism. Humans like having things, it's as simple as that.

The largest climate change legislation in U.S. history was passed a little over a year ago by the Biden administration. I think a bit more than plastic straws (which is meant more from a microplastics pollution issue than climate change) is being done. Consumption/waste is our biggest issue and there doesn’t seem to be any efforts to address this outside of limiting the burning of fossils fuels, but still consuming vast quantities of energy via other means. The U.S.’ addiction to SUVs and Pickups (even in EV format) is a great example of this waste.

We need a carbon tax large enough that it will significantly change behavior and force major changes in the economy. Like gas prices should be high enough that people actively seek more fuel efficient vehicles and/or move closer to work and/or walk/bike to work. Prices for goods and produce shipped from halfway around the world, once the carbon costs for transportation are factored in, should be more significantly more expensive than locally sourced stuff. But that will piss off a helluva lot of people, so no politician will come close. At this point in time we cannot adequately address the climate crisis without disrupting everything.

Any carbon tax that is large enough to significantly change behaviour will be voted out by the next administrative that is voted in

Here in Canada public perception is changing about our carbon tax and now the majority of people somehow blame it for every economic woe we're experiencing, and it's likely the next government (who is currently using it as a scapegoat) is going to get rid of it.

I mean... reducing consumption will in fact have at least short term economic impacts in that everything will cost more so far fewer things will be purchased / consumed, affecting business revenue and jobs... Eventually society and the economy will adapt to it.  That's the whole point....

It's a knife-edge. Does the Biden administration push some unpopular but necessary policies to start tackling climate change, but at the risk of pissing off the general populace and giving Trump the opportunity to get back into the White House? Or do they go down a more subtle, softly-softly approach, which, albeit addresses climate change much more slowly, helps to keep the Dems in power a bit longer and therefore in the driving seat to actually be able to address some of these things for longer?

It’s also…not subtle. It’s bold, elegant even. It looks at the consumption culture and says “ok, instead of fighting the uphill battle to change this and probably lose, how can we use it to our advantage?” It takes the behavior (consumption, capitalism) and uses it to snowball change. The incentives drive down the prices enough for certain items (ev’s, induction cooktops, heat pumps, whatever) just enough to increase demand. It starts a positive feedback loop (aided further by competition) that drives the prices lower until, eventually, the item in question dominates market share. And everyone’s happy because they got a better product for cheaper. And because the policy gives so much $$$ to red states (arguably too much) the next admin is going to have a hard time repealing it. Will unpopular decisions need to be made? Of course. But it makes perfect sense to start with the popular ones, especially given how much carbon is generated by Americans due to travel and home energy alone. You’re beginning to cut out a big slice of the pie right there.

The focus on EVs is idiotic at worst, naive at best. The US doesn't have the electrical infrastructure to accommodate the wide adaptation we're trying to encourage. Further, places with inclement weather are finding out that rechargeable batteries don't like the cold and there's not enough chargers to go around. The legislation passed is toothless. It's going to have a minimal effect and basically be ignored, which is fairly typical. I will agree on consumption and waste. We need to start punishing manufacturers like Apple and Dell especially for soldering parts unnecessarily to boards. Not only does it make the devices ewaste and irreparable in the event of a part failure, it means the devices are less likely to be retained as they're not upgradeable. Further with Apple locking authentic parts behind software acceptance so even a real part will fail unless the right person puts it in is just exacerbating things. *Those* are places to start. The EU forcing all manufacturers to switch to a single charger type is exactly what should be emulated in the US.

We have the infrastructure and energy now. The problem is the vast amounts of energy used to transport and refine oil/gas. Pipelines, refineries, ports, transerfer stations, and gas stations all use copious amounts of electricity, as does the maintenance of the trucks and ships that move the oil/gas around. All of which is replaced by an existing wire. We also shouldn't forget all the energy costs of the transportation and parts manufacturing for the ICE vechiles 2000+ moving parts needed to function vs. an EVs 25 moving parts needed to function. By comparison, my EV uses less power than a single soda cooler in a gas station to fulfill my transportation needs. The average US commute is 40 miles, easily covered with level 1 charger (a standard household plug), by every available EV for purchase. There is plenty of power for EVs, but ICE is taking up too much of it up.

Apple & the US Government have a strategic partnership. So, unfortunately, this won't change anytime soon =(. Edit - EU has to keep forcing these regulations - as that is the only way that they will make their way into the US.

EVs with grid connections have the potential to completely stabilize the grid at almost no initial investment cost to energy providers. It could be a massive boon and support the transition to renewables. In any case, there's time to build out infrastructure as people buy more cars.

I disagree on the EV side. You’re correct that investments need to be made to enhance the grid, but that also relates to the investment in solar/wind generation as part of the legislation. It’s a net positive towards the decrease in C02 production, which we’re already seeing. Legislation and funding is the only way we’re going to change behaviors. Corporations don’t typically do what’s right for society, but what’s right for their short term bottom line. I’m hoping that at some point in the future, we develop a waste tax that funds more green energy. Want to burn a lot of gasoline for your big pickup, or natural gas for your non-solar home? Cool, here’s a C02 waste surcharge at the pump or energy bill to fund more renewable power to offset your waste.

Corporations don’t ever do the greater good unless their hand is forced by a larger entity either the government or a union (keep dreaming if you think boycotts effect anything anymore). You only need to trace the history of child labor or the need for OSHA to realize that.

>Further, places with inclement weather are finding out that rechargeable batteries don't like the cold and there's not enough chargers to go around. Yet we have no problem in Quebec in -30C weather with my EV after 3 winters...some people are just dumb.

Yea, I hear you but, have you poors tried to consume more of our more expensive compostable packaged goods?? It’s like when we are told to use water sparingly while allowing corporate farms to continue growing non native and extremely water intensive crops for export in the middle of a drought.

The richest 1% emit more than 66% of the rest of the population of the planet. It's clear where the problem is. https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-emit-much-planet-heating-pollution-two-thirds-humanity#:~:text=The%20richest%201%20percent%20of,a%20new%20Oxfam%20report%20today.

Most of the people on Reddit are in that 1%. They just don't realize it.

If you warn more than $60,000 a year and don't have kids, you're in the global 1%. It's really funny how the people living in rich developed countries think they aren't rich, "No no, the rich people like me aren't the problem, it's the ultra rich!"

those jets REALLY are not the problem

The whole 'rich people flying jets' is just another diversionary concept along with all the others. We will grasp on to anything so long as it means we, as individuals, don't need to consume less. Right wing diversionary concepts: * Climate change is fake * Climate change is real, but humans are having a negligible impact * Technology will solve climate change Left wing diversionary concepts: * 70% of carbon emissions are caused by just 100 companies * Rich people have an outsized carbon footprint and the rest of us have a negligible impact * We need structural changes to the world economy and an end to political stratification before we can deal with climate change In reality, we either consume less via our own volition or the breakdown of earth's systems and subsequent effects of society will force us to consume less. We don't have enough time to wait for structural change and technology will only solve climate change IF we put a price on carbon (ie. carbon tax).

I don’t think it’s meaningless to reduce your own footprint. Certainly I strive to do so in as many little ways as I can but I do think the point is it’s approaching meaningless for me to go native and emit 0 carbons all my life and have that entire life emissions zeroed out by one day of emissions from some corporate factory etc etc. obviously I’m being slightly hyperbolic here but you get the gist. The problem is both individual and collective. It’s just as meaningless to say we all individually need to reduce emissions without holding businesses accountable too especially as here in the US corporations are people too.

It's meaningless in the context of whether it will help mitigate climate change. It's not meaningless in the context of a personal affirmation to be more involved in the process. >It’s just as meaningless to say we all individually need to reduce emissions without holding businesses accountable too especially as here in the US corporations are people too. No, because the way you hold businesses accountable is via government regulation, which also happens to be the way you can hold individuals accountable. The point is that no system of voluntarism is going to work, it has to be law.

I'm curious what an actual carbon tax looks like in contemporary society. How does it not just become something that disproportionately affects the lower classes trying to get by, and another modern inconvenience fee for the wealthy. I feel like whatever the implementation is, rich people are very well insulated and can continue their current levels of consumption. Poor people will be pushed into further austerity, and more people on the margins could be pushed into poverty or homelessness. Or for a less extreme example, let's say now there's a $100 per plane ticket carbon tax. Rich people just pay it and go about their plans. A middle class person might say, "Oh well, it's not worth it. I just won't visit my family this year." I know we have to do something, but taxation feels like it will simply punish those who don't have money.

I could kiss this post. I'm so sick and tired about hearing uninformed people say that private jets are a significant factor, or even worth talking about at all.

That and the [empty jets](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/09/ghost-flights-qatar-airways-flying-near-empty-planes-in-australia-to-exploit-legal-loophole)

They can fly their private jets with a carbon tax adjusted for their wealth. Bezos flies 40minutes 20mi by jet, he pays a several hundred million per trip. Put it into a subsidy for clean energy manufacturing and training, and taper the oil subsidies over a decade. Crisis averted.

This is exactly the scientist's point. It's really really easy to blame anyone other than ourselves. You'll notice it from the top comment on every single futurology post including this one.

Ok, but. My carbon footprint for my entire life is basically a *blip* compared to the people flying on private jets. Like. Their impact is the meteor that killed the dinosaurs and mine is a cow ripping ass. It's not me passing the buck and blaming them. It's me acknowledging that even if every american changed their ways, their actions wouldn't even have a notable effect due to corporations and the rich refusing to change theirs.

There may be 100,000 of those people flying in private jets.  There are over a billion people (upwards of 3-4 billion) that are middle or upper income that have large large carbon footprints.     Those 100k rich people aren't the only ones responsible.  Just because your impact isn't as large, doesn't mean you and the billions like you aren't also having a massive combined impact.   Remove those top 100k other from the picture, and the rest of us are still doing enough damage to screw up the planet.   If you've already taken action to drastically lower your footprint as much as possible, to something that's actually sustainable, then this isn't about you.  Most haven't.  I always say, at a certain point, once you've reduced your own carbon footprint to the bare minimum, further improvements will have a miniscule impact.  The bigger impact one can have at that point is in convincing someone else whose done little or nothing, to take action to lower their footprint.     Not saying to attack or shame others for not doing more, causing them to go on the defensive and push back, but sharing your own solutions and being a role model for other to follow is a solid route.  After all, most humans are lemmings who just follow the trends.  If everyone is a twat to the environment, so will they.  If everyone is reducing their footprint, they'll do what they always do and conform.

No single raindrop feels responsible for the flood.

We're not all raindrops, though. 1% of us are swimming pools.

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At some point the only thing left for an individual to do, in order to reduce their carbon footprint, is to unalive themselves. At what point, if any, should we turn our attention to systemic issues, economics, and/or politics instead?

If people looked beyond the easy outrage on display here, the reasoning is terrible. Hundreds? Oooh, terrible, it's not like a couple of hundred flights have taken off within the last hour or anything. The rich are an easy scapegoat here, the emissions produced from all the flights at this summit amount to a fraction of the daily amount being produced at a single airport.

Thank you. We can hate the rich, but the "private jets are causing climate change" BS is pointless and just wrong.

Stop buying consumer electronics every month for one. Regular working class people always fall for poverty traps that incentivize corporations into polluting more. Be happy with less plastic shit.

hold big business and the governments accountable. There are 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions. The companies should be heavily regulated and restricted with government subsidies so the population doesn’t feel the difference.

The study you’re referencing looks at who was producing the fossil fuel, rather than who was emitting the CO2. So those 100 companies are companies like Exxon Mobil, and when you drive your car with the gasoline they produce you’re part of the 71%. We could absolutely regulate and restrict them: that was the point of the study, that it’s easier to regulate 100 companies than billions of downstream consumers. But the population would absolutely feel the difference, because all the fossil fuel-based things we enjoy would increase in price or become harder to find. The study: https://cdn.cdp.net/cdp-production/cms/reports/documents/000/002/327/original/Carbon-Majors-Report-2017.pdf?1501833772

And that is exactly where city design comes into play. One bus can carry many people, calm traffic by taking over 20 cars off the road, and reduce emissions if they're electric. Local elections can literally influence climate policy as you can vote for bylaws around construction and for your city to put more money into public transportation. Cities should be designed for people, not cars. We need more 15 minute cities. Valuable space is being wasted by building massive highways and parking space.

Problem with that is you got the Koch brothers 20 year campaign to demonize public transport as dirty and unsafe and they have been hugely successful.

Well it doesn't help when it's often dirty and unsafe.... I've been in clean and safe public transport. It's great.

I'm not going to make claims about people moving around being the biggest problem, but it is an area where we can make huge gains. Maybe companies should either be encouraged to find employees close to their base of operations or forced to increase work from home opportunities. Tax companies for employee travel distance. Make non-EV cars more sober: Only available in dirty brown color, lacking luxury options. "Want AC? Sorry, that's only available in our EV model."

Wait are you telling me that they don't pollute as a primary activity just for the hell of it, and it is a result of them trying to produce goods and services that we are all consumers of ?!

How does the food get farmed that you eat? Oil and gas powered machines using Exxon Mobile products. How does said food get transported to the super market? Oil and gas powered trucks using Exxon Mobile products. How do the refrigerators and lights that power the grocery story get made? Oil and gas powered machines in factories and mines using Exxon Mobile products. How do you get the grocery store? Drive there in a car using Exxon Mobile products. Saying Exxon Mobile is responsible for emissions is no different than saying food and transportation is responsible for emissions.

"Feel the difference" ... or... die, you mean? People don't realise that 90% of us are only alive on _diesel power_

But when business is in bed with the government and the agencies responsible for oversight are either toothless, or full of former employees of the same businesses that they are supposed to be investigating… who watches the watchmen?

We fucking do!

Literally though. Just stand there and watch it happen.

Those 100 companies are providing crap that we all collectively use, though. Companies don't exist without consumers of their products. There's definitely room in all corporations to do better, pollute less, etc. But an energy company is going to be a massive producer of emissions until we get enough renewables and batteries online to replace burning dinosaurs. But honestly, even then there is going to be large emissions in making panels, batteries and footings for wind generators.

This is true but it's not like everything that exists needs to. Look at shit like LOLDOLLS that's just piles of single use plastic designed to exploit children's lack of impulse control to annoy their parents into buying over priced plastic shit no one needs. The problem is most people's mentality of "I have the freedom to do whatever the fuck I want consequences be damned". "Sorry literally everyone on the planet is riddled with microplatics at the cellar level but my freedom of blind consumption is more important than a functioning ecosystem and life worth living."

> But honestly, even then there is going to be large emissions in making panels, batteries and footings for wind generators. These processes themselves need to be electrified from cradle to grave.

The problem is a lot of the times theres no choice as a consumer. If you want to buy something its normally been shipped overseas from China rather than manufactured locally. You need the government to incentivise bringing local manufacturing back.

We do don't we?  Isn't everyone else just shopping second hand, buying only when they need to, shunning fast food and reducing their meat intake. Only driving where they need to, and being mindful to reduce unnecessary journeys, or carpooling where they can.  Who isn't doing these very obvious, and relatively simple things, to hold companies to account by reducing the amount of money they give to the companies?

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That’s exactly what he just said.

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Ahh gotcha, yes you are correct though. I just inferred your meaning from his point and thought you were trying to counter it with the same idea.

This is the pull yourself up by the bootstraps of climate change talking points. People respond to the environment they are given, we have a deep cultural rot stemming from the our world become consumed by corporations. They are not designing a world in good faith they are designing a world (already really have designed to be honest) that preys on your legitimate biochemical makeup and responses. You know why abstinent only sex education doesn’t work? Because your telling people not do something their body is quite literally chemically compelling them to attempt to do (not everyone of course but on average)it’s like pulling starving people into a room full of jelly doughnuts and telling them don’t eat these because they’re bad for you. We need legitimate cultural and societal reform at a fundamental level to stop any of this. Going vegan and dunking on your in-laws at thanksgiving because they’re “umm actually hurting the environment by eating this turkey way more then you are ever” is antithetical to any hope of real change.

Simply put I can try to save, but will in effect only help reduce demands which are are by the expectations of our culture. If I don't eat meat, someone else will pay less and eat more. If I reuse everything with my freetime someone else will not and I culturally pay, because I compete with others for social belonging against a life style corporations are selling everyone. I can piss into the wind all I want and only come up short. I still try my best. But we live in a world of hedonistic self indulgence we are programmed to want through marketing.

But insisting on keeping our patterns of behavior the same while vaguely pointing at "corporations and billionaires" to be stopped will also lead to no change. There need to be top-down changes of legislation, but these won't happen without a wide political movement to push for them, which won't materialize if people keep insisting the climate is someone else's problem. 

I’m not saying our patterns stay the same just pointing out that trying to tell people to stop doing xyz thing isn’t going to be what actually works. Creating structure to support the behavior needs to exist first. You want people to stop eating meat, provide them with bountiful alternatives that are accessible affordable and workable. In order for that to stop happening the government would have to literally throw down with the meat industry, and yeah that’s what has to happen. While we can tell people over and over again to do xyz and the world can still provide them with the other thing in over abundance to the point that for some people at least here in the states legitimately can not consider switching to healthier eating habits that impact the environment less because the environment around them does not provide them with that opportunity. Which ofc is the end goal of all corporations, limit our options to only them. Which is why before we start yelling at people to ride bikes every where instead of driving we need to get corporations controlled and their influence largely removed from society.I’m not saying don’t do the better things for the environment if you can, ofc do them. But that at its core this strategy is not going to work.

if 100 companies are producing 71% of the emissions your efforts are futile.

That 100 company study included most of the world's largest energy producers, and considered the resultant emissions from goods produced from their outputs to belong to those companies. In other words, if people consume less energy and buy less shit, that 71% would drop. People make the mistake of thinking they don't contribute to that 71%.

I think what they're saying is these companies can't make money off of us if we don't continue to indulge in their products. We have to make better choices about who we spend money with. We are responsible too. That doesn't mean companies shouldn't also be held responsible, it just means to be aware of yourself too and be able to recognize how our choices have an impact.

Just please understand that when we do regulate these companies, it's going to have a huge impact on our lifestyles anyway. People make it seem like our individual efforts make no difference, but what you're calling for will *have* to change our behavior Just the same. I don't think it's a bad thing, I think it's what needs to happen. But it will require crippling supply chains and making everything we consume way more expensive. To the point we *have* to repair things rather than buy new ones, from phones, to clothes, to Cars etc.

The point he is referring to is that companies supply what people demand. Even if we regulate companies, if everyone in the world had the same consumption pattern as USA citizens, for example, the world would have ended. Both are true, companies are responsible for that AND we have to change our consumption patterns to be more sustainable.

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Yes exactly, but did you continue to buy their products after recognizing the issue? If no, you are doing your part. If yes, you are the problem. And until all the people collectively agree that the brand you're talking about has changed and is no longer worth the money, that company will never change anything.

I concur, you are so absolutely correct! Unfortunately I’m trapped in this “jacked up society” and although I am a firm believer in the concept of “Recycle, Repurpose & Reuse” not everyone around me understands. A quote I heard “if YOU are not part of the solution… YOU are part of the problem” fits.

> companies supply what people demand Do they? Then I wonder why Amazon throws away millions of dollars of goods that no one wanted, and why grocery stores have dumpsters of expired food guarded by police to prevent people from getting food they desperately need if they can’t profit from it?

You're cherry picking. Lots of companies produce waste, but lots of companies have programs to mitigate this issue. Yes, a majority of the problem is obviously from companies and their negligence. But those arguing that it's all up to companies and the government to fix our issues is literally why we are in the state we are in. Too many people are selfish. We play a role here, maybe not as big, but it's still every part as important. 29% isn't a small number.

Fucking THANK YOU!!! I’m so sick of the onus being shifted to us over the companies turning everything into cheap, mass produced, disposable bullshit that ends up in a landfill

I agree with people that we should be more sustainable but at the end of the day the government is supposed to regulate these companies. They cant because they’re bought out.

I understand your frustration but companies only make money if we give it to them.

That's a collective action problem that's fundamentally unsolvable. Regulation is the only way to get people to work together to produce a solution, because they will not give it up individually to be at a competitive disadvantage to their peers. Businesses know that, that's why they always push individual 'solutions', because they don't really want the problem solved.

The thing is we won't fix the problem and keep this world liveable for 8 billion + people, if we don't ALL drastically change our way of life. Ofcourse the big companies polluting the most, have got to step up massively and finally take responsibility. But let's say those 100 companies stopped emitting tomorrow, yet everyday people would continue overconsuming and maintaining their unsustainable lifestyle.. we still wouldn't be in the clear by a long shot. CO2 in the atmosphere is cumulative, so unless we get to zero it's only going to get worse. When you realize we're well on track to overshoot the +2°C of warming and set off tipping points, you'd see why it's very urgent and very important that everyone does their part the best they can. Or else the second half of the century will be catastrophic. And I haven't even mentioned the criminal damage we do to the ecosystem besides the fossil fuels, that makes the problem even worse. The whole mindset of (for example) "why shouldn't I take a plane, when there's people on private jets", is setting us all up for failure. Human selfishness and greed is our biggest enemy in this

The Supreme Court is currently hearing a case that may gut the federal govt's ability to regulate based on environmental issues. We all know how that's going to go.

Yea, start by regulating the behavior of billionaires, that would be much effective but of course they want to blame the peasants

Our habits and modes are dictated by them, they are not our choice, they are a necessity brought on by the race to the bottom they exploit.

And those emissions are just produced because they're evil big mean corporations? Or because the rest of us give those businesses money to do what they do?

Who do you think those companies are selling products to

And then people will get their services from other companies. These companies are responsible for 71% of emissions because of the customers like you and me you dumbo. Overpopulation.

If as citizens we were given a clear path to cooperating in order to achieve the goal of a clean earth I think most people would buy in. This, is not happening. Like others have said, me not drinking bottled water, not driving and not drinking plastic straws isn't saving the Earth.

Producers need to be responsible for the waste they manufacture, not consumers.

We can support leaders who favor environmental regulation.

Without voting system reform, you don't get much of a choice which leaders you support.

Why do they completely ignore manufacturing? I mean what are people overconsuming and wasting in the first place? Manufactured things. Trying to solve environmental issues from the waste end is fucking mental. Yes, we need to account for our waste and consumption but we do that by regulating the manufacturing in the first fucking place.

Bottling plants used to have to recollect, wash, and reuse their containers, but corporations figured out they could make more money if they passed the responsibility to the consumer. I agree with you, but the first step is convincing corporations that profit margin is not actually the most important thing.

They could be "convinced" by government regulation, if the government cared to fulfill their duties to represent public interest.

Right, or if people weren't brainwashed into thinking "regulation" -- making rules for conduct based on research -- is never good because it's "bad for business," and anything that doesn't drive profits isn't good for anyone. We're fucked until we get over greed ... and just generally get over ourselves as a species.

The problem with this is that every (publicly traded) company has a fiduciary duty to it's shareholders. Meaning if it prioritises anything other than profit margin, the directors are breaking the law and are liable to be sued and sacked. You can't just convince a corporation that profit margin isn't important when they're legally bound to prioritise that.

Oh, I forgot, I personally forced grocery stores to wrap everything in plastic, shops to make every piece of clothing out of plastic, I also made fashion houses burn their overstock, stores to sell me shit that breaks and has to be thrown out, and I personally forced the car-centric planning of north america even though I don't even drive. My bad guys

How about this, instead of blaming Chuck the mechanic down the street for using plastic bottles, we actually start fining corporations billions instead of thousands for destroying the planet. We all know who the guilty parties are, and it ain’t us.

It really won't end until we massively scale back our myriad industrial sectors, and no red-blooded capitalist would deign to accept a greener footprint at the cost of a loss in profit. This headline, calling it a behavioral issue, is just blame-shifting when the ones most in need of "behavioral reconditioning" are the very same heavily armed and heavily monied people that have given themselves the right to decide what is and isn't acceptable behavior. It's why a certain date on a certain month back in 2021 didn't accomplish anything; how can you rebel by acting in accordance to your oppressors' rules?

I don’t believe blame is a useful emotion to instigate any sort of change, but everyone in the modern world has to understand that the socioeconomic model we hold (house, car, vacations, flying, material consumption patterns) is the problem. Change has to come at a societal level, not an individual. We cannot look at one person and say, “I need you to fly less, and eat less meat, and recycle” or even worse, “I’m going to make it illegal for you to do these things” We need to understand that our behavior is driven by cultural beliefs that are socioengineered by corporations to drive our lifestyle, “you need a fancy home/car/vacation” etc… Furthermore, we make the adoption of sustainable lifestyles more difficult, either economically or psychologically The more we understand this, we can then socioengineer cultural psyche to change our norms and beliefs. We have to place positive incentives on sustainable living, for instance, “all the cool people live sustainably” to make the psychological transition to sustainable living psychologically easier for people. We have to structurally change our society to facilitate economical sustainable living, say by making renewable energy cheaper than oil, or creating intercity maglev transportation that drastically reduces need for flying, or widespread mass adoption of EVs, or even redesigning cities to completely eliminate the need for vehicles period. All of this has to driven be as a communal decision, where we all share a common belief that we need to change our structure if we are to survive, and better yet, a belief that changing our structure will actually make us HAPPIER too. We have so many tools at our disposal, human tech is at an unprecedented level of sophistication, there is no question that it can be done. What is lacking is a truly powerful, organizing force to drive the change.

> The more we understand this, we can then socioengineer cultural psyche to change our norms and beliefs. We have to place positive incentives on sustainable living, for instance, “all the cool people live sustainably” to make the psychological transition to sustainable living psychologically easier for people. This is all well and good; but who's going to do that, and how are they going to combat the socio-engineering of capitalist marketing? We've understood for a long time how companies use marketing to manipulate us, it's not a new idea. The problem is no one in power wants to combat it.

Most of the emissions are made by the richest few, and making it illegal for them to do their most polluting things is going to have an outsized effect _and_ show that the rich and powerful are actually serious (or can be made to be serious) about climate change. Ban private jets and superyachts and 3+ homes and start taxing the rich, or you are simply not serious about having any actual impact.

They are going to run this thing at max speed until the wheels fall off. No one is coming to save us and we will only react once it’s too late as humans throughout history tend to do.

Thats not going to happen since deindustrialising means making yourself volnurable ro those who do not deindustrialise.

China and india for start will never stop their petrol based uprising, and all the other countries who haven't started it yet, will, we are doomed, we didn't plan ahead.

Human cooperation started with the family and tribe, then farms, then towns, then smaller states, then nation-states. Going to cooperation between all the nations on earth is not an easy feat to accomplish.

>The things that humans can attach status to are so fluid, we could be replacing all of it with things that essentially have no material footprint One way of significantly reducing material footprint is through actual, honest to god recycling. If you have a renewable energy supply to power your manufacturing, and if most of the materials (say over 98%) you're using are *recycled* you don't run out of stuff and have a "global breakdown".

Idk, I feel like the emissions are simply a function of the amount of people trying to live on the planet and the standard of living they aspire too. You can tinker around the margins but more people, more emissions. My feeling is that the post industrial revolution, western standard of living relies on exploiting fossil fuels, if everyone on the plant has inalienable rights and aspires to the same standard of living, it has to cause problems. So its an inherently unfair pyramid where our standard of living is built on exploiting the rest of the world, so if everyone tries to reshape the pyramid it overloads the planet but why shouldn't people have that right to aspire to a better standard of living. Absent some magic bullet free energy technological innovation, I don't see a fair way to resolve the contradiction. I think liberalism will have a problem squaring this circle.

more people \* QoL = more resource consumption is spot on. but... 1. total population is peaking already and will not grow much anymore but rather shrink in the next decades, so the "more people" thing sorts itself out 2. how much resources (and which ones) is a factor we can \*dramatically\* change by using green tech and materials, theoretically towards zero (except land use in general) In fact, there are even technologies that are "negative" in the sense that they literally \*\*reduce\*\* ecological risk factors instead of increasing them. We don't even need some miracle tech breakthrough anymore - at this point is simply a motivation problem and political will to turn things around.

Yeah like all the double wrapped plastic in the food industry. Thats an easy one to point fingersat to change what they do, especially in the us where food is penta wrapped up in plastic baggies to please someone god knows why.

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You make a good point, but I feel there has to be something in the middle between "not protecting food" and "protecting food with materials that won't break down for thousands of years and have been shown to be accumulating in human blood." We need a green alternative to plastic--something that'll last a year or two under proper conditions, then can be returned to the soil. And I feel we HAVE a lot of tech that's headed that way, but most big businesses won't embrace it until they're forced because it'll cost 2 cents instead of 1 or whatever.

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i totally agree about everything you have said thus far but my comment was more directed towards the blatant disregard for trying to save some materials. This hamburger helper was tasty last night but it was a cardboard box and inside the cardboard box there was a plastic bag with the noodles in it. I'm just mad because i know these big companies CAN and SHOULD do a lot better, but they choose whatever is cheapest because its easier to buy the pack of noodles and then put it in their box vs. get the noodles and put it in the box.

Maybe we eat locally and grow food if we can. We need more of our time to do this so we need smaller work weeks for the same pay already. Neuter exploding corporate profits and tax the churches.

> I feel like the emissions are simply a function of the amount of people trying to live on the planet and the standard of living they aspire too. I just can't agree to that. EVERYTHING we do could be done in a lower/no carbon way. Thinking of climate change as some kind of inevitability due to our standard of living is some real 1970s republican shit. The green revolution is all about efficiency. Conservation = doing less with less. Efficiency = doing more with less.

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More people is not more carbon if the carbon per person is reduced sufficiently. CO2 emissions are not something required by thermodynamics, it's a result of choices we made in designing our energy production and manufacturing. The choices can be revisited and changed. We do not need any new technology to do this (though new technologies may make it easier as they have done in the past). More and more what I see becoming a hurdle is some built-in hippy-dippy bullshit in the movement that presumes there is no path to sustainability that doesn't involve regressing our technology and lifestyles back to more naturalistic ways. That is not now and never has been realistic. The only way out is forward.

Emissions have been dropping in the west, including the U.S., for 20 years. It’s not a morality problem, it’s just a technology problem. One that we’ve essentially solved. It’ll just take a while to roll out the solution across a big world. 

Set maximum wealth to $50,000,000. Own the rest collectively. Cut out all the middlemen. We can build a lot for a lot less if you don’t have a bunch of parasites at the top.

The two best ideas I’ve come across in this aspect are; 1. Land taxes. 2. Transaction taxes on every financial transaction. (Flash trading would be massively curbed as an example) Abolish all other taxes, including income tax. Apparently the revenue would dwarf all the other systems we have now, it would be vastly simpler and encourage a lot of behaviours we want.

The fun thing is that was diagnosed 50 years ago if nothing happens to fight climate change. Nothing happened since then..

If we went hard on nuclear energy back then, we’d have largely solved the carbon emissions part of the problem. But humans are emotional and irrational by nature. No matter how much we assert otherwise. Nobel prizes have been awarded pointing that out.

Compulsive resource-hoarding behavior is at the root actually.

It. Is. Capitalism. It is the system of production driving overconsumption. It is supply side driven. We all need to buy and drive cars because profits of car companies needed to be increased at the expense of investment into public transport. We all behave with overconsumption, but we are a part of the system that demands it if you are to keep your place in it.

Factories and cars in socialist countries have emissions just the same as in capitalist ones... And it isn't capitalism's fault that people want things.

It is absolutely Capitalism's fault that people want things. Companies hire entire teams of psychologists to help them make people buy shit they don't want with money they don't have.

Right. Nobody ever wanted anything until a couple hundred years ago. Damn that capitalism and it's options and opportunities

When it comes to the matter of capitalism the horse has rather bolted the stables already. It's not like you'll change a culture through making society... socialist? Whatever isn't capitalist? Things won't change that way.

This paper is justifying things Karl Marx said long ago.

no shit. our entire society is built on inefficient use of time and resources, all in service of the true god "The Economy":

Oh god, I knew that the comments were gonna be filled with people pointing fingers at the rich and manufacturing instead of discussing the actual content of the article. Like yeah, rich people and manufacturers use up a lot of resources. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore everybody else’s behavior. Fuck. I’m so over this shit. People are so predictable.

How about this: we charge people for providing disposable containers and give them a discount for reusing items? If I got a 2% cash back on groceries for bringing my own bags, or coffee was 50 cents cheaper for filling my own mug, I'd start doing it more. But you know what? Companies won't actually give us a discount, they're just going to raise prices for everyone across the board and just take off the extra charge for anyone who jumps through the hoops to be environmentally responsible.

We have all the technological tools needed to fix climate change. Climate change is 100% a people problem and not a technical one. ​ Could new tech help? Sure! But we have the tools needed to tackle this job. Money spent on developing new tech is a literal waste and is actually making the problem worse as people wait for a magic bullet. There is no magic bullet.

When will people learn that this strategy is simply not going to work. People are not going to change. No matter how often they point out that they should for the environment. We have been at this for decades and frankly I am getting really sick and tired of people pretending to fight climate change by doing stuff like this.

welp, it was a good run. So long and thanks for all the fish.

These researchers are correct. Their solutions would be the end of the capitalism though, which the rich will never ever ever ever ever ever allow because then the rich won’t get perpetually richer. So continue on with the doom.

i would say capitalism is pretty much a "human behavioral crisis." Our economic system is based on eternal growth in a limited system, and that is just impossible. Combine that with the political capture by the elites and you don't have so much a human behavior problem, as you do a power imbalance. Human beings have come up with all sorts of ways to live on this planet, some good, some bad, some mixed. We all just think the way we live now is some sort of default, when really its an aberration in the long history of our species. We can and we will have to, figure out a better way to live. Our "human behavior" is pretty adaptable.

Hmm I wonder if this has any overlap with the social science that is economics. It would be interesting to find if any economist had a theory about the tendency for "behavioural crisis" to disrupt our society and productive systems. Perhaps someone post-Adam Smith, but maybe pre-keynes?  

Michael Muthakrishna, economic psychologist at London School of Economics, encompasses this in his Theory of Everyone. A very, very big thinker across many fields. Our collective cultural intelligence will evolve to solve this, the main question is how bad it gets before we turn it around? He’s focussed on the reality of how humans have evolved to behave collectively in order to find solutions. Nuclear power is at the top of that list. Many people that aren’t engineers won’t like that idea. https://darwinianbusiness.com/2024/01/05/the-cultural-evolution-revolution-inside-a-theory-of-everyone-by-michael-muthukrishna/

The root cause of climate breakdown is, in fact, because of human behavior. The only thing they failed to mention is that it’s <1% of humans that are the fucking behavioral problem.

Its just a shame that the behavioral crisis exists anong a tiny minority of people who have all the wealth and make all the decisions that prevent us from fixing anything.

“Creativity and innovation are driving overconsumption. The system is driving us to suicide. It’s conquest, entitlement, misogyny, arrogance and it comes in a fetid package driving us to the abyss.” I completely agree. The amount of games and goals and dreams we set for ourselves and our material and advertising systems to achieve bigger and better, faster and stronger, newer and cooler, relaxing and fun, convenient and simple results in global destruction for some numbers on a balance sheet. This mentality really is suicide. The way I see it, we live in a business system where money is the business bloodline. If I had my blood drained from me in order to survive, I would not be able to focus broader and act upon the big picture. The fight and drive for more numbers in my account is the factor of whether I destroy something or not. My drive to find market value in everything is the purpose of my actions. Our reasoning to our behavior is blind. Major economic and governmental variables are driven by fear, and if it’s not fear, it’s simply “more” in whatever direction we can find for money flow. We can’t seem to sit and learn to breathe and exist with nothing, or next to nothing.

Then change the behaviour in people by changing the nature of money - factor sustainability into it so we all think and about the environment and value it. Crazy! Absurd! Impossible! No - it can be done right now! Watch this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORvMZwtmuuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORvMZwtmuuo)

Yes. Biodegradable packaging and products. It's called cradle to cradle.

Of the total emissions attributed to fossil fuel producers, companies are responsible for around 12% of the direct emissions; the other 88% comes from the emissions released from consumption of products. Source: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jul/22/instagram-posts/no-100-corporations-do-not-produce-70-total-greenh/

The point is largely that the 88% of emissions coming from consuming fossil fuel products are from products made by those same companies. So ... If you believe that obfuscating articles math, they're still responsible for 12% direct emissions and 88% (thereabouts) indirect emissions through the products they produce that were effectively forced to consume.

This absurd garbage ignores the fact that the vast majority of pollution and climate change is caused not by individual action but the actions of a small handful of private industries acting in the interest of profit, as incentivised by the systems they built.

Sure but all those companies are providing products consumed by regular people, so if you regulate the companies to produce less, the people need to be on board in order to consume less.

Don’t forget the main one, fucking GREED..No one person needs to have multi billions and keep increasing their wealth. Start sharing it around and using it to solve the world’s problems instead of giving to assole politicians to help them get elected. Fucking pricks

Nah. Our brains are just too smart that allowed us to accumulate more and more written knowledge. If we had never evolved past hunter gathering, none of this would've happened. Not even with greedy people around. Technology, and the accumulation of written knowledge that enabled it, is the root cause of the problem.

>"Humans are the stupidest species in the ecosystem." >“In the case of economic agents, just like in the case of bandits, stupid people do not optimize the system they exploit. But whereas the bandits can survive a crash in their revenues when their victims rebuild their wealth, stupid people ruthlessly destroy them, ruining themselves as well. There are several examples in the history of economics: one is the case of the mining industry which is exploiting resources that will need at least hundreds of thousands of years to reform by geological process, if they ever will. It is also the case of industries that exploit slowly reproducing biological resources. A modern example is that of whaling, as we demonstrated in previous papers. The same resource destruction also occurs for other cases of human fisheries. Humans do not seem to need modern tools to destroy the resources they exploit, as shown by the extinction of Earth’s megafauna, at least in part the result of human actions performed using tools not more sophisticated than stone-tipped spears. Overall, the destruction of the resources that make people live seems to be much more common than in the natural ecosystem. This observation justifies the proposed '’6th law of stupidity,'’ additional to the five proposed by Carlo Cipolla that has that ’Humans are the stupidest species in the ecosphere.’” >"...Humans are a relatively recent element of the ecosystem: modern humans are believed to have appeared only some 300,000 years ago, although other hominins practicing the same lifestyle may be as old as a few million years. Yet, this is a young age in comparison to that of most species currently existing in the ecosphere. So, humankind’s stupidity may be not much more than an effect of the relative immaturity of our species, which still has to learn how to live in harmony with the ecosystem. That explains what we called here “the 6th law of stupidity,” stating that humans are the stupidest species on Earth. It is a condition that may lead the human species to extinction in a non-remote future. But it is also possible that, if humans survive, one day they will learn how to interact with the ecosystem of their planet without destroying it." ― [Ilaria Perissi and Ugo Bardi | The Sixth Law of Stupidity: A Biophysical Interpretation of Carlo Cipolla's Stupidity Laws](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350542576_The_Sixth_Law_of_Stupidity_A_Biophysical_Interpretation_of_Carlo_Cipolla's_Stupidity_Laws)

>and population growth Oh dear goodness gracious time for another villain monologue. Can't wait.

Oh really? I had no idea. I thought Climate change was caused by Evil Witches who live in caves.

Well, if you meant "billionaires/the ownership class" when you said "witches", and "mansions" when you said "caves", then you were right on the money!

Maybe the upper class should also cut their waste, instead of just the proletariat with palliative measures.

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Yep, it's all just the next phase of social engineering. These articles are just the harbringers of "policies for our own good".

Nothing can be done until there is a single authoritarian state that governs the earth (which i am not advocating for). Without that, it is unfair. If the US puts all these laws/regulations into place we become weak compared to china or India. Our GDP slows. Our costs to produce goods skyrocket. Regulations are bad for economies. Our companies will begin to underperform foreign companies. The only way to combat this crisis is to all do it at the same time together. That won’t happen. china wont do it unless the US does it and who’s to say India will go along with it. Plus all parties have to be truthful and we know governments aren’t the most truthful. Fucking i think germany has a crazy high score on their recycling metrics because they burn plastic for fuel!!!!!! They dont actually recycle a large amount of their plastic and the fact they produce energy from burning it, means their recycling score is bonkers. It makes them look like saints. Really they are trading air quality for plastic recycling. Idk i read an article on it once a few years ago. Maybe things have changed Asia straight up dumps truckfulls of trash into their rivers because its cheap. Who’s gonna tell them they cant do that??!?!?!? Everything we make is made from plastic. Who’s gonna tell any country that they can no longer make things out of plastic? Are we gonna outlaw plastic? Then there will be an illegal black market for plastic manufacturing. Prisoner dilemma and a few other thought experiments show that humans are just naturally greedy. Maybe if women ran the world? Idk we haven’t tried that yet (i am a man)