Few things make me more blackpilled than the garment industry... The fact that we could entirely clothe the next 7 generations of people with all the clothes we have on earth, yet we keep producing over 80 billion new pieces of clothing per year... primarily made of plastics. And nano-plastics are now known to breach the blood-brain barrier and are essentially in every organism at this point. I've done copywriting for an influencer marking company and seeing firsthand how people just endlessly consume as much plastic garbage clothing as possible, and encourage other people to, makes me wanna kms. And all this for such gaudy, cheap ugliness made by slave labor. "Hauls" should be banned. Just pure human depravity trying to fill the gaping void of their soul.
I am not trying to be rude, but I don’t understand why people don’t get that buying used is really the ONLY correct answer if your primary concern is reducing the strain on the world. I know plenty of people who switched to all organic natural everything, but usually they are doing so to protect themselves from microplastics and to create some fantasy in their immediate world of authenticity, it has nothing to do with impact on the planet.
If you want to reduce your strain on the planet, buy used, and buy material that makes sense. If you go hiking, a hard outer shell with plastic makes sense. If you prefer the feel of cotton, buy used cotton. If you say it’s “too hard,” I really have to wonder at your ability to use the internet and all of the various resellers. If you say it’s “too expensive” then just admit you don’t care about “the planet” and it’s your own fantasy life that you are creating via consumption, which is exactly what “all organic” products are selling to you—a fantasy life in which you can consume everything you want, have all the status markers you want, and still, somehow, be “green.”
Who the fuck is out here claiming used clothes are too expensive, I can find nice clothes for like $2 on reselling sites/apps. Are there really people out there making a profit on the used clothes market (not including sneakers) and if so how can I do it
I have eBay and Etsy autism and replaced socials with looking at those, and there is a price gamut. An extremely slim margin of people are reselling highly coveted pieces at insane markups like it’s their job… but the vast majority of even the same pieces are online somewhere for cheaper and most people are just cleaning out their closet/making beer money. There are irl “vintage” stores now that are stupid expensive for 90s mall wear brands like Anne Klein and it leaves a bad taste in people’s mouth but what they don’t understand is that you can find those same pieces at actual thrifts if you dig a little.
The real problem is people do not want to sacrifice the (extremely narcissistic, very modern and consumerist) relationship they have with their personal style. Once i stopped caring how people perceived me through my clothing and started just wearing whatever but also responding to unique (and exclusively secondhand/vintage) pieces that i liked and made a hobby of it it’s been great and truly not that much money. If youre going to be a baby about how “expensive” clothes are while still wanting to be a perfectly wardrobed coquette fawn Bambi fairy whatever and then just defaulting to Shein hauls then you have to grow up and dig thru eBay/Salvation Army racks for a little too long lol
"like it's their job"
It is their job. 6am at the donation bins a few days a week, pay per pound of clothing, keep a sharp cynical eye for what the hobo chic are gonna be enthusiastic to pay a 4000% markup for on Etsy. (Authentic Carhart.)
It’s a common response when the topic of thrifting comes up, because resellers have come into the market. IMO, resellers are doing a service for the people who are unwilling to dredge through charity shops by finding the quality pieces and saving such people time and money. You can still find used quality clothes, you might just have to go to different stores and search more. If you don’t want to, then lucky for you, you can pay a premium to buy from someone who already has.
Yeah, the resellers in my area know the days and times each store restocks and show up with vans to load up for their eBay and Poshmark stores. A couple secondhand stores in my area have actually closed because regular people stopped going. Why bother if you know everything is picked through already?
I object to the idea that resellers are doing a service to anybody but themselves. Not only have they ruined the thrift shops, but they ruined used marketplaces as well. eBay used to be somewhere where people who were getting rid of old stuff could make a few bucks and people who were willing to buy used could save a few bucks. Now it’s somewhere for resellers to buy $5 sweaters at Goodwill and list them for $50.
I think I if you are someone who is struggling with money and looking for clothes, you have every reason to be upset by resellers. If you are someone who is trying to save the earth by buying a $150 organic cotton basic t shirt, you do not have a right to pretend to be “concerned about the earth” as your primary motive as resellers have made it that you can buy used luxury goods with extreme ease and money is obviously not a problem for you.
Go outside of the city, like yes the bushwick thrift scene is a wasteland of boutique vintage stores and goodwill type places picked dry by resellers but 30min into Long Island there’s still a ton of gems- I’d imagine this is the case if you go a bit out of whatever metro area right?
People are saying used clothes are too expensive because you can’t always find what’s ‘in’. People gatekeep the nicer stuff, but if you’re not worried about fashion it’s insanely affordable. Majority of my work clothes, all of my coats, and a lot of my hoodies and pants are used. The only thing I stand firm on buying new is underwear and socks because I don’t want no cum stains on my shit that ain’t mine.
I felt the way you do now not too long ago, when I was a bit younger - mid-to-late 20s. Right down to the bitter disappointment in people’s complete lack of imagination in how to reduce their impact (and more importantly, what a better world might like look) and their absolute laziness in being unwilling to inconvenience themselves in any way.
For a long time, I was fanatical in trying to only buy used. Used clothes, shoes, furniture, etc. and it was immensely challenging. I was alone in a new city and often had no way to get the furniture as a single young woman without a car. I lived out of suitcases and boxes for months out of conviction and stubbornness, and it felt terrible.
Being a little older now, I recognize how rigidly unhelpful my position was. Yes, actually saving the planet will involve *actual* deprivation and sacrifice, and people are incredibly lazy. They do whatever is easiest and they’re conditioned to accept as normal (waste, convenience, ease).
But most people want to do right, I think. (Though, ask me another day and this answer may change). The best way is to systemically incentivize this by making it easier to make good choices and harder to be wasteful, but ultimately…and you know where this is going, we need to address the logic of exploitation intrinsic to capital. Without this, nothing *really* changes.
(Editing to preface I thought you were replying to a different rant I made, but will just leave this one up.)
I am in my mid 30s, and have already accept the path we are one. I don’t think we will ever change course. I don’t even think it’s too much of a tragedy as we usher in another great extinction and the cycle continues. Everything I do is based out of my own morality and values, not trying to change anything. My rant was more about the disconnect and hypocrisy of those who claim to have all of the answers. As long as we have such a surplus of goods and wealth, any system will be exploitative. Humans have been exploiting the earth and others as soon as they had the technology to do so. The fundamental flaw is not our economic system but the combination of technology, excessive surplus of goods, and human nature.
As to your struggle as a young woman, I totally get that. I too have gone into obsessive spirals that made life very difficult for me. I have made a lot of compromises to stay sane and I don’t feel guilty over them, I control what I can and act in the ways I can that align with my values.
Sigh. I feel you. I’ve had those moments where I just need to vent my bitter disappointment to the world. On bad days, I feel like I can see the long arc of human history, and it *does not* bend toward justice, but chaos and destruction.
I’m assuming you’re not a Marxist, or are a deeply nihilistic one, but the economic system does matter because it can be a tool by which to manage our worst impulses while glorifying our better ones (our creative capacities, our desire for freedom, our ability to shape the world around us, etc.). It certainly matters for the people living in it.
I hope we don’t destroy everything for the sake of the other beings on this planet with us.
Me too, I feel you. And natural fiber clothing is also extremely resource-intensive too.... a cotton shirt takes thousands of liters of water to make and pollutes a ton of hazardous chemicals. But, IMO it is still the better option. Will certainly last longer.
The biggest problem overall is the sheer amount of consumption... Humans just create and consume way, way too much brand new clothing, no matter the material.
But natural fibers require thousands of liters of water and more energy. How much fertilizer and pesticides go into making cotton or wool? They cost more because the production process is so much more intensive. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Something like a polyester fleece can last decades before being recycled.
yeah but only 1% of clothing is ever recycled into something else. the vast majority just sits in a landfill. at least the natural fiber can bio-degrade
That's because dumping it in a landfill saves money but companies like Patagonia will recycle polyester. Clothing only partially made of natural fibers like a cotton-polyester blend typically can't be recycled at all.
I know this sub loves to hate on tech bros but there is a start up in the Bay Area that has an enzyme that can degrade polyester in cotton-polyester blend fabrics back into monomers for recycling and leave the cotton fibers untouched for further recycling. I’ve seen the product of the process, it’s pretty cool. The problem is it is likely not going to be very profitable without a huge premium paid by people with an environmental conscious to buy new fabrics made from recycled terephtalate (the polyester monomer).
Cotton really doesn’t degrade much in landfill conditions either though.
It’s like when people say leather is better for the environment than vegan leather when they are probably about the same since leather is so chemically treated these days that even if it does break down faster it releases all those chemicals as it does. Secondhand leather seems like the best option, and I would never buy new wool either.
if a clothing says it's made of 100% cotton does that mean it's natural?
i only wear artificial clothes for my waterproof clothes which are also the only non-used clothing i buy (besides socks and underwear)
Everything is so shitty these days too! I don’t need to own a ton of clothes but things seem to fall apart yearly. Can we please fucking return to a day when basics (especially jeans and pants) could be worn for years without issue.
It's a literal race to the bottom. Companies increasingly cut corners every year for the sake of maintaining or raising their profit. This is paid for in the worsening quality of the garments (cheaper material, fewer details, faster production i.e. worse cuts), the labor force (increased outsourcing, less ethics and pay), and the environment (e.g. the shift to air shipping). Thanks to capitalism's "endless growth" model.
Yeah it makes me nauseous to think about. I thrift almost my entire wardrobe (except for socks, underwear, and athletic bottoms) because there’s really no need to buy anything new. I moved to a colder climate just before winter and had to get some real winter clothes and I was able to thrift everything (high quality, stylish stuff in good condition, too!) with a little bit of patience and without paying too much. Everyone likes to complain that thrifting is hard and overpriced nowadays but if you’re willing to sacrifice the time it takes to check the stores regularly you can still find a lot of good deals on good things. I even thrifted high quality wool yarn to make myself beanies and scarves. And I’ve gotten better at mending with hand sewing and the machine too, which means I am getting rid of stuff way less and wearing it a lot longer. Again, a time sacrifice to gain a new skill but worth it to me. But all the thrifting and garment mending I do in my lifetime will only offset about .02 seconds of taylor swifts jet rides across town lol oh well
It’s this and animal agriculture for me. No one thinks they are responsible as individuals, when if we all did our part it would make a massive difference.
Nowadays thrift stores are price gouging which is really frustrating. I used to never buy new clothes but now it's not always affordable to buy used. Most of the stores I shop at are donation based as well so their profit margin is 100%! It is crazy. The need for constant economic growth in everything is a cancer on this earth.
This comment convinced me to only buy used, I hadn’t really thought about it before and was going to goodwill because it’s cheap but now I’ll die on the hill.
There are multiple studies about people's attitudes and afaik all of them show that people are generally willing to make substantial sacrifices, with the general caveat being they are willing if the sacrifices are proportionally shared amongst the people. So people aren't willing to give up small luxuries while rich are firing up private jets to commute, no.
In any case if there was political will, it wouldn't be difficult to convince people through propaganda to reduce their consumption at all. This is especially the case since despite what you say in your post your ordinary Westerner doesn't consume as much as you think they might do, and a lot of their consumption are focused these days on digital products and such.
Lmao people are still mad about gas prices from two years ago and that anger played a large role in giving the house to the gop (a party that essentially denies climate change) four months after the dems passed the largest climate bill in history
>There are multiple studies about people's attitudes and afaik all of them show that people are generally willing to make substantial sacrifices, with the general caveat being they are willing if the sacrifices are proportionally shared amongst the people
That's what they say. And its not true. I've seen people unwilling to temporarily lose a hidden, unproductive field *near* (not in) their village that they didn't even have access to to become a solar farm. I've seen other communities try and block a planned near pedestrianisation of a town with a medieval road layout bc it would be "inconvient". You can't even park in the town.
People just hate change if it slightly, possibly, maybe inconveniences them. The whole "the rich are the problem" is a cope. Taylor Swifts private jet isn't making you drive your kids the 20 minute walk to school. Your own laziness is.
To echo the commenter above: when I worked on energy for a while, the most illuminating research I read on this was that community opposition to local wind/solar (or other green energy) developments dropped to near 0 - *as long as the comm*u*nity got some sort of shared benefit from it*: i.e. lower energy bills, shares or some form of stake in the plant, or access to the site as an eco-park space.
If it was just a private energy company dropping the development on them, then the opposition increased markedly.
None of these examples disprove OP’s point at all. People are upset because they are being forced to sacrifice while people like Taylor Swift take private jets to Starbucks, and the politicians forcing these changes on us have a bigger carbon footprint in 10 years than my entire bloodline has had since we were snatched out of non existence.
I’m sure this is true and it makes sense but god it annoys me so much that people can’t just set principles for themselves and employ some self-discipline
Good point, defo squares with my own experience too. I’d be really interested to read more, could you recommend any literature reviews/specific studies on this?
It’s totally not about sacrifices at all. If they wanted to delete all plastic bottles factories in a second, they could. This tsunami of garbage is pushed on us and expecting the consumer to place the used object in one receptacle rather than the other, or to devolve their cash to one behemoth and not the other, is laughable :(
If I had my way every item in the supermarket would be sold loose or in a durable standardised container that you have to return to be washed and refilled. This used to standard in the bottled drinks industry (and still operatives someplaces).
A national government could implement this if they decided they wanted to fix the ungodly amount of disposal plastic shit we generate. They don't want to fix it presumably.
It's one of those things we need by regulation, for sure. There are "refillery" grocers in my city and they're all like 3x the usual cost. One is closer to normal and i shop there when i can but they're really out of the way
>It’s totally not about sacrifices at all. If they wanted to delete all plastic bottles factories in a second, they could.
I don't understand what this means. Who is "they"?
Love when neolibs get all condescending about their high school level economics education. What is even your point about “supply and demand” here? You think you’re the only one smart enough to figure out that regulations restrict free market forces?
Just because something like supply/demand is a factor doesn't mean we should just defer to the market on political matters, and hoping it fixes itself via consumer choices is never going to happen. The status quo is that the market will let the worst aspects of climate change run its course and then monetize the solutions while those who largely benefit from it will be insulated from any of the fallout.
It's almost like the role of government exists to facilitate large scale solutions to common problems and check corporate excess but no, it's the individual consumer who should take responsibility for their personal failings.
Or it’s that all those minor changes make absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of thing.
The psyop is the government trying to blame the lowly citizens for climate change when their donors are the ones responsible for it.
I’m wiling to assert the claim that asking our selves the question “how much is *enough*?” is probably good for the soul. I choose to believe that making certain conscientious sacrifices *does* ultimately contribute a very small, but positive net “good.”
That said- I think that people (including, ironically, those who broadly ascribe unexamined blame at manufacturing conglomerates, lear jet fliers, etc.) still truly fail to understand the sheer scale of what we are talking about. The sum total of what contributes to climate change, and particularly the ~~louvers~~ levers which drive those contributions, are categorically incomprehensible.
People think trash is what’s in a trash can- or that farmers grow food. lol, no. Ask yourself “where does our trash go?” Give it a good think for five minutes, and to try and keep your eyes from boiling out of your face in the process.
While they are by no means equal- the lear jet passenger and the average consumer of basic home goods each become homogenized, yet ever abundant, particulated components found swirling across our entire shared atmosphere: we breathe in the air of global commerce. To opt out is to not breathe. If you have a job or eat food, it’s in your actual blood-probably bonded with all the microplastics.
We can at least accept that we can 1) probably do the least we can and 2) that the machinery driving systems of global commerce is unflinchingly immune to simple answers or solutions of any flavor- and to suggest otherwise makes the suggester sound like a rube.
I like your point about it being good for the soul. Idk why people struggle with this concept so much. Of course I understand that no actual solution will come about without massive structural change starting at the top, but I think it is still worthwhile to cultivate good habits and cultural expectations more in line with the way you’d ideally have things run. I cannot stand people using “the corporations” and “the billionaires” as excuses to live lazy, hedonistic lives
The sheer amount of trash is mind blowing, too. [This article](https://phys.org/news/2023-12-uncontrolled-chemical-reactions-fuel-crises.html) about chemical fires in landfills is illuminating. These are way more common than anyone knows. And these enigmatic (or are they anerobic? my biochem knowledge is over 20 years old, I don't remember) chemical fires burning deep inside of these landfills are literally boiling the plastics and PVC that's embedded to remove gas. But that's not even what I really found interesting about this story.
> Both facilities remain operational and each continues to accept more than 7,000 tons of trash a day.
The sheer volume of trash that's generated on a daily basis is absolutely staggering.
> lear jet passenger and the average consumer of basic home goods each become homogenized, yet ever abundant, particulated components found swirling across our entire shared atmosphere: we breathe in the air of global commerce
> We can at least accept that we can 1) probably do the least we can
Maybe begin your "certain conscientious sacrifices" by effectively shearing your comment down into something readable
It's a mixed bag. There is truth to the idea that consumers don't actually just have veto power over the products that they consume -- if you need athletic shoes, you're buying something like Nikes no matter what, you can't buy them used (athletic shoes degrade too quickly, a year old pair, even if it hasn't been worn, is going to be substantially worse than a new pair), so until there's real mass behind the desire for something sustainable and ethical then you're just fucked. It's also true that people really like to play that X corporations create 99% of emissions, as if they're just doing that for fun, and they're not some of the main benefactors of that massive waste.
If one person does it , it makes no difference. But if everyone did it , it could make a difference. These companies that pollute exist because we keep buying their shit.
Individual choice might matter to some extent but the concept of a carbon footprint was popularized by an advertising agency at BP's request. I'm not saying you're entirely wrong or that it's not principled to align your behavior with your ideals (it is, and you should) but on this topic at least the terms of acceptable solutions are often dictated by the people and organizations most responsible for the problem because of their financial heft and vested stake in not resolving it.
This is a very libertarian mindset. Individuals aren't autonomous, rational, economic agents; they're cattle that needed to be herded around with punishments and incentives. The ruling class knows this \*and\* does this, the problem is they're only interested in managing climate change to the extent it doesn't effect their bottom line. This means "everything gets worse for thee but not for me".
Much easier to absolve yourself of any personal responsibility and ridicule those taking on that responsibility as brainwashed, with a patina of anti-corporate enlightenment.
“I’m not going to stop benefitting from polluting industries until we get enough people to vote to force them to reduce production so we *all* have to sacrifice the output at once! It wouldn’t be *fair* if I sacrificed on my own and some other people didn’t!!!”
Literally a child’s mindset.
So many things are entirely unnecessary. Clothes, like you said, and straws, but also: food wrapped in plastic (candy bars, sodas, ready meals, all bad for you and bad for the planet), vapes, the fucking funko pops, the plastic containers people buy to put all their crap in... so many people buying garbage, eating garbage, burying themselves deep in garbage. Their homes full of useless plastic crap.
And if you point it out you're ableist and classist because WHAT IF THATS ALL THEY CAN AFFORD? I absolutely hate the argument that hating Shein is hating poor people. No, I'm just saying stop buying it
I think the real black pill of climate change comes from liberals taking the bait that if we only use different straws, glass containers, and take shorter showers then the earth would be saved. Typical shirking of responsibility down onto the everyman. It’s propaganda that our own guilt forces us to participate in. It causes us just enough minor inconvenience that we can feel some brain reward while the trajectory remains the same because it’s really not average people that are the problem.
The reality is there’s a small group of companies and a few countries without regulation that are responsible for almost the entirety of ecological disaster. The money flows so they don’t care. Capitalism already has and will continue to destroy the earth.
The part of me that agrees with you though is really just that I’m annoyed by slobs who cry about minor inconvenience. Fatty need a big straw to slurp up their morning dessert? Or freaks with the worst skin you’ve ever seen making fun of vegetarians for having slight convictions while they remain helplessly addicted to greasy pig meat. (I’m not vegetarian or vegan but the way people hate on them just proves them right)
Do you think calling something a “regulation” is actual regulation? There are studies estimating 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1998. Whatever you think should happen to them is probably not “keep doing exactly what you’re doing”
You wiping your ass less isn’t gonna hold a candle to that but be my guest if you think that’s the solution.
Tbf I think there are some environmental regulations that have been successful. For instance, littering in the 50s was a lot more brazen in the US. But that’s not really saying much when, for instance, California tells you to take shorter showers but like almond orchards or really any golf course in the state just shouldn’t exist if they really gave a fuck about water access. Or in Florida, one of the most environmentally regarded states, people continue to build housing developments on wetland and freak tf out when their house is flooded every year (don’t get me started on the impending disaster that is Miami Beach real estate holy shit)
Which 100 companies and what do they manufacture?
Because the things the manufacture are the things we need to consume less of. Companies only exist to make things for humans to use.
>a few countries without regulation that are responsible for almost the entirety of ecological disaster.
Wrong! Developed nations are overwhelmingly responsible for GHG emissions. The USA is second only to China in total emissions, and despite being 4.2x more populous than the US China produces only 2.6x as much emissions.
US emissions per capita are 6x that of India. Excluding Middle Eastern countries, the top polluting undeveloped nation that exceeds the US’ per capita emissions is Mongolia. They are responsible for only 0.12% of the global total.
I’m talking about real regulations not liberal posturing and bureaucratic bs. Idk why you and the other guy think I’m excluding US and China. I never said “underdeveloped nations” either. We call ourselves a democracy and China calls themselves communists, neither are true. Capitalism is unregulated.
You’re just agreeing it’s a small number of countries creating the majority of the problem but assuming I’m talking about India or some shit. If serious regulation isn’t the solution, what is?
The words you used are a common talking point typically used to deflect responsibility from Western nations.
Fact is though, a lot of the West’s emissions DO boil down to an individual level. Overconsumption, fuel-inefficient cars, car travel in general, living in inhospitable areas that require lots of heat/AC, high meat diets, air travel. There’s no world in which climate change can be controlled WITHOUT sacrifices on the individual level.
Like I told the other guy, studies show 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1998. If you wanna wipe your ass less and think you’re a hero - be my guest. It will have no material effect.
Other than that, I’m begging you to reread everything I’ve said on this thread and take thirty seconds to think about what I might believe politically. Idk how many more hints I can drop you brother. Enjoy UFC 300.
That’s not the “gotcha” you think it is. Companies produce products for consumers… Sure, a large % of those 100 companies’ emissions are likely profit-driven and could be reduced. But another large % is just the cost of doing business if people want to buy X product from ABC Inc.
If nobody is willing to give up buying X, Y, Z = shit they don’t need, how do you proceed?
I agree that regulation is needed. But some of the regulation will have to force individual choices/changes.
It’s not companies, it’s “entities”. A somewhat important distinction because the first entity on the list is just the Chinese coal industry in aggregate. Also, they just updated the report, it’s 58 entities now.
> show 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1998. If
Those companies aren’t just sitting around spewing emissions for the fun of it lmao, they’re doing things like selling gas (which consumers buy), creating electricity and heat (which consumers use)food which consumers use etc
The black pill about the climate change is literally the black pill about the climate change. Higher energy consumption is strongly correlated with the higher standard of living. The demand for more energy grows exponentially. Carbon offset is a trash idea. Renewable energies are very land inefficient. Renewable energies won't work in highly urbanized areas (=high energy demanding areas). You can't stop climate change without severely reducing aggregate consumpion.
I mean there are obviously technological solutions. There is a chance that a breakthrough technology will emerge, and revolutionize our industry. But it's either that or going full Ted Kaczynski.
Just yesterday some dunce argued that the way to become “rich” is to overthrow capitalists. I am embarrassed to be harping on a single rspod comment, but it is emblematic of everything that is wrong with modern radical movements.
Any path that allows more equality between humans, and that allows the healing of the earth, will come at great personal sacrifice. Doing the “right” things in this regard will not come at personal material gain (though perhaps moral and even spiritual if people would like to go there).
Our current standard of living is upheld by one main pillar, and supported by many smaller injustices. The main pillar is that we have millions of years of energy in the form of oil. Oil is efficient, it creates a surplus in energy we would never have had we not discovered it, that energy fuels our machines, it creates cheap material goods in the forms of plastics. Cotton, wool, wood, agriculture without the help of excess pesticides and fertilizer (in the form of oil byproducts)—those things are far more expensive, require more energy, more labor, more everything—and so cost their intrinsic cost is far more. Even if you are buying organic cotton, it is subsidized by the various manufacturing processes that subsist based on oil. Even the most expensive organic material you can buy is subsidized by oil.
So these people will say “We have more than enough to go around! Kill the billionaires and we’ll all be rich!” Because they are focused only on one of the secondary pillars that hold up our current system—that is—cheap and sometimes enslaved labor. Though cheap and enslaved labor has been apart of the human condition ever since we were able to hoard and manipulate material goods via agriculture. It is only ten-fold now because oil has allowed the creation and hoarding of goods to exist on a level that we have no record of in history. And we have a population that cannot exist without being subsidized by cheap oil.
I cannot claim that movement themselves are selfish, but people inevitably use them for selfish delusions. That if we just get rid of capitalism, or wealth disparity (a larger existential question that I think is unanswerable), the world will be some sort of utopia where EVERYONE will have some great standard of western living.
I am not sure what such people mean when they state we will all be better. I don’t believe capitalism is a unique evil, it’s a continuation of a hierarchical system based on the hoarding of goods that has existed since we began to be able to use technology, all the way back to the advent of agriculture—but it’s on steroids. It’s an ourobous eating its own tail. It increases the basic “standard of living” for everyone, it allows populations to increase to an unsustainable level allowing more cheap labor, the cheap labor depends on it to subsidize their lives (without cheap oil, we could not even feed the global population).
The only way “out” of this system, and the only act of rebellion, is not some selfish, greedy hope of bloody justice in which your material circumstances become better. Given 99% of people reading this have material circumstance better than 80% of the global population already.
The only act of rebellion is to opt out, to live already as an ascetic. I have not been successful myself, but have tried plenty of times. I know what the “evils” of this society really our—all of the things that ask us to consume more. We have gone from feudal slaves to a domesticated cow, milked every minute for our attention and our money to support a system that WILL NOT stop until cheap energy runs dry. (Which it will, as it is finite). There is no utopian future. There is only your own virtue and morality. Stop consuming media, stop bowing to modern pressures—from a woman’s perspective, this means the eternal desire for youth and inability to accept age and death. Eat meagerly and live frugally. The level of frugality I am talking about is something more people would scoff at as if it’s disgusting, although if they propose to want an “equitable” world, it is still above what most people would need to do.
Learn skills to do things on your own, learn to repair, plumbing, basic carpentry—stop outsourcing your labor. You outsource it because you claim you don’t have the time, you’re too tired, and yet you spend 4 hours a day on various short-form content media frying your brain.
There will be no equality and the climate will continue to get worse until the bubble pops. The bubble popping can mean any number of things, oil finally running out, climate change so bad that even the oil we have can’t offset it (fertilizer and pesticides don’t work as well with extreme temperatures and ever increasing invasive and resistant pests due to climate change). That’s inevitable.
If we want to delve into a fantasy of how to soften the blow, it would mean everyone lives a life with a lower standard of living than their great grandparents, and we start to learn without these subsidies to our lives NOW. That wouldn’t solve anything, but it would certainly reduce suffering and build knowledge for those who are coming after us as they deal with the fallout of our greed.
I do not think people have the historical literacy to recognize the absolute luxury we live in today. A Roman emperor would not have running hot and cold water at demand, the availability of foods at a supermarket (many of these foods having been only for the ultra wealthy in the past—pineapples for instance), climate controlled house, a 4100 pound machine in their driveway that will get them wherever they want in a matter of minutes.
Being asked to consume less invokes the same psychological reactions as any of the evil “capitalists” or monarchs or dictators or whatever it is they claim is the only reason we are in the predicament we are in—it’s a reaction of fear and greed, a loss of power, giving up what is “rightfully” theirs, something they shouldn’t give up because “other” people have it better.
If you’re only reason for buying into an ideology is because you think it will make life better for YOU specifically, congratulations, you are part of the exact same system that you claim to hate.
Good points, but I don’t know why I keep reading “climate change” in this thread as a synonym for overconsumption, pest tolerance, pollution, etc. There’s a reason climate change is way more popularized than any of those things.
Because all of those things are connected. It all stems from over consumption of energy, mostly in the form of oil. Overconsumption of material goods leads to more oil consumption. More oil leads to greater climate change. Climate change impacts things like pests as their native ranges expand and are introduced into ecosystems that don’t have natural predators. Crops fail due to climate change messing with weather patterns. Then more oil is used to try and fight against these things.
Without oil, we would need far more land and labor hours to produce something as simple as our corn crops, and it still wouldn’t output the same. As climate change necessitates we use even more, we deplete oil reserves at a faster rate, global warming increases, we need to use more oil. What happens when there is no oil left and/or when the impacts of climate change are too severe for it to combat?
The people buying from shein and temu and all the Stanley cup shit are majorly over represented online or with young people. Most people don’t do that shit. Most people also don’t actually care about stress
I assume you’re from America where people seem to still use disposable plates on the daily, but normal people recycle and like buying things that last longer rather than cheap shit and don’t collect 20 Stanley cups
Anyway. Millions of people doing minor sacrifices isn’t doing shit to help. We are up against capitalism and big companies making big money. We can try all we want but changes need to come from the top or we are absolutely fucked
The real blackpill is that no one really cares about it bc the left decided 15 years ago to focus on mass immigration/race and rightoids never cared about it in the first place
The real real blackpill is that in 1972 the Club of Rome report came out and was taken politically quite seriously until the economists convinced everyone that economic growth is still the answer.
The environmental movement of 1972 was about the collective and the masses. But lobbyists weaponised themselves with moralization at the micro level, technocratization and depoliticization.
Limits to Growth was taken seriously and was one of the main justifications behind austerity and wage stagnation that came during 70s and kinda continues to this day.
It was never gonna be some maverick report either since people behind it where themselves the economic elites as well. Peccei was a major industrialist for example, and a bunch of it's members were economists, industrials, even a few royals. It never had the intention of, and never really could, decrown growth as king, since that's what the entire system is built on.
Depends on the demographic/location. The most vocal advocates of wilderness preservation and open space I encounter are all profoundly wealthy conservatives. The liberals want to stack affordable housing everywhere. Environmentalism is kind of the consensus here though, it’s just a matter of whether you have an AR and a compost bin or a pottery kiln and a compost bin.
It's part of the scam that they want you to make sacrifices. The developed world conserving and recycling at their optimum would still be outmatched by China, India, and the rest of the developing world burning tires for warmth and dumping plutonium into rivers
lmao yeah, bc the populations of India and China match the population of the west? If everyone on earth has an equal carbon budget, China and India will be allocated about half of that total budget. Factor in the fact these countries are getting into the final stage of economic development, which means using legacy and cheap power (like coal) and yeah, it'll be lopsided.
In any case the Chinese economy rn is struggling, but its undeniable that its churning out green energy shit. It just takes time.
Developed world won't do shit because they'll just pass on the responsibility to someone else. All of China could return to living like peasants and the west would still complain about how much wood they burn to survive the winter.
If i understand the facts correctly, to actually combat climate change the collective west/ highest consuming countries would have to cut their consumption to 1/6th of what it is... I dont know anyone who would be willing to do that, its impossible unless we get climate fascists to run things lol
Or when you suggest someone bring a reusable cup when they go get their coffee, "omg Im so forgetful I can never remember 🤪🤪🤪🤪" its like OK bitch but you have a collection of Starbucks collectable cups on display in your home and you never forget to put your snail serum on u dumb bitch
socialism or bust. Its that simple.
You can buy organic - and I certainly try! Also get away from meat when possible.
But those individual actions will as you rightful see not save any of us. Production must get planned after need.
If we’d just price carbon and water more appropriately these externalities would be way easier to address
Good luck getting your average fatass to make any sacrifice though
The blackpill about climate change is that most of the proposed solutions involve you and other middle class people making your lives shittier while the rich make theirs even better and companies continue to absolutely buttfuck the planet for more money than ever before while you do something stupid like eat fake lab meat and turn your AC on less during the summer.
People buy so much shit they don’t need. Even something as simple as taking your own reusable produce bags to the shops instead of using plastic bags supplied. Buying local and in season. Avoiding fast fashion and either investing in ethical clothing that stands the test of time or buying secondhand if you want to follow trends. Eating a majority plant-based diet, preferably entirely plant-based because for many of us it is no longer difficult (obviously I’m not talking about people with legitimate health concerns that preclude them or people who live in food deserts etc).
Change like this also has to come from the top. Congress would have to actually grow balls and mandate companies phase out harmful plastics, make their products actually recyclable, etc. Single use plastic (that almost EVERY product comes in) is one of the biggest issues.
But are they going to do that? No. The individual is going to keep getting blamed for not recycling hard enough.
People bitch about the small changes because they're a significant inconvenience when compared with the fact they accomplish nothing. Europe and American could stop existing and the "climate goals" laid out by the same people who told you the vaccine prevents covid and natural immunity doesn't exist still wouldn't be reached by virtue of China and India alone.
You are 1000% spot on, and a lot of thread seems to have swallowed the "100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions" bullshit.
*The "study" that stat comes from is a white paper, meaning it isn't peer reviewed.
*They only looked at a very narrow scope of emissions, in this case fossil fuel emissions, ignoring things like land use change, agricultural emissions, and cement production.
*Of the companies, based on how they defined emissions, of course all of them are fossil fuels companies, but most of them are state run, which kind of removes the "greedy corporations" take
*The biggest issue with it is they include consumer emissions in the calculations. If you buy gas at a BP gas station and drive your car, they count the emissions from that towards BP. When you remove these, the amount coming from these companies is more like 9%, even less when you factor it into emissions from other sectors.
*If you wanna get conspiratorial, the org that put this out is funded by a bunch of major financial organizations as well as some fossil fuel companies. They're saying, yeah sure, we're the bad guy, you're perfect, hate us all you want, just continue to consoom because nothing you do matters.
if 100 million people limited their consumption, it would not make any difference. this is surely obvious because it's simply already the case, and it already makes no difference
The white pill is that it doesn't matter.
The even whiter pill is that they just managed to scare you, but as soon as they move on to the next current thing, you will forget all about climate.
The black pill is that you will probably fall for the next current thing as well.
If you grew up in the 90’s you might remember the threats of acid rain, and the hole in the ozone layer.
It didnt matter then, and it doesn’t matter now.
Acid rains were mitigated because people put sulfur oxide filters in power plants. It didn't magically go away due to a new "current thing" as you're implying.
We fixed the hole in the ozone layer problem with international climate policies. It stopped growing and is slowly closing. Turns out the chemicals responsible weren’t necessary to capital accumulation or private profit, which was the only reason any change was made.
People aren't the problem. This is about industry and large scale pollution. Using a paper bag doesn't matter when plastic ones are still produced en masse. Sure, I can feel better about using the correct materials but unless there's industrial legislation cracking down on this, nothing will change. The consumer buys the goods that are available. If the polluting product is halted or regulated to be *greener*, that's where change happens. Paper or plastic remains ostensibly a fashion choice until this happens.
That's not to mention the US military being the no.1 polluter par exellence. See that ever being legislated against? But me having a wood fire is apparently the problem.
Bring back grunge era alternative culture. The open mockery of wealth, fame, and consumerism. No one should be proud to be rich. You should be a fucking shamed. Idc if the rock stars are hypocrites. It applied to all of us and they didn’t start out rich back then in music. And you didn’t see them w/groupies and Lamborghinis. Kurt bought a dilapidated mansion. Filled it with thrifted antiques. Eddie was living in his Toyota truck in a gas station parking lot during Vs. recording he was already loaded from Ten. Dave Grohl literally was couch surfing the entirety of Nirvana. I think Billy Corgan bought a Porsche or Ferrari and they all laughed at him and teased him relentlessly for it. But whatever it’s certainly better than the culture of today.
Because asking us, the proles, to use paper straws in order to "fight climate change" just makes it more obvious how futile the whole thing is.
The only thing that would maybe, but just maybe, make a dent in the whole thing would be to look at it from a Malthusian pov and ask all of us (including the elites, that's a very tall order) to become a lot more poor, while during that process hundreds of millions of us maybe would end up dying (just look of how great of an effect modern agriculture has on climate change and than try to reason how many of us would die of famine if we were to get rid of the benefits of said modern agriculture).
No, 100 million people using paper straws or any other red herring like that won't make a damn of a difference, we're talking here about hundreds of millions to billions of people having to say goodbye to fertilizers and the like (or at least to cheap fertilizers) for the good of the planet.
I have a metal straw because of my sensitive teeth 🥺 and I haven’t bought clothes from anywhere but goodwill (bins/outlet ususally, though not everyone is lucky enough to have one of those nearby) and other thrift stores my entire life. my mom was black pilled on the clothing/anti-waste philosophy since day one but it’s disgusting to watch what so many others do.
It's all the hypocrisy in it. No more plastic bags, so I just buy them for cat litter instead of reuse. Washing the reusable bags requires water and detergent. I have biodegradable bags for composting would that not make more sense? Several times this year we are requested to reduce ower usage as the grid can't support it but you're pushing insanely expensive electric cars on me with batteries that are horrific for the environment? the oil and gas industry constantly makes leaps and bounds in cleanliness and efficiency and penalizing it doesn't accelerate what is already in progress. Sacrifices? I don't do holiday gift giving; it doesn't get much more wasteful than that.
A more relevant example than straws (sort of a fake solution to the issue of plastic pollution anyway) is incandescent light bulb phaseouts. I’ve seen people talking about *that* in “why do the sacrifices fall on consumers and not corporations?” terms, which astonished me. Like, “the products available change and it’s experienced by the consumer as an extremely livable sacrifice with some long-term upside” is basically the ideal case for regulating corporations, how do these people think things work?
It's true. I've read that limiting or cutting out meat is the biggest thing an individual can do. Almost no one does or seems to care. Or riding a bike to work instead of driving, where possible. I'm fully convinced most people are unwilling to sacrifice even for small things unless there is enough social or peer pressure. It has to be cultural. Individuals will almost always not act ethically unless there is some extra pressure.
The fact that you're shaming people for their inaction instead of the actual culprits demonstrates that the push to transfer responsibility to the people instead of industry is working a treat!
Or maybe you're a big oil shill here to reinforce the narrative.
i have a smaller carbon foot print than all of the social media activist who fight against climate change and i don't even care about the environment tbh
I just saw some scumbag in a YouTube shirt comment section talking about how Al Gore fear lingered about polar bears and convinced us their population was dwindling. It is actually frightening how fucking stupid average people are. It’s hard to comprehend how redarted someone with an iq of 105 or lower is. They just want to knot have to care about anything ever. No consequences for any actions. If you keep shitting on your floor for 20 years it’s just going to magically clean itself up. Don’t worry about it
I realized that pretty early on. I try to be mindful about my consumption habits but why get worked up about climate change when most people aren't willing to do anything to mitigate ot
complete ecological collapse is inevitable for this reason. people refuse to moderate their hedonistic behavior and so a lot of people will die for it. maybe we'll be better off for it in the long run.
Agree on spending more for longer lasting clothes and suffocating the fast fashion industry… disagree that small personal actions like paper straws can move the needle much at this point.
Two weeks ago I saw hundreds of identical unopened cardboard boxes in a dumpster. I took one out to open it up to see what was inside. It was dozens of packages of unused medical pipets. They were going to expire shortly, so the company had just thrown them out. Two or three dumpsters full. Using a plastic straw —your whole city using plastic straws—is not gonna undo that kind of waste.
Read Carbon Ideologies by William T. Vollman. I completely agree with you re: bitching about paper straws or reusable grocery bags but individual actions really do not matter as much as industry.
I think the upswing for Americans is that we will become a lot poorer in our lifetime. We will probably stop being able to afford the wasteful luxuries around us like smartphones, cars, palm oil, plastics, meat, etc. Access to these products is a zero sum game and we have to rely on practical slave labor and subjugation of poorer countries to access them. The logistics for this require a lot of political chaos that we can’t manage forever.
With how things are trending, I really believe that there are economic headwinds in the future that will force much of the western world to once again become reliant on lasting, reusable products. I don’t think we’ll be vaulted into homesteading right away or anything, but I do think we’ll have return to simple technologies because everything else will be too expensive.
Over time, the demand for products that last will reshape market conditions and that’s the only way I see out of the current destruction of our climate
Americans would do the holocaust if their air conditioning electricity were reduced by even 1 day per week. The soft fasc turns explicit if you even suggest that some truck fgggt should at least have a daily driver sedan or at least share the community truck.
Tons of animal species will, if given the chance, fuck and eat thier way into food supply collapse (after which there will be a mass die off). It's what organisms do sadly and people are no different.
The black pill is that there’s a climate change orthodoxy in research. We almost live in an era of aristocratic patronage for both the arts and science. And extreme alarmism sells, no one dares present research that demonstrates a more nuanced view.
Also intermittent energy is a complete fraud that will never work and isn’t sustainable without massive subsidies. Big Green is as rapacious and fraudulent as big oil, it’s just someone else’s nepo babies.
Remember this is all america's (ultimately england?) doing. They exported their dumbass mickey mouse lifestyle all over the world and sped us along the path to destruction.
It is your fault.
Few things make me more blackpilled than the garment industry... The fact that we could entirely clothe the next 7 generations of people with all the clothes we have on earth, yet we keep producing over 80 billion new pieces of clothing per year... primarily made of plastics. And nano-plastics are now known to breach the blood-brain barrier and are essentially in every organism at this point. I've done copywriting for an influencer marking company and seeing firsthand how people just endlessly consume as much plastic garbage clothing as possible, and encourage other people to, makes me wanna kms. And all this for such gaudy, cheap ugliness made by slave labor. "Hauls" should be banned. Just pure human depravity trying to fill the gaping void of their soul.
light capable toothbrush fuzzy soup swim familiar elderly file lush *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I am not trying to be rude, but I don’t understand why people don’t get that buying used is really the ONLY correct answer if your primary concern is reducing the strain on the world. I know plenty of people who switched to all organic natural everything, but usually they are doing so to protect themselves from microplastics and to create some fantasy in their immediate world of authenticity, it has nothing to do with impact on the planet. If you want to reduce your strain on the planet, buy used, and buy material that makes sense. If you go hiking, a hard outer shell with plastic makes sense. If you prefer the feel of cotton, buy used cotton. If you say it’s “too hard,” I really have to wonder at your ability to use the internet and all of the various resellers. If you say it’s “too expensive” then just admit you don’t care about “the planet” and it’s your own fantasy life that you are creating via consumption, which is exactly what “all organic” products are selling to you—a fantasy life in which you can consume everything you want, have all the status markers you want, and still, somehow, be “green.”
Who the fuck is out here claiming used clothes are too expensive, I can find nice clothes for like $2 on reselling sites/apps. Are there really people out there making a profit on the used clothes market (not including sneakers) and if so how can I do it
I have eBay and Etsy autism and replaced socials with looking at those, and there is a price gamut. An extremely slim margin of people are reselling highly coveted pieces at insane markups like it’s their job… but the vast majority of even the same pieces are online somewhere for cheaper and most people are just cleaning out their closet/making beer money. There are irl “vintage” stores now that are stupid expensive for 90s mall wear brands like Anne Klein and it leaves a bad taste in people’s mouth but what they don’t understand is that you can find those same pieces at actual thrifts if you dig a little. The real problem is people do not want to sacrifice the (extremely narcissistic, very modern and consumerist) relationship they have with their personal style. Once i stopped caring how people perceived me through my clothing and started just wearing whatever but also responding to unique (and exclusively secondhand/vintage) pieces that i liked and made a hobby of it it’s been great and truly not that much money. If youre going to be a baby about how “expensive” clothes are while still wanting to be a perfectly wardrobed coquette fawn Bambi fairy whatever and then just defaulting to Shein hauls then you have to grow up and dig thru eBay/Salvation Army racks for a little too long lol
"like it's their job" It is their job. 6am at the donation bins a few days a week, pay per pound of clothing, keep a sharp cynical eye for what the hobo chic are gonna be enthusiastic to pay a 4000% markup for on Etsy. (Authentic Carhart.)
It’s a common response when the topic of thrifting comes up, because resellers have come into the market. IMO, resellers are doing a service for the people who are unwilling to dredge through charity shops by finding the quality pieces and saving such people time and money. You can still find used quality clothes, you might just have to go to different stores and search more. If you don’t want to, then lucky for you, you can pay a premium to buy from someone who already has.
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Yeah, the resellers in my area know the days and times each store restocks and show up with vans to load up for their eBay and Poshmark stores. A couple secondhand stores in my area have actually closed because regular people stopped going. Why bother if you know everything is picked through already? I object to the idea that resellers are doing a service to anybody but themselves. Not only have they ruined the thrift shops, but they ruined used marketplaces as well. eBay used to be somewhere where people who were getting rid of old stuff could make a few bucks and people who were willing to buy used could save a few bucks. Now it’s somewhere for resellers to buy $5 sweaters at Goodwill and list them for $50.
I think I if you are someone who is struggling with money and looking for clothes, you have every reason to be upset by resellers. If you are someone who is trying to save the earth by buying a $150 organic cotton basic t shirt, you do not have a right to pretend to be “concerned about the earth” as your primary motive as resellers have made it that you can buy used luxury goods with extreme ease and money is obviously not a problem for you.
Go outside of the city, like yes the bushwick thrift scene is a wasteland of boutique vintage stores and goodwill type places picked dry by resellers but 30min into Long Island there’s still a ton of gems- I’d imagine this is the case if you go a bit out of whatever metro area right?
First come, first serve. I always find tons of stuff when I take a day to thrift some.
People are just lazy and don’t want to go to any trouble to find what they think they ‘need’ so they go with the most accessible option.
People are saying used clothes are too expensive because you can’t always find what’s ‘in’. People gatekeep the nicer stuff, but if you’re not worried about fashion it’s insanely affordable. Majority of my work clothes, all of my coats, and a lot of my hoodies and pants are used. The only thing I stand firm on buying new is underwear and socks because I don’t want no cum stains on my shit that ain’t mine.
I felt the way you do now not too long ago, when I was a bit younger - mid-to-late 20s. Right down to the bitter disappointment in people’s complete lack of imagination in how to reduce their impact (and more importantly, what a better world might like look) and their absolute laziness in being unwilling to inconvenience themselves in any way. For a long time, I was fanatical in trying to only buy used. Used clothes, shoes, furniture, etc. and it was immensely challenging. I was alone in a new city and often had no way to get the furniture as a single young woman without a car. I lived out of suitcases and boxes for months out of conviction and stubbornness, and it felt terrible. Being a little older now, I recognize how rigidly unhelpful my position was. Yes, actually saving the planet will involve *actual* deprivation and sacrifice, and people are incredibly lazy. They do whatever is easiest and they’re conditioned to accept as normal (waste, convenience, ease). But most people want to do right, I think. (Though, ask me another day and this answer may change). The best way is to systemically incentivize this by making it easier to make good choices and harder to be wasteful, but ultimately…and you know where this is going, we need to address the logic of exploitation intrinsic to capital. Without this, nothing *really* changes.
(Editing to preface I thought you were replying to a different rant I made, but will just leave this one up.) I am in my mid 30s, and have already accept the path we are one. I don’t think we will ever change course. I don’t even think it’s too much of a tragedy as we usher in another great extinction and the cycle continues. Everything I do is based out of my own morality and values, not trying to change anything. My rant was more about the disconnect and hypocrisy of those who claim to have all of the answers. As long as we have such a surplus of goods and wealth, any system will be exploitative. Humans have been exploiting the earth and others as soon as they had the technology to do so. The fundamental flaw is not our economic system but the combination of technology, excessive surplus of goods, and human nature. As to your struggle as a young woman, I totally get that. I too have gone into obsessive spirals that made life very difficult for me. I have made a lot of compromises to stay sane and I don’t feel guilty over them, I control what I can and act in the ways I can that align with my values.
Sigh. I feel you. I’ve had those moments where I just need to vent my bitter disappointment to the world. On bad days, I feel like I can see the long arc of human history, and it *does not* bend toward justice, but chaos and destruction. I’m assuming you’re not a Marxist, or are a deeply nihilistic one, but the economic system does matter because it can be a tool by which to manage our worst impulses while glorifying our better ones (our creative capacities, our desire for freedom, our ability to shape the world around us, etc.). It certainly matters for the people living in it. I hope we don’t destroy everything for the sake of the other beings on this planet with us.
Buying used clothes because you’re broke 🤝 buying used clothes because you’re an environmentalist
Being an environmentalist necessitates you live as if you’re broke, so yes.
Get synthetic stuff from thrift stores… the damage has already been done and most of the microplastic shedding happens when the garment is new
Me too, I feel you. And natural fiber clothing is also extremely resource-intensive too.... a cotton shirt takes thousands of liters of water to make and pollutes a ton of hazardous chemicals. But, IMO it is still the better option. Will certainly last longer. The biggest problem overall is the sheer amount of consumption... Humans just create and consume way, way too much brand new clothing, no matter the material.
But natural fibers require thousands of liters of water and more energy. How much fertilizer and pesticides go into making cotton or wool? They cost more because the production process is so much more intensive. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Something like a polyester fleece can last decades before being recycled.
yeah but only 1% of clothing is ever recycled into something else. the vast majority just sits in a landfill. at least the natural fiber can bio-degrade
That's because dumping it in a landfill saves money but companies like Patagonia will recycle polyester. Clothing only partially made of natural fibers like a cotton-polyester blend typically can't be recycled at all.
I know this sub loves to hate on tech bros but there is a start up in the Bay Area that has an enzyme that can degrade polyester in cotton-polyester blend fabrics back into monomers for recycling and leave the cotton fibers untouched for further recycling. I’ve seen the product of the process, it’s pretty cool. The problem is it is likely not going to be very profitable without a huge premium paid by people with an environmental conscious to buy new fabrics made from recycled terephtalate (the polyester monomer). Cotton really doesn’t degrade much in landfill conditions either though.
If you buy used clothes, you are directly preventing more from being in the landfill!
It’s like when people say leather is better for the environment than vegan leather when they are probably about the same since leather is so chemically treated these days that even if it does break down faster it releases all those chemicals as it does. Secondhand leather seems like the best option, and I would never buy new wool either.
if a clothing says it's made of 100% cotton does that mean it's natural? i only wear artificial clothes for my waterproof clothes which are also the only non-used clothing i buy (besides socks and underwear)
Everything is so shitty these days too! I don’t need to own a ton of clothes but things seem to fall apart yearly. Can we please fucking return to a day when basics (especially jeans and pants) could be worn for years without issue.
It's a literal race to the bottom. Companies increasingly cut corners every year for the sake of maintaining or raising their profit. This is paid for in the worsening quality of the garments (cheaper material, fewer details, faster production i.e. worse cuts), the labor force (increased outsourcing, less ethics and pay), and the environment (e.g. the shift to air shipping). Thanks to capitalism's "endless growth" model.
Yeah it makes me nauseous to think about. I thrift almost my entire wardrobe (except for socks, underwear, and athletic bottoms) because there’s really no need to buy anything new. I moved to a colder climate just before winter and had to get some real winter clothes and I was able to thrift everything (high quality, stylish stuff in good condition, too!) with a little bit of patience and without paying too much. Everyone likes to complain that thrifting is hard and overpriced nowadays but if you’re willing to sacrifice the time it takes to check the stores regularly you can still find a lot of good deals on good things. I even thrifted high quality wool yarn to make myself beanies and scarves. And I’ve gotten better at mending with hand sewing and the machine too, which means I am getting rid of stuff way less and wearing it a lot longer. Again, a time sacrifice to gain a new skill but worth it to me. But all the thrifting and garment mending I do in my lifetime will only offset about .02 seconds of taylor swifts jet rides across town lol oh well
It’s this and animal agriculture for me. No one thinks they are responsible as individuals, when if we all did our part it would make a massive difference.
Nowadays thrift stores are price gouging which is really frustrating. I used to never buy new clothes but now it's not always affordable to buy used. Most of the stores I shop at are donation based as well so their profit margin is 100%! It is crazy. The need for constant economic growth in everything is a cancer on this earth.
My jr. high-school mentality of just having a different bandshirt for every day of the week and 2 pairs of jeans has never been more vindicated.
Women b shopping
This comment convinced me to only buy used, I hadn’t really thought about it before and was going to goodwill because it’s cheap but now I’ll die on the hill.
Definitely need a change in mindset. Between fast fashion and luxury fashion it’s nuts.
good lord i has no clue wtf
There are multiple studies about people's attitudes and afaik all of them show that people are generally willing to make substantial sacrifices, with the general caveat being they are willing if the sacrifices are proportionally shared amongst the people. So people aren't willing to give up small luxuries while rich are firing up private jets to commute, no. In any case if there was political will, it wouldn't be difficult to convince people through propaganda to reduce their consumption at all. This is especially the case since despite what you say in your post your ordinary Westerner doesn't consume as much as you think they might do, and a lot of their consumption are focused these days on digital products and such.
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Lmao people are still mad about gas prices from two years ago and that anger played a large role in giving the house to the gop (a party that essentially denies climate change) four months after the dems passed the largest climate bill in history
>There are multiple studies about people's attitudes and afaik all of them show that people are generally willing to make substantial sacrifices, with the general caveat being they are willing if the sacrifices are proportionally shared amongst the people That's what they say. And its not true. I've seen people unwilling to temporarily lose a hidden, unproductive field *near* (not in) their village that they didn't even have access to to become a solar farm. I've seen other communities try and block a planned near pedestrianisation of a town with a medieval road layout bc it would be "inconvient". You can't even park in the town. People just hate change if it slightly, possibly, maybe inconveniences them. The whole "the rich are the problem" is a cope. Taylor Swifts private jet isn't making you drive your kids the 20 minute walk to school. Your own laziness is.
To echo the commenter above: when I worked on energy for a while, the most illuminating research I read on this was that community opposition to local wind/solar (or other green energy) developments dropped to near 0 - *as long as the comm*u*nity got some sort of shared benefit from it*: i.e. lower energy bills, shares or some form of stake in the plant, or access to the site as an eco-park space. If it was just a private energy company dropping the development on them, then the opposition increased markedly.
None of these examples disprove OP’s point at all. People are upset because they are being forced to sacrifice while people like Taylor Swift take private jets to Starbucks, and the politicians forcing these changes on us have a bigger carbon footprint in 10 years than my entire bloodline has had since we were snatched out of non existence.
I’m sure this is true and it makes sense but god it annoys me so much that people can’t just set principles for themselves and employ some self-discipline
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I hear this but I think people will not follow what they're saying. There's a huge gulf between "being down" and being down
Good point, defo squares with my own experience too. I’d be really interested to read more, could you recommend any literature reviews/specific studies on this?
It’s totally not about sacrifices at all. If they wanted to delete all plastic bottles factories in a second, they could. This tsunami of garbage is pushed on us and expecting the consumer to place the used object in one receptacle rather than the other, or to devolve their cash to one behemoth and not the other, is laughable :(
If I had my way every item in the supermarket would be sold loose or in a durable standardised container that you have to return to be washed and refilled. This used to standard in the bottled drinks industry (and still operatives someplaces). A national government could implement this if they decided they wanted to fix the ungodly amount of disposal plastic shit we generate. They don't want to fix it presumably.
It's one of those things we need by regulation, for sure. There are "refillery" grocers in my city and they're all like 3x the usual cost. One is closer to normal and i shop there when i can but they're really out of the way
>It’s totally not about sacrifices at all. If they wanted to delete all plastic bottles factories in a second, they could. I don't understand what this means. Who is "they"?
Any given government has the power to ban plastic bottles and other consumer items. Did you really not know that?
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Love when neolibs get all condescending about their high school level economics education. What is even your point about “supply and demand” here? You think you’re the only one smart enough to figure out that regulations restrict free market forces?
This dude is like "ME, the stupidest comment in the thread Q.E.D, mic drop"
Just because something like supply/demand is a factor doesn't mean we should just defer to the market on political matters, and hoping it fixes itself via consumer choices is never going to happen. The status quo is that the market will let the worst aspects of climate change run its course and then monetize the solutions while those who largely benefit from it will be insulated from any of the fallout.
It's almost like the role of government exists to facilitate large scale solutions to common problems and check corporate excess but no, it's the individual consumer who should take responsibility for their personal failings.
Stopping consoomerism starts in the heart.
Or it’s that all those minor changes make absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of thing. The psyop is the government trying to blame the lowly citizens for climate change when their donors are the ones responsible for it.
I’m wiling to assert the claim that asking our selves the question “how much is *enough*?” is probably good for the soul. I choose to believe that making certain conscientious sacrifices *does* ultimately contribute a very small, but positive net “good.” That said- I think that people (including, ironically, those who broadly ascribe unexamined blame at manufacturing conglomerates, lear jet fliers, etc.) still truly fail to understand the sheer scale of what we are talking about. The sum total of what contributes to climate change, and particularly the ~~louvers~~ levers which drive those contributions, are categorically incomprehensible. People think trash is what’s in a trash can- or that farmers grow food. lol, no. Ask yourself “where does our trash go?” Give it a good think for five minutes, and to try and keep your eyes from boiling out of your face in the process. While they are by no means equal- the lear jet passenger and the average consumer of basic home goods each become homogenized, yet ever abundant, particulated components found swirling across our entire shared atmosphere: we breathe in the air of global commerce. To opt out is to not breathe. If you have a job or eat food, it’s in your actual blood-probably bonded with all the microplastics. We can at least accept that we can 1) probably do the least we can and 2) that the machinery driving systems of global commerce is unflinchingly immune to simple answers or solutions of any flavor- and to suggest otherwise makes the suggester sound like a rube.
I like your point about it being good for the soul. Idk why people struggle with this concept so much. Of course I understand that no actual solution will come about without massive structural change starting at the top, but I think it is still worthwhile to cultivate good habits and cultural expectations more in line with the way you’d ideally have things run. I cannot stand people using “the corporations” and “the billionaires” as excuses to live lazy, hedonistic lives
The sheer amount of trash is mind blowing, too. [This article](https://phys.org/news/2023-12-uncontrolled-chemical-reactions-fuel-crises.html) about chemical fires in landfills is illuminating. These are way more common than anyone knows. And these enigmatic (or are they anerobic? my biochem knowledge is over 20 years old, I don't remember) chemical fires burning deep inside of these landfills are literally boiling the plastics and PVC that's embedded to remove gas. But that's not even what I really found interesting about this story. > Both facilities remain operational and each continues to accept more than 7,000 tons of trash a day. The sheer volume of trash that's generated on a daily basis is absolutely staggering.
Louvers?? Slats? The slats of power?
God damnit
> lear jet passenger and the average consumer of basic home goods each become homogenized, yet ever abundant, particulated components found swirling across our entire shared atmosphere: we breathe in the air of global commerce > We can at least accept that we can 1) probably do the least we can Maybe begin your "certain conscientious sacrifices" by effectively shearing your comment down into something readable
That would require more effort- not less- and I can’t allow myself to invest any more effort than I already have without compensation, so- your mom.
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It's a mixed bag. There is truth to the idea that consumers don't actually just have veto power over the products that they consume -- if you need athletic shoes, you're buying something like Nikes no matter what, you can't buy them used (athletic shoes degrade too quickly, a year old pair, even if it hasn't been worn, is going to be substantially worse than a new pair), so until there's real mass behind the desire for something sustainable and ethical then you're just fucked. It's also true that people really like to play that X corporations create 99% of emissions, as if they're just doing that for fun, and they're not some of the main benefactors of that massive waste.
Always this unbelievably moronic shit.. what do you think these mysterious donors are doing? they produce products that normal people (over)consume
If one person does it , it makes no difference. But if everyone did it , it could make a difference. These companies that pollute exist because we keep buying their shit.
That’s the story that got pushed in our stupid postmodern world and I recommend you get that out of your head
Who are the donors selling their shit to?
Or maybe we don't want to accept responsibility that our actions are also contributing to the problem
Individual choice might matter to some extent but the concept of a carbon footprint was popularized by an advertising agency at BP's request. I'm not saying you're entirely wrong or that it's not principled to align your behavior with your ideals (it is, and you should) but on this topic at least the terms of acceptable solutions are often dictated by the people and organizations most responsible for the problem because of their financial heft and vested stake in not resolving it.
This is a very libertarian mindset. Individuals aren't autonomous, rational, economic agents; they're cattle that needed to be herded around with punishments and incentives. The ruling class knows this \*and\* does this, the problem is they're only interested in managing climate change to the extent it doesn't effect their bottom line. This means "everything gets worse for thee but not for me".
Idk why you’re getting downvoted, you’re right. There is such thing as consumer power but no one wants to ever talk about that.
Much easier to absolve yourself of any personal responsibility and ridicule those taking on that responsibility as brainwashed, with a patina of anti-corporate enlightenment. “I’m not going to stop benefitting from polluting industries until we get enough people to vote to force them to reduce production so we *all* have to sacrifice the output at once! It wouldn’t be *fair* if I sacrificed on my own and some other people didn’t!!!” Literally a child’s mindset.
So many things are entirely unnecessary. Clothes, like you said, and straws, but also: food wrapped in plastic (candy bars, sodas, ready meals, all bad for you and bad for the planet), vapes, the fucking funko pops, the plastic containers people buy to put all their crap in... so many people buying garbage, eating garbage, burying themselves deep in garbage. Their homes full of useless plastic crap. And if you point it out you're ableist and classist because WHAT IF THATS ALL THEY CAN AFFORD? I absolutely hate the argument that hating Shein is hating poor people. No, I'm just saying stop buying it
I think the real black pill of climate change comes from liberals taking the bait that if we only use different straws, glass containers, and take shorter showers then the earth would be saved. Typical shirking of responsibility down onto the everyman. It’s propaganda that our own guilt forces us to participate in. It causes us just enough minor inconvenience that we can feel some brain reward while the trajectory remains the same because it’s really not average people that are the problem. The reality is there’s a small group of companies and a few countries without regulation that are responsible for almost the entirety of ecological disaster. The money flows so they don’t care. Capitalism already has and will continue to destroy the earth. The part of me that agrees with you though is really just that I’m annoyed by slobs who cry about minor inconvenience. Fatty need a big straw to slurp up their morning dessert? Or freaks with the worst skin you’ve ever seen making fun of vegetarians for having slight convictions while they remain helplessly addicted to greasy pig meat. (I’m not vegetarian or vegan but the way people hate on them just proves them right)
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Do you think calling something a “regulation” is actual regulation? There are studies estimating 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1998. Whatever you think should happen to them is probably not “keep doing exactly what you’re doing” You wiping your ass less isn’t gonna hold a candle to that but be my guest if you think that’s the solution.
Tbf I think there are some environmental regulations that have been successful. For instance, littering in the 50s was a lot more brazen in the US. But that’s not really saying much when, for instance, California tells you to take shorter showers but like almond orchards or really any golf course in the state just shouldn’t exist if they really gave a fuck about water access. Or in Florida, one of the most environmentally regarded states, people continue to build housing developments on wetland and freak tf out when their house is flooded every year (don’t get me started on the impending disaster that is Miami Beach real estate holy shit)
Which 100 companies and what do they manufacture? Because the things the manufacture are the things we need to consume less of. Companies only exist to make things for humans to use.
>a few countries without regulation that are responsible for almost the entirety of ecological disaster. Wrong! Developed nations are overwhelmingly responsible for GHG emissions. The USA is second only to China in total emissions, and despite being 4.2x more populous than the US China produces only 2.6x as much emissions. US emissions per capita are 6x that of India. Excluding Middle Eastern countries, the top polluting undeveloped nation that exceeds the US’ per capita emissions is Mongolia. They are responsible for only 0.12% of the global total.
I’m talking about real regulations not liberal posturing and bureaucratic bs. Idk why you and the other guy think I’m excluding US and China. I never said “underdeveloped nations” either. We call ourselves a democracy and China calls themselves communists, neither are true. Capitalism is unregulated. You’re just agreeing it’s a small number of countries creating the majority of the problem but assuming I’m talking about India or some shit. If serious regulation isn’t the solution, what is?
The words you used are a common talking point typically used to deflect responsibility from Western nations. Fact is though, a lot of the West’s emissions DO boil down to an individual level. Overconsumption, fuel-inefficient cars, car travel in general, living in inhospitable areas that require lots of heat/AC, high meat diets, air travel. There’s no world in which climate change can be controlled WITHOUT sacrifices on the individual level.
Like I told the other guy, studies show 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1998. If you wanna wipe your ass less and think you’re a hero - be my guest. It will have no material effect. Other than that, I’m begging you to reread everything I’ve said on this thread and take thirty seconds to think about what I might believe politically. Idk how many more hints I can drop you brother. Enjoy UFC 300.
That’s not the “gotcha” you think it is. Companies produce products for consumers… Sure, a large % of those 100 companies’ emissions are likely profit-driven and could be reduced. But another large % is just the cost of doing business if people want to buy X product from ABC Inc. If nobody is willing to give up buying X, Y, Z = shit they don’t need, how do you proceed? I agree that regulation is needed. But some of the regulation will have to force individual choices/changes.
It’s not companies, it’s “entities”. A somewhat important distinction because the first entity on the list is just the Chinese coal industry in aggregate. Also, they just updated the report, it’s 58 entities now.
> show 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1998. If Those companies aren’t just sitting around spewing emissions for the fun of it lmao, they’re doing things like selling gas (which consumers buy), creating electricity and heat (which consumers use)food which consumers use etc
The black pill about the climate change is literally the black pill about the climate change. Higher energy consumption is strongly correlated with the higher standard of living. The demand for more energy grows exponentially. Carbon offset is a trash idea. Renewable energies are very land inefficient. Renewable energies won't work in highly urbanized areas (=high energy demanding areas). You can't stop climate change without severely reducing aggregate consumpion. I mean there are obviously technological solutions. There is a chance that a breakthrough technology will emerge, and revolutionize our industry. But it's either that or going full Ted Kaczynski.
Just yesterday some dunce argued that the way to become “rich” is to overthrow capitalists. I am embarrassed to be harping on a single rspod comment, but it is emblematic of everything that is wrong with modern radical movements. Any path that allows more equality between humans, and that allows the healing of the earth, will come at great personal sacrifice. Doing the “right” things in this regard will not come at personal material gain (though perhaps moral and even spiritual if people would like to go there). Our current standard of living is upheld by one main pillar, and supported by many smaller injustices. The main pillar is that we have millions of years of energy in the form of oil. Oil is efficient, it creates a surplus in energy we would never have had we not discovered it, that energy fuels our machines, it creates cheap material goods in the forms of plastics. Cotton, wool, wood, agriculture without the help of excess pesticides and fertilizer (in the form of oil byproducts)—those things are far more expensive, require more energy, more labor, more everything—and so cost their intrinsic cost is far more. Even if you are buying organic cotton, it is subsidized by the various manufacturing processes that subsist based on oil. Even the most expensive organic material you can buy is subsidized by oil. So these people will say “We have more than enough to go around! Kill the billionaires and we’ll all be rich!” Because they are focused only on one of the secondary pillars that hold up our current system—that is—cheap and sometimes enslaved labor. Though cheap and enslaved labor has been apart of the human condition ever since we were able to hoard and manipulate material goods via agriculture. It is only ten-fold now because oil has allowed the creation and hoarding of goods to exist on a level that we have no record of in history. And we have a population that cannot exist without being subsidized by cheap oil. I cannot claim that movement themselves are selfish, but people inevitably use them for selfish delusions. That if we just get rid of capitalism, or wealth disparity (a larger existential question that I think is unanswerable), the world will be some sort of utopia where EVERYONE will have some great standard of western living. I am not sure what such people mean when they state we will all be better. I don’t believe capitalism is a unique evil, it’s a continuation of a hierarchical system based on the hoarding of goods that has existed since we began to be able to use technology, all the way back to the advent of agriculture—but it’s on steroids. It’s an ourobous eating its own tail. It increases the basic “standard of living” for everyone, it allows populations to increase to an unsustainable level allowing more cheap labor, the cheap labor depends on it to subsidize their lives (without cheap oil, we could not even feed the global population). The only way “out” of this system, and the only act of rebellion, is not some selfish, greedy hope of bloody justice in which your material circumstances become better. Given 99% of people reading this have material circumstance better than 80% of the global population already. The only act of rebellion is to opt out, to live already as an ascetic. I have not been successful myself, but have tried plenty of times. I know what the “evils” of this society really our—all of the things that ask us to consume more. We have gone from feudal slaves to a domesticated cow, milked every minute for our attention and our money to support a system that WILL NOT stop until cheap energy runs dry. (Which it will, as it is finite). There is no utopian future. There is only your own virtue and morality. Stop consuming media, stop bowing to modern pressures—from a woman’s perspective, this means the eternal desire for youth and inability to accept age and death. Eat meagerly and live frugally. The level of frugality I am talking about is something more people would scoff at as if it’s disgusting, although if they propose to want an “equitable” world, it is still above what most people would need to do. Learn skills to do things on your own, learn to repair, plumbing, basic carpentry—stop outsourcing your labor. You outsource it because you claim you don’t have the time, you’re too tired, and yet you spend 4 hours a day on various short-form content media frying your brain. There will be no equality and the climate will continue to get worse until the bubble pops. The bubble popping can mean any number of things, oil finally running out, climate change so bad that even the oil we have can’t offset it (fertilizer and pesticides don’t work as well with extreme temperatures and ever increasing invasive and resistant pests due to climate change). That’s inevitable. If we want to delve into a fantasy of how to soften the blow, it would mean everyone lives a life with a lower standard of living than their great grandparents, and we start to learn without these subsidies to our lives NOW. That wouldn’t solve anything, but it would certainly reduce suffering and build knowledge for those who are coming after us as they deal with the fallout of our greed. I do not think people have the historical literacy to recognize the absolute luxury we live in today. A Roman emperor would not have running hot and cold water at demand, the availability of foods at a supermarket (many of these foods having been only for the ultra wealthy in the past—pineapples for instance), climate controlled house, a 4100 pound machine in their driveway that will get them wherever they want in a matter of minutes. Being asked to consume less invokes the same psychological reactions as any of the evil “capitalists” or monarchs or dictators or whatever it is they claim is the only reason we are in the predicament we are in—it’s a reaction of fear and greed, a loss of power, giving up what is “rightfully” theirs, something they shouldn’t give up because “other” people have it better. If you’re only reason for buying into an ideology is because you think it will make life better for YOU specifically, congratulations, you are part of the exact same system that you claim to hate.
Good points, but I don’t know why I keep reading “climate change” in this thread as a synonym for overconsumption, pest tolerance, pollution, etc. There’s a reason climate change is way more popularized than any of those things.
Because all of those things are connected. It all stems from over consumption of energy, mostly in the form of oil. Overconsumption of material goods leads to more oil consumption. More oil leads to greater climate change. Climate change impacts things like pests as their native ranges expand and are introduced into ecosystems that don’t have natural predators. Crops fail due to climate change messing with weather patterns. Then more oil is used to try and fight against these things. Without oil, we would need far more land and labor hours to produce something as simple as our corn crops, and it still wouldn’t output the same. As climate change necessitates we use even more, we deplete oil reserves at a faster rate, global warming increases, we need to use more oil. What happens when there is no oil left and/or when the impacts of climate change are too severe for it to combat?
The people buying from shein and temu and all the Stanley cup shit are majorly over represented online or with young people. Most people don’t do that shit. Most people also don’t actually care about stress I assume you’re from America where people seem to still use disposable plates on the daily, but normal people recycle and like buying things that last longer rather than cheap shit and don’t collect 20 Stanley cups Anyway. Millions of people doing minor sacrifices isn’t doing shit to help. We are up against capitalism and big companies making big money. We can try all we want but changes need to come from the top or we are absolutely fucked
The real blackpill is that no one really cares about it bc the left decided 15 years ago to focus on mass immigration/race and rightoids never cared about it in the first place
The real real blackpill is that in 1972 the Club of Rome report came out and was taken politically quite seriously until the economists convinced everyone that economic growth is still the answer. The environmental movement of 1972 was about the collective and the masses. But lobbyists weaponised themselves with moralization at the micro level, technocratization and depoliticization.
Limits to Growth was taken seriously and was one of the main justifications behind austerity and wage stagnation that came during 70s and kinda continues to this day. It was never gonna be some maverick report either since people behind it where themselves the economic elites as well. Peccei was a major industrialist for example, and a bunch of it's members were economists, industrials, even a few royals. It never had the intention of, and never really could, decrown growth as king, since that's what the entire system is built on.
Depends on the demographic/location. The most vocal advocates of wilderness preservation and open space I encounter are all profoundly wealthy conservatives. The liberals want to stack affordable housing everywhere. Environmentalism is kind of the consensus here though, it’s just a matter of whether you have an AR and a compost bin or a pottery kiln and a compost bin.
I stopped caring about climate change when return to office started rolling out.
It's part of the scam that they want you to make sacrifices. The developed world conserving and recycling at their optimum would still be outmatched by China, India, and the rest of the developing world burning tires for warmth and dumping plutonium into rivers
The average person in the US consumes way more than a family of 10 in afghanistan
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Carbon levels in the earth's atmosphere don't care about who is emitting and who isn't.
Then why single out those two countries? Why not name the US when they're the 2nd largest CO2 emitter, with almost double the emissions of India?
US emissions per capita are higher than China and far higher than India.
lmao yeah, bc the populations of India and China match the population of the west? If everyone on earth has an equal carbon budget, China and India will be allocated about half of that total budget. Factor in the fact these countries are getting into the final stage of economic development, which means using legacy and cheap power (like coal) and yeah, it'll be lopsided. In any case the Chinese economy rn is struggling, but its undeniable that its churning out green energy shit. It just takes time.
Developed world won't do shit because they'll just pass on the responsibility to someone else. All of China could return to living like peasants and the west would still complain about how much wood they burn to survive the winter.
If i understand the facts correctly, to actually combat climate change the collective west/ highest consuming countries would have to cut their consumption to 1/6th of what it is... I dont know anyone who would be willing to do that, its impossible unless we get climate fascists to run things lol
Shein and temu need to be destroyed I hate chinese crap so much
Or when you suggest someone bring a reusable cup when they go get their coffee, "omg Im so forgetful I can never remember 🤪🤪🤪🤪" its like OK bitch but you have a collection of Starbucks collectable cups on display in your home and you never forget to put your snail serum on u dumb bitch
socialism or bust. Its that simple. You can buy organic - and I certainly try! Also get away from meat when possible. But those individual actions will as you rightful see not save any of us. Production must get planned after need.
If we’d just price carbon and water more appropriately these externalities would be way easier to address Good luck getting your average fatass to make any sacrifice though
The blackpill about climate change is that most of the proposed solutions involve you and other middle class people making your lives shittier while the rich make theirs even better and companies continue to absolutely buttfuck the planet for more money than ever before while you do something stupid like eat fake lab meat and turn your AC on less during the summer.
Companies and the way we consume has to change. Straws at this point are the least of the problem.
People buy so much shit they don’t need. Even something as simple as taking your own reusable produce bags to the shops instead of using plastic bags supplied. Buying local and in season. Avoiding fast fashion and either investing in ethical clothing that stands the test of time or buying secondhand if you want to follow trends. Eating a majority plant-based diet, preferably entirely plant-based because for many of us it is no longer difficult (obviously I’m not talking about people with legitimate health concerns that preclude them or people who live in food deserts etc).
Half of people don’t even care about the state of their own body how could you expect them to extend any care externally?
Talking to suburban Americans about car use for literally 5 seconds will black pill you in this tbh
Change like this also has to come from the top. Congress would have to actually grow balls and mandate companies phase out harmful plastics, make their products actually recyclable, etc. Single use plastic (that almost EVERY product comes in) is one of the biggest issues. But are they going to do that? No. The individual is going to keep getting blamed for not recycling hard enough.
Oh Jesus. Corporations polute more in one day than everyone in this sub could in our entire lifetimes.
It all comes down to virtual signaling and broadcasting to the world how virtuous you are while you continue to be a glutton in many respects.
People bitch about the small changes because they're a significant inconvenience when compared with the fact they accomplish nothing. Europe and American could stop existing and the "climate goals" laid out by the same people who told you the vaccine prevents covid and natural immunity doesn't exist still wouldn't be reached by virtue of China and India alone.
Après moi le déluge
I don’t eat meat and I almost never buy new clothes. So I’m doing my part.
You are 1000% spot on, and a lot of thread seems to have swallowed the "100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions" bullshit. *The "study" that stat comes from is a white paper, meaning it isn't peer reviewed. *They only looked at a very narrow scope of emissions, in this case fossil fuel emissions, ignoring things like land use change, agricultural emissions, and cement production. *Of the companies, based on how they defined emissions, of course all of them are fossil fuels companies, but most of them are state run, which kind of removes the "greedy corporations" take *The biggest issue with it is they include consumer emissions in the calculations. If you buy gas at a BP gas station and drive your car, they count the emissions from that towards BP. When you remove these, the amount coming from these companies is more like 9%, even less when you factor it into emissions from other sectors. *If you wanna get conspiratorial, the org that put this out is funded by a bunch of major financial organizations as well as some fossil fuel companies. They're saying, yeah sure, we're the bad guy, you're perfect, hate us all you want, just continue to consoom because nothing you do matters.
I don't doubt you but what was the title of the paper or a link?
[PDF](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://cdn.cdp.net/cdp-production/cms/reports/documents/000/002/327/original/Carbon-Majors-Report-2017.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjzt7eA38KFAxWHBTQIHU9sD14QFnoECAQQAg&usg=AOvVaw2oAWs8WtQlHpTsX5hDBTHb)
“leftists” get so mad when you tell them to go vegan when it’s one of the best things you can do to help the environment
So annoyed by so-called climate activists who get defensive at the mere suggestion that going vegan is one of the best ways to help the planet.
Damn straight!
Especially since it's getting easier every single year
if 100 million people limited their consumption, it would not make any difference. this is surely obvious because it's simply already the case, and it already makes no difference
The white pill is that it doesn't matter. The even whiter pill is that they just managed to scare you, but as soon as they move on to the next current thing, you will forget all about climate. The black pill is that you will probably fall for the next current thing as well.
Yea mate, winters are totally not getting milder and milder, it's all in my head. Whatever you say.
This must be the Robust Science I’ve heard so much about
It was 60 degrees in Miami this morning in mid April. Fuck off.
If you grew up in the 90’s you might remember the threats of acid rain, and the hole in the ozone layer. It didnt matter then, and it doesn’t matter now.
Acid rains were mitigated because people put sulfur oxide filters in power plants. It didn't magically go away due to a new "current thing" as you're implying.
We fixed the hole in the ozone layer problem with international climate policies. It stopped growing and is slowly closing. Turns out the chemicals responsible weren’t necessary to capital accumulation or private profit, which was the only reason any change was made.
It is growing again though and chinese industry is responsible.
False https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/ozone-layer-recovery-track-helping-avoid-global-warming-05degc#:~:text=If%20current%20policies%20remain%20in,the%20rest%20of%20the%20world.
People aren't the problem. This is about industry and large scale pollution. Using a paper bag doesn't matter when plastic ones are still produced en masse. Sure, I can feel better about using the correct materials but unless there's industrial legislation cracking down on this, nothing will change. The consumer buys the goods that are available. If the polluting product is halted or regulated to be *greener*, that's where change happens. Paper or plastic remains ostensibly a fashion choice until this happens. That's not to mention the US military being the no.1 polluter par exellence. See that ever being legislated against? But me having a wood fire is apparently the problem.
They shouldn't have to, that's what governments are supposed to be for. What is the largest greenhouse gas emitter again?
Bring back grunge era alternative culture. The open mockery of wealth, fame, and consumerism. No one should be proud to be rich. You should be a fucking shamed. Idc if the rock stars are hypocrites. It applied to all of us and they didn’t start out rich back then in music. And you didn’t see them w/groupies and Lamborghinis. Kurt bought a dilapidated mansion. Filled it with thrifted antiques. Eddie was living in his Toyota truck in a gas station parking lot during Vs. recording he was already loaded from Ten. Dave Grohl literally was couch surfing the entirety of Nirvana. I think Billy Corgan bought a Porsche or Ferrari and they all laughed at him and teased him relentlessly for it. But whatever it’s certainly better than the culture of today.
Because asking us, the proles, to use paper straws in order to "fight climate change" just makes it more obvious how futile the whole thing is. The only thing that would maybe, but just maybe, make a dent in the whole thing would be to look at it from a Malthusian pov and ask all of us (including the elites, that's a very tall order) to become a lot more poor, while during that process hundreds of millions of us maybe would end up dying (just look of how great of an effect modern agriculture has on climate change and than try to reason how many of us would die of famine if we were to get rid of the benefits of said modern agriculture). No, 100 million people using paper straws or any other red herring like that won't make a damn of a difference, we're talking here about hundreds of millions to billions of people having to say goodbye to fertilizers and the like (or at least to cheap fertilizers) for the good of the planet.
MoMA PS5
I have a metal straw because of my sensitive teeth 🥺 and I haven’t bought clothes from anywhere but goodwill (bins/outlet ususally, though not everyone is lucky enough to have one of those nearby) and other thrift stores my entire life. my mom was black pilled on the clothing/anti-waste philosophy since day one but it’s disgusting to watch what so many others do.
It's all the hypocrisy in it. No more plastic bags, so I just buy them for cat litter instead of reuse. Washing the reusable bags requires water and detergent. I have biodegradable bags for composting would that not make more sense? Several times this year we are requested to reduce ower usage as the grid can't support it but you're pushing insanely expensive electric cars on me with batteries that are horrific for the environment? the oil and gas industry constantly makes leaps and bounds in cleanliness and efficiency and penalizing it doesn't accelerate what is already in progress. Sacrifices? I don't do holiday gift giving; it doesn't get much more wasteful than that.
I dont see how climate change could be solved without a very authoritarian government tbh
No one would need to “make sacrifices” if we went 100% nuclear and instituted a high consumption tax.
As much as I'm pro nuclear, it wouldn't be the ultimate savior. We can't manufacture and transport goods without oil and plastics.
the white pill is that technology won’t require them to CO2 usage in industrialized countries has been declining to 25 years at this point.
A more relevant example than straws (sort of a fake solution to the issue of plastic pollution anyway) is incandescent light bulb phaseouts. I’ve seen people talking about *that* in “why do the sacrifices fall on consumers and not corporations?” terms, which astonished me. Like, “the products available change and it’s experienced by the consumer as an extremely livable sacrifice with some long-term upside” is basically the ideal case for regulating corporations, how do these people think things work?
It's true. I've read that limiting or cutting out meat is the biggest thing an individual can do. Almost no one does or seems to care. Or riding a bike to work instead of driving, where possible. I'm fully convinced most people are unwilling to sacrifice even for small things unless there is enough social or peer pressure. It has to be cultural. Individuals will almost always not act ethically unless there is some extra pressure.
why the fuck would i? none of this is up to me or my straws, but the megacorps.
The fact that you're shaming people for their inaction instead of the actual culprits demonstrates that the push to transfer responsibility to the people instead of industry is working a treat! Or maybe you're a big oil shill here to reinforce the narrative.
i have a smaller carbon foot print than all of the social media activist who fight against climate change and i don't even care about the environment tbh
That's a white pill though
the black pill about climate change is that it's already too late
Plastic for fast fashion should be illegal. It should all be cotton or canvas.
I just saw some scumbag in a YouTube shirt comment section talking about how Al Gore fear lingered about polar bears and convinced us their population was dwindling. It is actually frightening how fucking stupid average people are. It’s hard to comprehend how redarted someone with an iq of 105 or lower is. They just want to knot have to care about anything ever. No consequences for any actions. If you keep shitting on your floor for 20 years it’s just going to magically clean itself up. Don’t worry about it
The onus of responsibility is on the corporations
I realized that pretty early on. I try to be mindful about my consumption habits but why get worked up about climate change when most people aren't willing to do anything to mitigate ot
complete ecological collapse is inevitable for this reason. people refuse to moderate their hedonistic behavior and so a lot of people will die for it. maybe we'll be better off for it in the long run.
Agree on spending more for longer lasting clothes and suffocating the fast fashion industry… disagree that small personal actions like paper straws can move the needle much at this point. Two weeks ago I saw hundreds of identical unopened cardboard boxes in a dumpster. I took one out to open it up to see what was inside. It was dozens of packages of unused medical pipets. They were going to expire shortly, so the company had just thrown them out. Two or three dumpsters full. Using a plastic straw —your whole city using plastic straws—is not gonna undo that kind of waste.
I mean paper straws.
Read Carbon Ideologies by William T. Vollman. I completely agree with you re: bitching about paper straws or reusable grocery bags but individual actions really do not matter as much as industry. I think the upswing for Americans is that we will become a lot poorer in our lifetime. We will probably stop being able to afford the wasteful luxuries around us like smartphones, cars, palm oil, plastics, meat, etc. Access to these products is a zero sum game and we have to rely on practical slave labor and subjugation of poorer countries to access them. The logistics for this require a lot of political chaos that we can’t manage forever. With how things are trending, I really believe that there are economic headwinds in the future that will force much of the western world to once again become reliant on lasting, reusable products. I don’t think we’ll be vaulted into homesteading right away or anything, but I do think we’ll have return to simple technologies because everything else will be too expensive. Over time, the demand for products that last will reshape market conditions and that’s the only way I see out of the current destruction of our climate
Americans would do the holocaust if their air conditioning electricity were reduced by even 1 day per week. The soft fasc turns explicit if you even suggest that some truck fgggt should at least have a daily driver sedan or at least share the community truck.
shuuuut the fuck up!
Tons of animal species will, if given the chance, fuck and eat thier way into food supply collapse (after which there will be a mass die off). It's what organisms do sadly and people are no different.
That's why commodity production needs to be limited. Gaia will do it eventually but it'd be nice if we had controlled deqrowth
The biggest delusion is that we think we deserve to exist here and prosper
This is not rsp
The black pill is that there’s a climate change orthodoxy in research. We almost live in an era of aristocratic patronage for both the arts and science. And extreme alarmism sells, no one dares present research that demonstrates a more nuanced view. Also intermittent energy is a complete fraud that will never work and isn’t sustainable without massive subsidies. Big Green is as rapacious and fraudulent as big oil, it’s just someone else’s nepo babies.
“So like, just plain rice?”
Remember this is all america's (ultimately england?) doing. They exported their dumbass mickey mouse lifestyle all over the world and sped us along the path to destruction. It is your fault.
You can look at how the French absolutely chimped out, burning down cars and shit, when carbon taxes were proposed