Soaring temperatures. Unusually hot oceans. Record high levels of carbon pollution in the atmosphere and record low Antarctic ice. We’re only halfway through 2023 and so many climate records are being broken.
Soaring temperatures. Unusually hot oceans. Record high levels of carbon pollution in the atmosphere and record low Antarctic ice. We’re only halfway through 2023 and so many climate records are being broken.
Unless big corporations do something about it, we are doomed, individual efforts are going to do no shit We have hit 45C and its not even peak summer
It is not how capitalism works. At first individuals should start prefer local production and production of more green companies. And only after that corporations change their politics. For example, there is a yearly rating of green electronics (how much green electricity company uses, how clean production is, etc.) but customers do not care. And if customers do not care, why corporations should care?
Let me just buy a locally sourced phone from the local farmers market! Hmm while I’m at it I’ll switch my power supplier to one that uses renewable energy instead of a coal fired power plant! And for my business trip I think I’ll fly on magic carpet!
Wow! Pollution and global climate change really is the fault of selfish individuals and not unregulated capitalist as I initially thought!
I think expecting each person to trace the incredibly complex chains of businesses and processes that result in every product they buy is unrealistic. Sure, some stuff is obvious, but plenty is not.
It reminds of of an episode of the Good Place where an angel buys a tomato at the supermarket and inadvertently commits like 14 sins due to the deep chains of unethical practices that brought the tomatoes to the store - which of course no one could possibly know when they picked it up.
IMO corporations aren’t going to self-regulate and consumers arent going to do 2 hours of research on everything the buy - it’s supposed to be the governments job to spend the time identifying pollution sources and regulating them away - but with regulatory capture and corruption that doesn’t usually happen either.
That’s one way capitalism can work. Capitalism, like anything created by humans, is complex. The way you described how capitalism works seems to put all the blame on the people with the least power or knowledge in the whole process.
Corporations have the money to advertise their products, bribe politicians, lobby governments, threaten or deal with whistleblowers, suppress information and research or destroy foreign environments for resources to continually gain more power. That’s not a complete list either. The things these entities would do to exploit everything to increase their quaterly profits is horrifying.
Where I live, our regional government official works hand in hand with businesses and corporations to completely gut health care and education while giving away all our green land to build more expensive homes.
If individuals truly had control over capitalism as you suggest, then they will soon be too tired from being over worked, sick from lack of healthcare, possibly homeless, and under educated to know any better to make better decisions, or fight back.
Corporations have the wealth to change things but it seems ruthless manipulation and exploitation are their favourite tools. I don’t see how these tools can continue endlessly on this finite planet. You can’t exploit a lifeless planet with dead slaves but they just can’t see past their quarterly profits.
Capitalism also works to keep prices as high as possible and wages as low as possible leaving most of the population not in a position to make ethical desicions over affordability decisions.
How are large corporations going to reduce meat consumption? Or reduce the number of international flights people take for vacation? How will they make entirely unsustainable industries like fast food, fast fashion, and cruise lines go out of business? To say nothing about the rampant inhumane working conditions and cruelty in those industries.
Certainly a lot of the issues are dependent upon the world’s industrial infrastructure and that is not something that we necessarily have a handle on. But all the people building the new sustainable infrastructure are just regular people and individuals who decided to do something.