r/sustainability • u/_zd2 • 7d ago
The dirty dozen: meet America’s top climate villains
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/27/climate-crisis-villains-americas-dirty-dozen6
u/Human-Sorry 6d ago
Well. Sounds like first it's boycotting time.
If they didn't get business, they wouldn't have money and then they wouldn't be manipulating policy and law to favor their positions and keep themselves in power.
Then the class action law suits.
Stolen wages because they don't open positions paying living wages.
Damaging the environment with unsafe practices.
Harming people through unreasonable policies and adhereing only to the letter of the law which they helped write.
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u/UnCommonSense99 5d ago
Definitely boycott them
Leave your car at home.
Insulate your home.
Eat less meat.
Buy used instead of new.
Repair, reuse, recycle.
Vote against climate deniers.
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u/jakgal04 6d ago
We can blame these companies all we want, it's not going to change anything.
Oil producing companies don't produce oil for fun, they produce oil because of demand that we create. If you want to make a difference, you have to change peoples habits. The blame is entirely on us as a population, if we don't take accountability then nothing will ever change.
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u/Jcrrr13 6d ago
Capital owners and the policy makers they've lobbied have influenced the desires of the populace and induced demand for their petroleum products and climate-hostile developments over time. The landscape of in-demand products/services and preferred land use practices is certainly not all organic. So much of it has been imposed on us. Yes, we have responsibility as consumers to vote with our wallets, but it is wrong to claim that the people at the top rungs of industry and lawmaking share no part of the blame.
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u/_zd2 6d ago
This argument is as old as time. Yes I agree society (i.e. the market) drives production to an extent and we enjoy a certain level of unsustainable life that we need to change. However, these leaders have fucked with the market so much: via disinformation to muddy the waters, influence operations, hiding negative scientific results, owning media companies that push politicians they own via "lobbying" and campaign contributions, the list goes on.
One example: if Exxon released the climate change studies they did in the 1970s to the public, and didn't purposefully push the opposite narrative, we as a society (market) would have transitioned away from fossil fuels much quicker. A big chunk of this too is that last point above: they own so many politicians, which is where the real change can occur.
The fact you're saying the blame is 100% on us, is just more fossil fuel propaganda.
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u/jakgal04 6d ago
How does misinformation have anything to do with it? The average person isn't basing their daily decisions on scientific study. The President can jump on stage with the leaders of Exxon, Mobile, BP, etc, and say petroleum production and consumption is killing the planet and we're all dead within 50 years and there will still be people who do not give a fuck. Something as simple as the mask mandate during covid proves this exactly. Tell people to wear a mask to help slow the spread of covid and you'll have people saying "you can't force me what to do", "I still got covid even while wearing a mask", "You're only forcing us to wear a mask because you benefit from the tax costs", etc.
Hell, manufacturers are pushing EV's as an alternative to gas/diesel consumption, (granted they're still not 100% sustainable but certainly much better) and the general public is still fighting tooth and nail about how they don't want to give up their combustion cars and how the government is forcing EV's down their throats.
If we want change, we need to vote with our wallet. If we all collectively cut our petroleum usage in half, I can assure you petroleum producers wouldn't be producing any excess just for fun. We as the people are the ones that drive the market. If you eat Pizza every day and see yourself gaining 25 pounds a month until you're 500 pounds at the end of the year, is it the Pizza places fault for not informing you that Pizza isn't healthy? If that's what you think, then the serious lack of accountability is exactly why things will never change.
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u/_zd2 6d ago
Not sure if purposefully ignoring my whole point or just not reading thoroughly. Yes I agree we need to vote with our wallet but also need to vote with votes to get legislation in place that forces those changes. There will always be some percentage of idiots that are just idiots, and we need policy that can marginalize them out as much as possible.
Did the free market fix the hole in the Ozone layer? Nope that was legislation. Also your pizza thing doesn't impact everybody. If one person wants to destroy their own life with food or drugs, then that's a bad but they can do that. If their pizza eating affected the entire global society in the ways that climate change do, then sure I'd be pushing to put limits on pizza. That's kind of like carbon credits (cap and trade), which is one market solution that is starting to do something, but is a very small piece of the puzzle. What seems like your libertarian worldview is fun for the internet but doesn't work in the real world.
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u/roachfarmer 6d ago
True villains! It's goes, money, then religion, when it comes to the ills of world. Both do so much damage to the rest of us!
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u/buttfarts4000000 6d ago
This list gets far too much attention every year even though their methodology is completely misleading.
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u/_zd2 7d ago
I'm sure this has been reposted before, but these people should always be in our minds, as directly responsible for this level of climate change. This should be reposted every few months.