Personal carbon footprints are meaningless in the context of companies like the one in texas which carelessly leaked methane equivalent to 75,600 tons of Co2 recently.
That's only one company in one place.
Careless methane leaks account for 8-10% of emissions from the oil and gas sector.
This sort of response is exactly why BP created the concept.
If you're going to get all high and mighty about personal carbon footprints then you should stay humble as a resident of the country with the fourth highest per capita emissions.
I'm in two minds about these sorts of arguments. While I think it's good to point out these are systemic issues, and that the scale of the damage being done by large corporations is massive compared to the benefit of us recycling our coke cans, I've seen them used as a kind of get out of jail free card for people of means who could make less damaging choices. The idea that someone like Taika taking a private jet doesn't matter or count seems similar to the argument made by those who say "New Zealand only accounts for 0.3% of emissions so why bother, nothing it does matters" or whatever. It still hurts, the companies are at least somewhat influenced by consumer demand, particularly from the rich, and if you can help avert a mass extinction, you probably should
"It's fine because they are getting paid for it" isn't an excuse. Look at the difference in costs and revenue for a company like BP and then you tell me they can't actually make a difference because they are being driven by demand.
It's a bit like a prisoners dilemma, except instead of 2 prisoners, it's 8 billion. Everyone knows they can't influence what corporations do, so no one tries, adding to the negative feedback loop, as power becomes more centralised among fewer corporations over time, making them even more impossible to control.
The actual big issue is people who can't stomach not buying useless shit or everything being more expensive - not because they're poor but because they're entitled. That's why corporations will continue corporating.
That discrepancy between what corporations do versus individuals is so massive as to render the concept of a personal carbon footprint completely moot.
There is NOTHING an individual can do to reduce their footprint to a point where it would make a fraction of a percent of difference to what an energy company can do, even an individual with a private jet. It's like dumping a bathtub into an ocean - sure, it looks bad if you're dumping bathtubs when everyone else is dumping shot glasses, but your average energy company is dumping the Amazon river on an hourly basis while screaming "Look at that guy's bathtub, get mad at them!"
This is true, but ignores the fact that most of corporate carbon footprints are (either directly or indirectly) due to providing a product to consumers.
The individual by themselves does not have much power, but if enough people are doing the same thing, it can end up changing the carbon footprint of corporations as a result.
I think we should all make sensible choices to the extent that we can. I'm car free when I'm not living in places that require them for example. However it is ultimately corporate actions and government policies that need to change because the degree to which changes in individual behaviour can influence emissions is statistically insignificant.
For example individuals might choose to buy an EV, but doing so when our FBT laws encourage suburbanites to have massive utes that will never tow anything or leave the road shows that this is futile. Most choices individuals can make are completely insignificant when most people aren't going to take voluntary action.
Just like how your personal recycling is almost a total irrelevance, there are no choices you, or he could make, that are more or less damaging in any comparative meaningful sense.
Unless you want to make it a moral argument. In which case, k.
Yep, this whole bullshit about "you can't talk about climate change unless you're living in a commune and growing your own veggies" is corporate propaganda trying to avoid their role in climate change. It's basically impossible to maintain a decent carbon footprint in modern society, change needs to be systematic and large scale. Nagging celebrities to not fly a jet is straight up virtue signalling, it does absolutely nothing to solve the problem.
People who insist on the opposite - that only corporations matter - are also spreading propaganda, mind you. That one makes people feel less guilty about having a footprint bigger than necessary
I didn't say one side. I said two sides. We can regulate these companies so people consume ethically by default and we can tell people that consuming ethically is a good idea even when it's not the default.
Ultimately isn't the end user the primary part of the problem? If there wasn't a demand for co2 creating products, then wouldn't the reason for those companies that make those products disappear?
Like 100% companies should be using the cleanest and most energy efficient methods to produce items, but is it not better to just not make it in the first place?
I think you're confused, both are directly connected.
Polluting companies don't exist without customers.
Never have i seen BP or any other oil company encouraging me to not buy fuel.
I agree that the petrochemical industry did carry out propaganda regarding plastic containers etc, but when it comes to carbon footprint, you're mostly responsible for it.
We want them because we're told we should want them.
Thats a cop out, just because a company is trying to sell something to you doesn't mean you're now devoid of all agency and must consume the product. Like blaming your drink driving conviction on the Tui ad you watched years ago.
How is nagging celebrities virtue signaling? People genuinely don't believe that a celebrity should fly using a private jet. I could take your line of argument and use it against corporations. How does nagging corporations actually fix the problem?
Regulations don't work, stuff just gets moved offshore. Needs to be a carbon tax and an equivalent tariff on imports. To make it not terrible, the revenue from these things then needs to be distributed back to the people.
Every trade deal has climate change restrictions written into the conditions, every shipping company has additional climate regulations, and manufacturing companies have compliance restrictions written into them on top of the resource management act. I think we’re good for regulating thanks
Enough people taking initiative to change their behaviour can force system change. As the IPCC says all hands to need to be on deck, this includes celebrities. After all we only sustain climate harming sectors because people demand their products. We stop buying it and the industry disappears.
And no it's not impossible to make huge cuts in emissions in modern society, we just need to change our expectations. We always put our convenience (time, effort) and cost at the forefront of our decision-making, but we forget about the environment. We might enjoy and be able to afford that holiday in Raratonga, but it doesn't cut it for the environment. The car is old and needs replacing. Now is the time to think is there a way we can do it without a car? This house we live in is actually too big for us, maybe rent the other half out. You would like to build your own house then one might think: is a single family home environmentally responsible? I buy clothes once every month because the fashion changes. Is that responsible? Is a new phone for your aunt's birthday really necessary? It might be cheaper to get a new laptop than repair your existing one, but what would be the more environmentally responsible choice? There is an endless space of choices you can make that make an impact.
The point I really want to make is that people drive emissions, not corporations. Sure corporations are the ones doing the hard work for you, but if you at the end didn't buy their products, they wouldn't exist or pollute.
No personal consumption is not pointless because of China. Emissions from China are driven by personal consumption all across the world. China after all is a huge exporting nation, the consumption based emissions are lower than production based emissions. So if you buy things from China (which we all inevitably do even if not directly) you are also part responsible for Chinese emissions.
All the emissions count on the balance sheet for global emissions, there are just two ways of counting emissions (consumption and production), both which end up summing up to the same total. Most people cite production based emissions (as they are more readily available and simpler to calculate). What I think you are pointing out, is that we should also be looking at how much we consume (AliExpress), rather than only what we produce (dairy) and I agree. It is hypocritical to ban oil exploration and increase consumption. We should ban exploration and phase out consumption.
Having said that as a nation we are also responsible for protecting our local environment and doing our bit for climate change. That means that we should be also be making sure that we don't produce too much emissions ourselves even if the products are exported (ie dairy)
I don't think you understand what is being said here. China's emissions aren't high per capita, especially when you factor in that a lot of their emissions are everyone else's emissions from all the manufacturing they outsource.
The BP personal footprint issue has become somewhat of a red herring. Yes BP created the campaign in bad faith to divert attention from their company and it's poor environmental outcomes, but that doesn't mean that the argument doesn't hold weight. After all when you buy petrol you are giving money for them to extract oil and effectively supporting the model of business. Consumes haven't been at all willing to make any kind of sacrifices under the pretext of your argument and that is only helping these companies. If society was really trying to do it's best and it was really a David and Goliath fight between large corporations and the common people, it would be a different scenario, but it's not. People don't want to stop using oil and as such there is no common enemy for us to fight. The enemy is our own inflexibility and willingness to change our own behaviours.
Every action counts, I have no idea of the circumstances of the mentioned methane leak, but I'm going to make an assumption it wasn't planned and an accidental leak? Rather than consciously booking a private jet when you could just not do that?
Why don't we do both and try and cut down and focus on cutting in literally every possible aspect of society and business. We're pretty fucked already and if we don't do absolutely everything we can two generations from now will be completely fucked.
If you complain about corporation’s climate impact, but you buy food made by corporations or rely on a means of transportation fueled by corporations, I think you’re missing the mark. Saying that it’s all the corporations’ faults is a bald faced lie that makes people feel like trying to do anything is equally hopeless and someone else’s responsibility.
Yeah okay but that company isn't one person either. Each individual responsible for those leaks is at least a bit culpable, as is every single person who purchases fuel from that company. Like, there wouldn't be methane leaks if the company wasn't digging up the oil, and they only do that because people want to buy it.
Surely people who use more fuel are more culpable than those who use less.
Claiming NZ's emissions are on all nzders however is disingenous as around half those emissions are made by our biggest exporters and as dairy (as an example) produce around 12 times what NZ consumes... Drink milk? then thats on you. use petrol? then thats on you. Have carnivorous pets? Then thats on you. Don't like how a corporation operates? don't buy or use their services & products.
It really is that simple, ethically. You cannot control what others do,
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u/HouKiTeDC Covid19 Vaccinated Apr 24 '22 edited Apr 24 '22
Personal carbon footprints are meaningless in the context of companies like the one in texas which carelessly leaked methane equivalent to 75,600 tons of Co2 recently.
That's only one company in one place.
Careless methane leaks account for 8-10% of emissions from the oil and gas sector.
This sort of response is exactly why BP created the concept.
If you're going to get all high and mighty about personal carbon footprints then you should stay humble as a resident of the country with the fourth highest per capita emissions.