take their money and arrest those responsible

Comments

• yesman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This is a false choice between huge lifestyle changes for everyday people and regulating the polluters. Regulating the polluters is going to cause huge lifestyle changes for everyday people.

  The idea that any of us get to go on as usual is the main roadblock to meaningful climate action.

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  • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Well can’t we just ban Shell from selling oil, and then get in our F150s to drive to the airport?

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    • Kanda@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Gotta use at least a 350 to transport one person to the airport

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    • gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      i assume F150 is an electric vehicle. electricity doesn’t come from nowhere. where does the energy come from?

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    • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Or, better yet, people who “love nature”, so they drive an SUV every weekend for an hour to get to a cottage / camp / cabin. Or go camping, or canoeing, or whatever.

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  • PoopingCough@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’m cool with that. I also don’t think it would necessarily be huge in terms of inconvenience for the average person because alternatives would pop up before long. For example, if air travel became prohibitively expensive we might actually see an expanse of passenger rail for domestic travel. It’s ridiculous that it’s still cheaper/more convenient to take a 45 min flight (plus the time the whole airport experience takes) vs a couple hours (or less with high speed rail) train ride. Certain plastics might also become too expensive so we might see the return to more sustainable packaging. A lot of the oil and byproduct consumption from the average person comes down to lack of choice ratger than people choosing products made from oil ober alternatives.

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    • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      No, we are past that point. A gradual reduction in CO2 levels is not enough any more. If you want to save billions of lives we need to cut CO2 production hard and right now. Since that is never going to happen you happy go lucky scenario becomes impossible. In any realistic climate scenario humanity is already fucked, it’s only matter of how much exactly.

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    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It would be a massive inconvenience, but it’ll still be worth it. High speed rail takes many years to build. People hate lifestyle changes. Hell, people will be unhappy at the changes to food packaging. Everything will become more expensive and the economy will contract.

      If we go in promising it’ll be easy people will get mad and balk when it gets hard. If we go in explaining how it’ll suck, but that we’ve got a plan to fix the problems and it’ll be worth it then we can succeed

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    • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      BLIMPS

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    • r1veRRR@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Americans simply have no idea how much of what they take for granted is simply an unsustainable luxury. That absolutely includes leftists, too.

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  • whoisearth@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Nothing changes until the price of an electric car is less than the cost of a gas one when it comes to the vehicle cost.

    A Hyundai Sonata is 35k CAD

    A Hyundai IONIQ 6 is 55k CAD

    Miss me with that bullshit.

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    • Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      This is why buying new cars is dumb,

      A used Hyundai sonata 2024 is ~20k USD A used Hyundai ioniq 6 2024 is ~24k USD

      Yeah it may be more upfront, but most people finance any way and your monthly payment will be offset buy your fuel savings.

      There’s enough of a stock of used EVs, quite often with low mileage, at this point that cost is becoming less of an issue for people then the perceived lack of convenience. That and dealerships not promoting them because they get less maintenance fees and there lower margin then a giant SUV or pickup.

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    • wax@feddit.nu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Hyundai Sonata is a budget sedan. Ionic is their top of the line electric. Perhaps look at Hyundai Inster or Hyundai Kona or something.

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    • fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Slate is 25k

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    • kamee@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I bought my fully loaded ioniq 5 for 31K euros Used…

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    • Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Now factor in lifetime costs of repairs and gas/electricity!

      BTW I have no idea which one is which of your two cars 😅

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    • CommieKhinkali@lemmygrad.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Isnt byd and other chinese ves a lot cheaper compared to the brand new normal cars? No wonder china has majority ev owners and drivers. It can be done, gas cars can be replaced, but the main problem with the oil company’s is that they have huge influence in the government and hmthey have huge power, boyboy has a wonderful video about this topic. They destroy nature, they only care about profits, they lobby against any ev or even hydrogen cars, they are the main reason why climate change is only accelerating in the west. At this point we as humans cant do anything legally to change this.

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  • fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    K that’s fine

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  • fizzle@quokk.au ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes, but regulating pollutors requires a populace that won’t accept anything less. Instead people are placated by paper straws.

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  • Signtist@bookwyr.me ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Honestly, I believe the main roadblock is the idea that change will need to happen at all. The sad truth is that most people are fine with contributing to climate change so long as they can keep doing what they’re accustomed to doing.

    The only way I can see for meaningful climate action to happen is to get people on board with regulation polluters while allowing them to be ignorant to the fact that lifestyle changes will have to follow, and then when they’re forced to adapt, they will. People are much better at changing when they can’t afford not to than when they have the option to just keep on doing what they always have.

    People are also a lot more likely to make sacrifices to keep up momentum after a win like regulating polluters; few people are going to change first when they can see a company like Shell - polluting more every day than they have in their entire lives - going unchecked. A change has to happen to give them hope that the climate can even be saved before they try to make changes themselves to save it.

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  • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    idk. i got an ebike and my lifestyle didn’t change a while lot. just had to get one with a trunk, uh, big basket strapped to the back.

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• darthelmet@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  To the people who are saying “Yeah but you’re the one who buys the oil!!!” Please stop. Please think about any of the context surrounding those supposedly individualist decisions. Please think about what the most practical solutions are for fixing the problem. You can do that and be helpful or you can be smug and look down on others.

  Sure, you buy and drive the car, but you didn’t:

  • Design towns and cities that can only be easily traversed by car.
  • Decide where jobs and housing were located.
  • Spend millions of dollars to lobby against public transit.
  • Spend millions of dollars to lobby against regulations.
  • Spend millions of dollars to lobby against green energy investments.
  • Spend millions of dollars to lobby for imperialist wars to access oil.
  • Spend millions of dollars to spread misinformation about climate change.
  • Decide what cars were available to buy and at what price. (Demand driving supply only makes sense if consumers have a way to signal that they want something that isn’t being offered. The main market way of doing that would be to not buy anything until the right good is offered… but as stated above, people can’t just opt out of needing a car if the places where they can live and work are built around cars.)
  • Decide to be too poor to buy luxury goods masquerading as green alternatives.

  Framing the issue in terms of individual decisions lets the people who have most actively stood in the way of progress off the hook and ironically shirks any real responsibility to fix the issue. You think by saying that it’s us doing it that you take responsibility for your actions and therefore because YOU got a hybrid car or some shit, you did your part and everyone else needs to do the same and it’s not your responsibility anymore. Needing to put in the political struggle to take on the corporate interests destroying the planet takes effort that deviates from your normal life. You have to actually talk to people, work with them, and take part in collective action. And your responsibility isn’t over until the problem is solved.

  Also, sort of related: I always take issue with how dealing with issues like climate change is framed in terms of making sacrifices. Like sure, are we going to be able to do as much excessive consumption as we do now? No. But there are so many climate policies that would also just make life better for people in the short/medium term. We would be happier, healthier, and safer in a world where we got rid of our dependence on cars and replaced it with walkable cities and good mass transit. But instead of talking about how good it could be, instead the message ends up being “You’re a bad person for diving a car. You need to give up using your car and go either walk to your job which is too far away and across a bunch of busy streets or cram yourself onto the underfunded public transportation that is crowded, slow, unreliable, and falling apart.” No wonder people get so defensive. We don’t want them to have to use the bad infrastructure. We want it to be so good that it’s the best option by far. Pitch that future instead of lecturing people.

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  • Eristalis@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I don’t understand this argument. On the one had you have sympathy for the average car user who hasn’t the time or resources to struggle with poor transport infrastructure and don’t necessarily have the resources to make preventative purchasing decisions, but then, on the other had you say

    Needing to put in the political struggle to take on the corporate interests… takes effort that deviates from your normal life

    You don’t seem to have avoided the responsibility being laid at the individual at all. You’ve kept it firmly in the same place. All you’ve done is allowed those individuals to keep their materialistic lifestyle because “It’s OK, I’m an ‘activist’”.

    Activism, for most people, is not sacrifice. Its a jolly good day out with a cool social group, sometimes there’s even free music, circus acts, the works. You get to waive a flag, and everyone congratulates you on what an amazing person you are.

    What’s properly amazing is taking a slightly less well-paying job because it’s on a bus route, or not going out twice a week so you can afford organic cotton instead of polyester, or avoiding that deal trip to Tibet to meditate with monks to save fuel. Zero social credit, zero visibility.

    And if these big companies have the economic system so stitched up that individual choices barely matter, then what on earth makes you think they won’t have the political system similarly stitched up so that individual activism doesn’t make a difference either?

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    • darthelmet@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      My point is, the important part isn’t assigning blame, it’s taking actions that actually have some path to success. You really can’t ethically consume your way out of climate change. Identifying the corporations and governments most responsible for blocking progress isn’t a mere moral victory, it’s focusing our efforts.

      What’s properly amazing is taking a slightly less well-paying job because it’s on a bus route,

      Sure, but not everyone can do that. And I don’t mean it’s just difficult, but literally there are a finite number of jobs and housing options that will fit that criteria. As our societies are set up now, it is not physically possible for enough people to make a sacrifice like that for it to make a difference. That’s why collective action is needed to make those big structural changes in the first place.

      And if these big companies have the economic system so stitched up that individual choices barely matter, then what on earth makes you think they won’t have the political system similarly stitched up so that individual activism doesn’t make a difference either?

      Oh 100%. I’m deeply concerned that there may be no peaceful, democratic way out of this. But that’s step 2. Step 1, regardless of what our strategy ought to be, is organizing. Whether we need voters, protestors, boycotters, or an army, we need people who are able to coordinate with others. It’s not individual activism, it’s collective action.

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  • rockerface@lemmy.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Trains and trams are based af

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    • craftrabbit@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Buses are pretty great too, to connect the more rural areas

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  • lastlybutfirstly@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    We’re all responsible. I’m sure a lot of Romans used this argument when their slaves came after them during the Servile Wars. And it probably didn’t go well.

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  • Jack@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Is it also not the fault of the 99% who vote for non-Green parties who then make the laws causing your bullet points?

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    • darthelmet@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Waaaaaaaay less than the people who have used their power to corrupt said system. Capitalists wouldn’t have spent this much money on lobbying and propaganda if it wasn’t needed. They try their best to keep some people from voting and the rest from having any viable choices that reflect what they want.

      It’s just counterproductive to conceptualize our current situation in terms of individualized guilt. It’s not like going to privately check a box every few years is doing much more than choosing to consume a bit less. We need to be organized. Our enemies are and they’re winning.

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  • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And regarding your other points, don’t forget urban planning. Trains and urban planning go hand in hand. You can’t transform transportation by trains alone if everything is suburbs and city jobs, for example.

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    • darthelmet@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      110%. Walkable cities and trains. Let’s do it.

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  • FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I agree, I love trains too!

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  • copd@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    American comment is American

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    • darthelmet@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      USA #1!.. at a bunch of things you don’t want to be #1 at.

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  • teuniac_@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Excellent comment!

    Design towns and cities that can only be easily traversed by car.

    Just to reiterate, there is something you can do about this. Lobby your local decision makers. They’re not waiting around to be guilted into anything, but they are generally happy to talk to residents and are open for reasonable arguments.

    (That doesn’t mean local politicians are reasonable people. 90% of the ones who run things where I live are a lost case. But there are always the odd exceptions who are willing to listen and will work hard to make a difference.)

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    • darthelmet@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I posted a question about it a few days ago, but atm my tiny project is to get my town to plant more trees along the sidewalks so it isn’t so torturous to walk anywhere when it gets this hot. I tried emailing someone from a department I think handles this kind of thing, but not 100% sure and I haven’t heard back yet. I guess I’ll follow up soon if I don’t get a response.

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  • brachiosaurus@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Sure, you buy and drive the car, but you didn’t:

    If you vote for political parties that support these policies it’s on you too, with your vote you handle them your responsibility

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• Tango@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  >>"Spoiler alert: it’s not you”

  >>proceeds to display a chart of companies who sell a fuel we all use

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  • VoteNixon2016@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    If you can spot me $30,000 I’ll get an electric car today

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    • FinalRemix@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      First, I have to get a new range hood, repair my foundation drain, regrade my yard, and earn a spare 30k after that.

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    • Tango@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Just do what you can, when you can. It’s all any of us can do.

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    • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      30,000? A domestically manufacturered, highway-capable EV is 10,000 USD here in vn and even cheaper over in China.

      Who do you think is responsible for your inability to buy reasonably priced evs?

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    • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      if you can repay it tomorrow i can spot you 30k today

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    • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Whatcha gonna drive it on? The streets and roads are a major source of CO₂ by themselves.

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  • bort@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I hope big oil is paying you well for propagating their “personal carbon-footprint”-narrative.

    What do do you say? They don’t even pay you? … Then why are you doing it?

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    • Tango@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Because I don’t trust anybody who tells me things I wanna hear like “you bear no responsibility; it’s somebody else’s fault”.

      Oil companies couldn’t sell if nobody was buying. The idea that the world can be fixed and I won’t need to sacrifice a thing is a little too good to be true.

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  • psx_crab@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Well i don’t create the system. Given the chance i would rather not be a part of it.

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  • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    “We’re not evil for selling you something that will destroy the environment, you’re evil for being forced to buy it from us!”

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  • peteypete420@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Ur dum

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  • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    “I’m not a monster for choosing to drive a gas-guzzling SUV, it’s the evil oil companies!”

    I’m not pretending these companies are blameless. They certainly lobby to reduce people’s alternatives. They probably break any environmental regulation they can get around, and just pay a fine if caught.

    But, fundamentally, they’re a business. They wouldn’t be pumping oil out of the ground if people weren’t buying it.

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• Wander@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Ah yes companies that famously refine oil only to pour it into a hole and light it on fire for their own amusement, no one else uses it at all.

  If its just these companies that would be affected let’s just close them down. I’m sure it would make no difference what so ever.

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• TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Godammit. I’ve boycotted Exxon and BP, for their negligence that led to spills, for a long time. I knew shell probably wasn’t much better but I’ve preferred them anyhow. Turns out I was helping the worst offender. Awesome.

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  • boonhet@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It in fact doesn’t matter much which one you buy from, they all sell the same product and the product they sell is the problem.

    Yes, it’s impossible to effect change as a single person so government action is needed… But the necessary consequence of that is that we also stop consuming as much fuel.

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    • hirihit640@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      if it’s impossible to affect change as a single person, then why do anything at all? Why bother to vote? I hear this logic all the time and it doesn’t make sense to me.

      “Don’t bother making personal changes, voting will save us!” people vote for Trump “Wait not like that”

      That’s not to say that public policy is pointless. “Tragedy of the commons” tells us that regulation is necessary. But I think the framing is wrong. The culprit here is not oil companies. It’s oil. If you tell people “oil companies are evil”, and tax the oil companies more, these people are just going to get mad when the taxes trickle down to them in the form of higher gas prices.

      The correct framing is “Oil and gas cost more to us, than the cost of simply digging it out of the ground. The added taxes are to reflect the true cost”. Then people will understand why gas prices need to go up.

      Then add on some Infographics and memes that show how much more efficient public transit is. How solar panels pay off over the long term. Etc. Because personal responsibility does in fact make a difference.

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  • Tja@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And you base that on… a shitpost on lemmy without a source or even a damn label? It’s literally bunch of rectangles.

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    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Cool, you’re a jerk.

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  • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    These companies are monopolies, they can’t be significantly materially affected by a consumer boycott. Most of their customers are in industry anyways. Any boycott against them is more about raising awareness than achieving something, it’s a diffuse form of political education.

    To take on the fossil fuel industry requires having control over big levers at the top of the economy. Those levers are currently pulled, anarchically, by capital, not actual humans. Capital pulls those levers and spurns its highest level servants to get out of the way or feed it more bodies. To end this society-wide violence we must displace capital, it must not be in charge. We must be in charge.

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• SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Who buys and burns most of the fuel they create and why?

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  • quill7513@anarchist.nexus ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” has to me always been a clear call to reduce your consumption within a capitalist system. yes, it is these shit heads who shackle us. but when we reduce our dependence on them we begin the breaking of our bonds to a system that kills thousands every year

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    • ChilledPeppers@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      No ethical consumption under capitalism, I scream, at my local farmers market. (Made up quote btw).

      But yeah, fuck oil companies, they are real fuckers.

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    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      So I should starve to death so that the multinational conglomerates never have to face any consequences? Miss me on that one.

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  • faintwhenfree@lemmus.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I always hate that most people are happy to blame corporations, forgetting we are consuming that’s why corporations are creating.

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    • 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      yeah, it is like blaming china for a pollution, when that pollution is externality of cheap shit we buy from them. it is our pollution in the end.

      that isn’t an argument for blaming the end consumer, because that problem is not going to be solved from the bottom, but it is also childish to pretend like we, the consumers, are not complicit.

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    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I agree. It’s obvious to me that it will never be a tidy “it’s just them to blame” scenario but people really want it to be, regardless. I suspect the downvote crew will show up soon…

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  • kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Wouldn’t be us if they hadn’t lobbied for decades against renewables

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  • wander1236@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You say this like buying only from sustainable companies is something everyone can just decide to do, and there haven’t been decades of lobbying and propaganda against policy that would make it possible at a collective level.

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  • arctanthrope@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    because not purchasing anything that is produced or transported with energy from fossil fuels means fucking off into the woods to starve to death naked in a hut made of mud and twigs

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  • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    1. Industry that produces commodities for sale in rich Western countries.
    2. Industry, military, and direct individual consumption in rich Western countries.

    The cause of this is not individual consumer choices, it is capitalism - it seeks to increase capital and nothing else. Capital does not care about the emissions of growing fruit in Central America, packaging in Thailand, and selling in Germany. It cares that you buy the fruit cup for more than they spent on it. And to make that happen, capital had to force wages and production to be depressed and scattered across the globe. And it’s not going to waste money on making the processes themselves independent of fossil fuels so long as fossil fuel prices are low enough - and it keeps them low by constantly seeking more extraction for profit.

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• Digit@lemmy.wtf ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Y’know we could have had spaceships each since the 1930s, right?

  Or even just running our cars on seed oils, like hempseed oil, or plant derived ethanol.

  Or even just running our cars on water.

  … If they’d stop killing inventors and stop abusing the patent system to secretize emancipatory technologies.

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• Lanske@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Shell also dodge paying fair taxes. ftm.eu/…/shell-shifted-billions-in-profits-to-tax…

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• BillCheddar@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  We ought to seize all the top companies.

  They’re just holding companies. They don’t make anything. They don’t produce anything. They just bleed off a kick, like a mob boss, and use those gains to amass political power.

  Seize them all and use the assets (and annual profits) to fund American society.

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• TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It’s actually the capitalist system as a whole. The large fossil fuel companies of course push for extraction and maximizing their customer base, but it is the entire underlying economic system that ensues it is wasteful and that alternatives for energy production are avoided or limited.

  Let’s go through some examples.

  Just think about all the jobs on the planet. How many of them are actually necessary and doing work that prioritizes sustainability or limits environmental impact? How much is producing pointless goods or forcing them to be grown in wasteful ways in order to maximize profit? Is the fruit in your fruit cup grown in Latin America, packaged in Thailand, and sold in Germany? Is your job in or related to finance, real estate, or insurance (all useless or leech industries)? Are there 30 people doing a job when only 3 are needed because 5 companies are doing redundant hiring between each other?

  Look at one of the largest single-entity consumer of fossil fuels on the planet: the US military. More than the vast majority of countries. Now you might say, “hey wasn’t this about the economic system?”, and yes it is. The purpose of the US military is not “defense” of the United States itself, its lands. The purpose of the US military is to enforce its unipolar status as the primary seat of global capital. Bases all around the world, surrounding shipping lanes and energy. Their most conspicuous targets revolving around either energy (Venezuela, Iraq, Iran) or opponents of the capitalist system or peripheral countries trying to assert a slightly higher level of economic autonomy.

  The reason for this is that the economic system is driven entirely by profit-seeking, namely accumulating more and more capital via injecting capital into activities. Productive, redundant, destructive, capital doesn’t care so long as more comes back through the activity. Environmental sustainability is not something capital considers except as a new way to market selling more products and therefore increasing itself. Capital industrialized entire nations while dooming generations to lung problems from soot and famine conditions and dust bowls from over extraction and the elimination of the commons. It simply does not care, at all, and it is in control of nearly every human on the planet, including those who own businesses, pressing them into the capital-increasing social activities it spurns.

  You could end every energy monopoly tomorrow, even nationalize them, and the vast majority of emissions would still remain, as the actual primary engine would be left intact.

  The only way to secure an environmental future is to overthrow capitalism and put people, not capital, in charge.

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• HugeNerd@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Spoiler alert: if we weren’t 8 billion and fertilized our crops with fossil fuels, then we wouldn’t need that much fossil energy…

  Yes, it’s you. It’s me. It’s your 5 kids. The oil didn’t pump itself out of the ground and set itself on fire for fun.

  It’s your plane trip, it’s your military, it’s your proxy wars.

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• 1984@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  At some point, you realize that ordinary people are not responsible for any of these big “problems” (some doesn’t even exist).

  Corporations and governments are responsible for all problems we have. They create them with their laws and their greed for power.

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• SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Put a garnishing order on their past 50 years of profits. All proceeds go to infrastructure investments for the developing world in climate mitigation and food security.

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• WanderWisley@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Image

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• tmr9999@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’m not sure about the data sources for this image but from some quick research it looks like this includes scope 3 (end user emissions) for shell and chevron by not the others. The data realistically looks a bit more like this:

  🇸🇦 Saudi Aramco: ~2.0 Billion metric tons (Estimated; excludes Scope 3 from official tracking) 🇬🇧 Shell: ~1.1 Billion metric tons 🇺🇸 ExxonMobil: ~813 Million metric tons 🇺🇸 Chevron: ~600 to 780 Million metric tons (Varies by accounting method) 🇬🇧 BP: ~400 Million metric tons

  Context: For all these companies, Scope 3 makes up 85% to 95% of their total climate impact. This is why state-owned giants like Aramco and US majors like Exxon/Chevron focus their climate targets almost entirely on their own drilling operations (Scope 1 & 2) while excluding the footprint of the products they sell.

  In any case this is pretty bad and we are probably gonners.

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• heartSagan5@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  But it is us, secondarily because we run our gas cars and such.

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• m3t00@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  who keeps giving them money?

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• Limonene@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Congress. For not taxing carbon emissions according to the damage they cause.

  (And other countries’ legislatures, but as an American voter, I first need to hold my own legislature responsible.)

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• DGen@piefed.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I thought it is me, because I’m Not recycling hard enough. Puh, got lucky here /s

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• jaykrown@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Shell is an evil demon corporation.

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• jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Where does the money they get come from?

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• DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  And God said “LET CORPORATIONS DESTROY THE PLANET AND ERADICATE ALL LIFE”.

  Guess this is the modern alternative to the flood.

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• ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  500M MT

  Stacking metric prefixes. That’s how big the problem is.

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• Mwa@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  every big oil company have alot of controversies wtf

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• BeliefPropagator@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  There are a lot of “who gives them the money” posts here - and on a basic level they’re right.

  But there’s also the part where these companies were spearheading climate research initially - and instead of trying to pivot into renewable energy they doubled down on oil, muddied the waters in discussions by first denying global warming and then when that didn’t work out anymore, emphasizing scientific uncertainty, lobbied against environmental regulations, and shifted blame to the individual.

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• borQue@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I know for a FACT that Shell bought up every patent it could on Hydrogen use in the 1960’s. My dad worked in England back then in the main office; way up in the tree and he witnessed this himself. FACT. Maybe I’m not completely clear: F A C T !!! He told me when I was a boy and I never forgot. (Was I clear? FACT!!!)

  What do you have to be a TOTALLY ROTTEN COMPANY to even NOW not use those inventions and implement Hydrogen as a fuel so the world will be saved.

  I truely HATE Shell with all my guts.

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• abbadon420@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Let’s bring back this old trope:

  GEKOLONISEERD

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• rumba@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Oligarchs. People own Shell, they make demands. Those shareholders demand profits over all else. Those companies are just constructs we’ve made to organize making money. Not to say you can’t go after them… well, you can’t because they own the governments… but you get my point

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• humanspiral@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  take their money

  absolutely essential. Oil, weapons, media, zionists destroy election integrity through treasonous fraud. They all collude and support each other to boot. When SCC says money is speach, money is fraud, treason, and oppression. Take it away from the traitorous oppressors.

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• ignirtoq@feddit.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It’s worth stating that this is showing just the private company contributions (private as in not owned by national governments). State-owned oil companies of various nations contribute massively as well, so beyond the bribes lobbying problem there’s a direct conflict of interest for many nations that get a substantial amount of revenue from those state-owned oil companies.

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