I tried that while I hadn’t given up yet, people don’t listen.
The Chinese and US militaries are amongst the largest polluters on the planet by a significant order of magnitude due to their fuel demands, and yet you want me to drink from a paper straw like I’m going to make a fucking difference.
Yeah, but they constantly market it as some magical climate elixir and completely ignore that it only saves some animals from being in pain.
I think that has a lot to do with most climate related talking points being about personal responsibility and how “every little helps” while ignoring the pollution spewing monsters that are militaries and corporation chugging along in the background (and this is, of course, by design - get the people pointing fingers at each other while those at the top continue to exploit us all and destroy the planet).
So it doesn’t only feel futile, it is futile to try and change individuals, when those actually responsible do nothing to change their ways lest they bring in 1 billion in profit instead of 5. No amount of recycling, taking a bus, going vegan, or even going completely zero waste is going to actually change anything (nothing wrong with those things, still do them if you like, I do some myself, but be realistic about the impact. For truly impactful change, the whole thing need abolishing, there is no reforming a system that is working exactly as intended.).
Step 1: make it a personal responsibility
Step 2: when people suggest taking personal responsibility, yell : “muh freedom!” And: “are you a commie???” To not take that responsibility.
Oh shit thank you for reminding me. This idea that it’s our individual responsibility to prevent climate change rather than our largest producers/manufactures was a goddamn marketing ploy in the 1920s. It was spear headed by disposable companies like Dixie as people were getting more upset about littering, the public thought companies making one use items was incredibly wasteful and the reason for an abundance of litter in city areas. With the companies PR efforts, they were able to convince the general public that it’s not the producers of the litter that cause the problem, but the people who use it. We had a chance to kill the disposable industry and we missed it, I hope it comes back around some day.
Yup, and they’ve been doing it ever since, like how carbon footprint is a con made up by BP to shift responsibility to consumers (and they get people to pay extra for this shit, they’re making more money off it), same with recycling, which mostly doesn’t even get recycled. The whole thing is smoke and mirrors to keep us at pointing our finger and anger at the people actually responsible.
