“Someone else is doing something worse, so what I do doesn’t count” is a very tempting story to tell yourself.
Sure, but in this case the something worse is multiple orders of magnitude worse. Statistically, what one individual does to lessen their “carbon footprint”–a propaganda term–is insignificant.
The problem isn’t that individuals are therefore absolved of responsibility–they’re absolutely not. It’s that they might accept the worst offenders’ direction on how they can meet that responsibility.
That is to say, recycling your trash isn’t the answer. The answer is holding Darren Woods to account.
I keep saying that it’s not mutually exclusive. We can (and should) be doing both. We should hold their feet to the fire while also changing ourselves.
We do not get a free pass just because they are worse. They cannot distract us so we ignore them.
EVERYONE should make changes. They will require more changes then us. That does not mean we’re off the hook either.
Also, people taking small actions to change themselves will almost certainly lead to them taking much larger actions that are designed to hold these people accountable. If they just don’t think about it because these other people are worse, they probably also won’t think about it when they actually have the power to do something.
A very good point. The more we hold ourselves to a higher standard the more obvious it is that others are not. A big one for me is that I started reducing and recycling plastic film. By me being more aware I’ve noticed companies who just waste a shitload of it, shipping especially, and I try not to buy them anymore. Those who use compostable products usually get my money now.
Also: politicians will only implement hard measures if a big part of the population is already undoubtedly behind them.
They won’t severely limit meat unless a big part is already vegetarian - they won’t ban short range flights unless most people are choosing trains and busses over them already.
They won’t take away space from cars to bikes unless people are already taking their bike and showing the problem to everyone
Sure the whole thing about personal responsibility and the co2 footprint is intended to discourage change - but unless we start a grassroots movement including personal responsibility change won’t happen, too
With capitalism too, those sort of things like shorter hopper flights will just stop if people stop taking them, even just 40% of people taking them now would make them probably stop servicing them because of how narrow their margins are. Like it or not the economy starts with us. We talk about big oil but if we stop taking planes for everything and driving everywhere then the demand goes down. (Sure there is military stuff too but if we made a dent on domestic use I’m pretty happy)
One of the biggest fake-meat producers in Germany was a very big, purely meat-production company 20 years ago
Now they make more money with replacements than with their meat-production just because people kept buying it.
If enough people vote with their money it totally has an effect
Even works in a circle if the circle is large enough. Nobody needs to change anything, yay!
Right, totally has nothing to do with big oil spending billions on propaganda and practically inventing the idea of an individual’s “carbon footprint” themselves.
Yes they’re doing bad things liked I said. I can’t change that other than hopefully through political action. But none of that removes my own responsibility to do what I can.
It’s the news… anchors that are the problem?
MEDIA BAD
Main thing to remember is only one group matters. And it’s whichever group I’m not in.
No, I think the comic is making you think about the system at large. It’s not the anchors that are the problem. Anybody in any position can be where she is.
You could be getting tons of money… not to produce anything or to improve the world, but to maintain power for an upper echelon. It could be a lawyer, it could be an influencer, it could be a pundit, a politician, a programmer, a security guard, a military contractor. There’s this idea that a large paycheck is because you deserve it, because you are providing what’s needed. In reality a high paycheck can be given to you because you’re part of a problem that someone wants you to maintain.
Which news reporters have private jets?
Sean Hannity.
He did say news.
Seems odd but I think the big news anchors really do make good money.
In Canada when the big news anchor retired they replaced him with 4 people. Presumably so that if any one asked for too much there was easy shift to the others.
I know they do here in the USA. A family friend finally moved from the field to the anchor position in a decent sized city (not even a top-50 metropolitan population) and was making nearly 7 figures. I would bet the giant areas (LA, NYC, Houston, Miami, Chicago, etc) must be raking it in.
Of course, you could probably attenuate that salary a bit because of how the job market has been moving in the last three decades, so take these numbers as less accurate than the back of the napkin numbers. We might be in shit stall territory.
Whatever happened to comic strips being funny?
Artists realized they get more clicks by rage-baiting people. Anger pushes engagement more than laughter.
