A fixation on system change alone opens the door to a kind of cynical self-absolution that divorces personal commitment from political belief. This is its own kind of false consciousness, one that threatens to create a cheapened climate politics incommensurate with this urgent moment.
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Because here’s the thing: When you choose to eat less meat or take the bus instead of driving or have fewer children, you are making a statement that your actions matter, that it’s not too late to avert climate catastrophe, that you have power. To take a measure of personal responsibility for climate change doesn’t have to distract from your political activism—if anything, it amplifies it.
The line is reduce, reuse and then recycle for a reason. Not buying something and buying second hand are affordable for everybody. Unfortunatly the later takes more time.
Also boots theory is something to keep in mind. As in buying quality is often cheaper over the long term.
Most poorer people straight up cannot afford the better option up front.
Lots of things are basic social requirements if you want to have access to lucrative careers. If you’re not wearing the right clothes, good luck at job fairs, interviews, networking events, etc. Can’t afford the pricey ones that will last? Your options are get the cheap ones or have a worse chance at income that you need to survive. This is, again, not a free choice.
On top of that, again, the distribution of climate impact is skewed heavily toward the rich. Without including that in these arguments and articles, and simply saying everyone needs to do these things, people are biasing the burden on poorer people.
Finding good secondhand options takes a lot of time. So much so that it is literally a job that people have. More often than not, the decision is frumpy clothes that will make you stand out in a bad way that can easily affect job prospects, self esteem, how your kids are treated at school, etc. or to buy the cheap stuff online.
Most of the time, the stuff at the thrift store isn’t much cheaper than the cheap stuff online, and often it IS the cheap stuff that will break soon that people have discarded. Take a walk through your local thrift store and it’s probably overflowing with clothes from Shien, halfway broken knockoff IKEA furniture, and cheap (probably broken) single-use kitchen gadgets.
None of this even touches on the carefully targeted advertising on social media that primes people to have the kind of consumption behavior that fuels these companies to begin with.
Nowhere local stocks the parts to repair most second-hand items. Parts for older items are often hard to find because they are no longer made. I mean, you’re replying to someone who builds repairable versions of such items. Why do you think that is necessary?
Do you have the skill-set to do as they do? I do, and yet, I assure you, skills, a 3D Printer and a friggen machine-shop at my disposal can only do so much to compensate for a supply chain that has been absolutely gutted and continually re-worked to force consumption, and of products from the far end of the globe, at that.