this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 15 hours ago

Eat the rich.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 15 hours ago

Organize with Sunrise Movement or other similar groups. The US government is a oligarchy, our representatives don't represent it. The only way we will get any kind of change is through organizing and forcing them to listen to us.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 18 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 19 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

When you're poor, you already do 3-5 and 2 is usually taking a bus or walking anywhere.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 20 hours ago

Here in the USA, the overwhelming majority of poor people eat meat; even the homeless! They just get low-quality processed meat instead.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 19 hours ago

What we can do is press for more regulation.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

All of these are individual actions. I'd add organizing with other folks trying to make a difference. Direct action or political advocacy can have a much more significant effect than an individual acting alone.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

The political advocacy would (in the best case) still end up with a ban on these actions that disproportionately impact the climate so why not just start getting used to tofu already?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago

Not enough people seem to understand that you will have to sacrifice things for the sake of sustainability.

For example

There is no way to supply the amount of meat consumed sustainably. It doesn't matter if you cut off every billionaire's head and send all meat profits directly to industry workers. It does not change that people currently eat more meat than can be produced sustainably.

There are so many other cases where this is true. It's not just rich people and corporations. They are an entirely different symptom, solving one will not solve the other.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

Keep handy a list of the rich bastards responsible for the overwhelming majority of the problem, just in case.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

We need to stop shipping things across the world for economic reasons. We need to produce and buy locally. The truth is, the global economy has to crash and rebuild itself if we want an eco friendly future. Worldwide shipping needs to go away. Commercial aviation needs to go away. These are things no one wants to hear but would do the most good. Sacrifice is key. We may need to live modestly for a generation in order for energy production to advance to the point where we no longer have to. Our modern growth is a result too hastly adopting dirty technologies.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I was under the impression that cargo ships were actually pretty efficient due to their absolutely massive capacity. Compared to things like airplanes, I mean.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

They are efficient (cargo vs fuel consumption). They also go through my regular car's full gas tank in about 30 seconds. Less ships means less fuel burned. If we produce locally, transportation is not needed.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Still just 2% of global CO2 emissions

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago (4 children)

While animal agriculture is responsible for 20% and eating plants directly instead of feeding them to animals first would use 75% less land which means we could grow forests at here that store carbon.

The original commenter here just conveniently ignored that though.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I agree to some extent, but I don't necessarily think that we have to or even can live modestly for a generation. We "just" need to do things the right way. Right now we are not even offered the option to.

Global shipping can help ensure that the production happens where it is most efficient. The large quantities being shipped also minimizes the emissions per product for the distance travelled, so global shipping isn't all bad. The most environmentally expensive trip is the one from the store to the home. It would be nice though if global shipping happened on renewable energy or wind. It might be slower, but it's already slow, so what's the difference. The local distribution also needs to addressed. Everything is being transported in trucks domestically. It would be better to use trains or even ships for a lot of the trucked stuff.

Things that can be produced locally should be available locally, and not shipped around the globe only due to pricing. The worst example that I know of is how American breed chicken is being frozen and send to China so cheap labour can do do the chopping and then shipped back for the American market. That's just disgusting and not at all efficient. That kind of economic incentives must be shut down politically.

Commercial aviation needs to be stopped, starting with the short flights. Trains are perfectly capable of achieving the same travel time and on renewable energy. As of right now it's not really an option to go fast cross USA or Europe by train, but this is primarily because we do allow those trips to be done way too cheap by plane and in cars. More expensive flights and cheaper direct trains could enable us to still go on the annual holiday without bad consciousness. And for the love of god, don't waste any more money on expanding car infrastructure. It's a bottomless pit that also destroys the opportunities for better options.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (15 children)

We get it, billionaires bad, but it's in the effing tweet "what they can do as individual". All the options listed are solid.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago (4 children)

No, I meant what can I do without inconveniencing myself.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Back in the 90s I worked out the arithmetic and concluded that legalizing agricultural hemp (not marijuana but fiber) and reducing American beef consumption by 10%, would save the South American rainforests.

I forget the numbers now, but at the time almost all timber logging in the rainforests was to make paper. I remember buying some really nice plywood called "teppa" that came from I think Argentina, which became unavailable because all the logs were being pulped. Anyway, if the market for beef dropped 10%, forcing the beef industry to cut production, the drop in cattle feed consumption would reduce the demand for corn (a main component). If the land were used for hemp fiber instead it would produce enough paper to completely replace our paper imports from S.A.

This practical exercise probably taught me more economics than my college Econ 101 class.

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[–] [email protected] 109 points 1 day ago (25 children)

Removing one billionaire will do more good for the planet than anything a regular individual can do

[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That should not stop you from trying. You, and everyone else in this thread for that matter, just drop excuses. Either you guys finally start removing some billionaires, I'm all for that, or you start doing the little things. Ideally, just do both.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I mean, I still try to do all these things.

But I still don't really believe anything I do makes any real difference, because my individual impact is pretty much zero when compared to billionaires and corpos.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (11 children)

Yeah us normal civilians can make a miniscule difference by doing these things

But let's not act like the problem isn't billionaires like musk, swift, bezos etc and mega cooperations like nestle or even Boeing. They are the real problems. We will live to see the first trillionaire, yeah trillion. No one should have that much wealth. Eat the rich yo

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