Re:Half of the Great Barrier Reef Is Dead
by liamzebedee on Thursday August 09, 2018 @06:49AM
(#17723065)
I recently watched Google's internal leaked documentary, The Selfish Ledger [1], I think it has a really interesting perspective on this. Halfway through, the user is able to make a choice between two competing products, based on their preference (let's say it's reducing CO2). This is actionable because the supply chain of the product is available through public, transparent ledgers.
This is a faint idea, but what if we could achieve better collective leverage / incentive alignment through something like this? We already have brand boycott campaigns based on similar notions of environmental awareness, but I think there's a finite energy for being aware of these.
On an individual level, we have small economic influence. Collectively, we [can] have leverage. If we are effortlessly aware of both, there is that "visceral" daily experience where the lines are drawn between our basic split-second purchases (meat vs. vegan mince) and their impacts.
For instance, every time the weather is on and there's a terrible storm, they need to say "because we haven't taken the steps to curb CO2, this disaster is far more terrible then it would have been" or "that's the 30th day over 100 degrees this year. Our voluntary inaction on climate change and our refusal to do anything is causing more dramatically hot days each year" or "the migration problem is due partially to food and resource scarcity because we have chosen to not care about climate change" or "these terrible fires are record breaking because we are refusing to switch to renewables".
We could even make it a budget item, earmarking the disaster response, increased disease, increase emergency room visits and all the rest as the taxpayer burden of not doing anything.
It needs to be visceral, direct, repeated, and a daily experience. The lines clearly need to be drawn connecting the dots.
If this was said, every single time it's partially true in non-scientific casual language that the general public understands, things will start happening