Are you arguing as a consumer you have no control over the products you buy or the energy sources you use? Because that’s not true.

You can spend your entire life fretting over how each and every one of the products you use was produced. You can dig through hard to find information (if there is even such public information at all!) and devote literal hours per day on that quest. You will have made an impact which is a millionth of what an (unelectable, unaccountable) CEO can do with a decision of his.

This is not sustainable, it's not democratic, frankly it has to change.

PS: Not to mention you can only even have the luxury of doing this if you're at least relatively well off. If you're poor you just buy cheapest of everything, no questions asked.

But there's stuff that doesn't fall in that category. Flying for example. In Europe, where trains are a viable alternative to shorter-distance flights, still lots of people would not even think about taking the train because ... don't know, flying is cool?

> it's not democratic

How is it not democratic if democracy decided to not force those CEOs do make different decisions? We can force them. Easily. Even better, we don't even have to force them, we just have to increase taxes on stuff we don't want and subsidize stuff we want. That, for example, worked extremely well to get renewables in electricity production to 50% in Germany (within 15 years, while the new government was trying to work against it).

We're just not doing it. We're not voting for politicians that would write regulation and laws that would force those CEOs to decide differently. There's no reason, nothing to keep us from doing it, no brainwashing, nothing. Just way too few people that think of climate change in the voting booth. It really sucks, but it doesn't help to blame anyone else than most of the people around you.

> Not to mention you can only even have the luxury of doing this if you're at least relatively well off. If you're poor you just buy cheapest of everything, no questions asked.

If you're poor, your CO2 emissions probably are way lower than if you're rich.

> Flying for example. In Europe, where trains are a viable alternative to shorter-distance flights, still lots of people would not even think about taking the train because...

Because the pollution of flying isn't adequately accounted for and priced as an externality. If we had a proper carbon tax (which I dislike the name, it's actually simply a carbon price) then green transportation would be cheaper than flying (and then all second-order effects would kick in: more incentive to invest in green transportation, more incentive to leave flying, etc).

> How is it not democratic if democracy decided to not force those CEOs

> We're just not doing it. We're not voting for politicians that would write regulation

Your entire argument relies on the false premise that the will of the people is translated into policy. It's not. Consider the following damning evidence:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

in particular Figure 1.

> If we had a proper carbon tax

That would be awesome :)

> Your entire argument relies on the false premise that the will of the people is translated into policy.

I can only speak for Germany, where it does. Right now, the Green party has the least seats of all parties in the national parliament. Why should the parliament then do something about climate change? However, when they were in the government between '98 and '05, the put the "EEG"[1] into effect (basically just implementing subsidies for renewables), and now 50% of our electricity is produced by renewables (not including nuclear). And that happened even though the following government tried to slow the transition.

There's national elections in September in Germany. With some luck, the green party will be in the new government, right now they are 2nd in the polls. That will, undoubtedly, change national politics with respect to climate change policy.

As for the US ... not sure what your problem currently is. Does the two party/winner takes it all system lead to these problems? Or is it because the republicans basically stopped caring about the truth in the 90s to win elections, spoiling the whole political process? No idea ... however, still, under the last three democratic presidents, more was done for the middle class (and probably less wars were started) then under republican presidents, right? So it does definitely matter what party wins, right, making voting not completely irrelevant even in the US?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Source...

The big four are buildings, electricity, transportation and agriculture. The typical consumer has no influence on buildings, because they rent. They have a little influence on electricity, because they can choose to buy greenwashed electrons, but they have no influence on energy policy. They have yet a little more influence on transportation, because most can choose not to fly, some can choose not to use a car (or at least use an EV if they can afford it). But they have almost no influence on, e.g. public transportation infrastructure, charging infrastructure, cycling infrastructure, or city planning. Only in agriculture you can actually make a difference in your emissions by eating less meat, but there too there is no path for the consumer to carbon neutrality.

Overall, a conscious consumer can maybe cut their carbon output in half compared to their peers, but their actions have no path towards actual carbon neutrality. That is a problem that needs to be tackled by politicians.

Consumers don't have as much choice as you make it out to be. I can't choose the sourcing of my power utility's generation. Nor can I choose to get an EV because my home doesn't have the ability to support charging. So I'm stuck with buying renewable energy credits from a third party in order to attempt to offset the dirty power generation sources and driving an inferior hybrid car.

But we don't even make use of the little choice that we have. And for example in Germany, you can choose electricity providers that only use renewables.

Because people have neither time nor money for any of this. Most of the population worries about short-term things like "having food on the table", "keeping that job", "keeping myself healthy", "giving my children a better future, so that their lives aren't as hard as mine".

We've just signed a new contract with our electricity provider in Poland. Renewable usage didn't even enter the discussion - none of us even realized there's a choice there. Only when reading the details of the agreement I realized the provider is committing themselves to deliver electricity from renewable sources. So now, I'm powering my computer with green energy, and so is likely my entire neighbourhood. Not because any of us made that choice - it's because the power company did.

Systemic incentives are what's needed to save us. Getting a power company to go green is much more cost-effective than trying to make an equivalent number of consumers to switch individually.

> "giving my children a better future, so that their lives aren't as hard as mine"

Although they'll have a pretty hard live if we don't do something against climate change. And yes, many people do not have the resources to do these tings.

> Because people have neither time nor money for any of this.

Many people do not have that, yes. But many others do, and they could start doing it and as they are probably the ones better off, their over-proportional influence as consumers would make a huge difference. Its a complete failure of the "middle class".

> Systemic incentives are what's needed to save us.

Well yeah, I agree that politics/elections are a better way. Its just that ... we do neither. We do not take our individual responsibilities serious, neither when voting, nor when consuming.

>n Germany, you can choose electricity providers that only use renewables.

That is a false choice - unless electricity providers have wires all the way to your house you have no idea where the electricity came from. All you know is they buy enough renewable to cover what you use. However if you didn't use them the renewable power would mostly be generated at the same time anyway, just at a lower cost.

The above isn't completely true, as the higher price you pay does get a bit more renewable power into the mix. However overall it isn't a big factor unless most people choose the same provider.

>All you know is they buy enough renewable to cover what you use.

And where is the problem with that? The coal plant you got your electricity from is the real sucker here because they didn't get paid and more people doing this is a real problem for them.

They're not more expensive. And of course it changes something when enough people change providers, as those providers then have more money to invest in renewables, just as you said. If enough people switch, coal power plants would have to shut down as no one would buy their elecricity.

Did you consider the ability to charge an EV when buying (renting?) your home? Will you factor that in when moving in future?

Consumers have more choice than you think; not everyone, but a definite proportion come into a position to make a choice on a continual basis. And economically, it is the margin that matters.

What if he had considered EV charging? Or chose to move again this month? Somebody would still be living in his current house and driving a non-EV because that's what's available.

These "choices" are largely meaningless. The choices that matter are ones which reduce emissions or waste across society, not for one individual.

Upgrading to an EV does little to prevent climate change. Do all new EV owners have their old ICE vehicles responsibly destroyed? No, they mostly just sell them on. All you do by choosing to buy an EV and a house with charging is push the emissions onto somebody else.

The important choices, the ones that determine the overwhelming bulk of the outcomes, are being decided by elites and politicians. And they are choosing in the wrong direction.

*rich customers have more choice than you think

Poor customers go with what they can afford

As "a" consumer I do, but I think they're arguing that we need our "leaders" to show some "spine"... they have the power to force corporations to make drastic changes, but till now they're either dumb, deaf, blind or zombiefied by power (or promises of)... The average consumer doesn't think there is a point in changing behaviour(or economically can't) and being an example for others (or different) requires...spine?

> but I think they're arguing that we need our "leaders" to show some "spine"

I was arguing that we can vote in politicians with a spine with respect to doing something about climate change, if the ones we have don't do their job.

I think it is really important to acknowledge how well the political system works, at least in Europe. Politicians largely do what their voters want from them.

Its the voters that don't want climate change legislation. Take Germany: the conservative party did rule now for 16 years, and they are certainly fulfilling their voters wishes by NOT doing something about climate change. Voters of that party don't want that.

> The average consumer doesn't think there is a point in changing behaviour

Unfortunately I have the feeling that the consumer just does not want to change behavior, no matter if it would change something or not. Afterwards, they'll rationalize their decision with such arguments, sure.

If it's not incumbent on our leaders to have that responsibility, then what good are they?

WE voted for them. And voted for them again.

If they don't show responsibility, and we vote them in again and again, it is not their fault, its ours.

Stuff like: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?

We did vote for them, and I absolutely agree.

The one problem with that is the equation is not that simple.

Most of our so-called leaders come from a completely different class than the rest of us, or were inducted into that class through their networks. They spend billions to make sure that everything goes their way. Unfortunately, you don't just have people voting for leaders; you have leaders pushing propaganda to influence thought patterns to make people vote for whomever has the most resources, and alternative voices are pushed off the stage before most people have a chance to change their minds.

Voters are to blame, but those with the most power aren't absolved just because the voters give them their value. That value is also mined from the public through careful manipulation.

> Most of our so-called leaders come from a completely different class than the rest of us, or were inducted into that class through their networks.

Yes. And some are not, and we could vote for them to give them more influence. I bet once that happens, even more of such people would come into politics.

> Unfortunately, you don't just have people voting for leaders; you have leaders pushing propaganda to influence thought patterns to make people vote for whomever has the most resources, and alternative voices are pushed off the stage before most people have a chance to change their minds.

Speaking for Germany (and I believe it is the same in many European countries), I don't see that. I don't see manipulation and propaganda on that level, and I do, for example, see quite a lot of good journalism providing good information.

Of course there's wild theories going around on social media and influencing people in really bad ways, but that's just people telling lies to other people, not a lot of the classic elite/leaders there.

> those with the most power aren't absolved just because the voters give them their value

I absolutely agree. That's why its so depressing that we do not vote such people out.

Nah, we voted against somebody else