> Start refusing to buy things and stop making excuses and until then you should feel ashamed to lecture anyone about anything.

This does not make sense to me. The single biggest consumption item is living in a detached single family house with yard space (due to knock on effects of everything you consume having to travel further, including the people in your house).

I know this, and I can advocate for change such that it people are incentivized to live more densely and consume less space (drastically higher fossil fuel taxes). But that does not mean I should give up my enjoyment of resources. If everyone else is going to consume, then so am I. But if the collective decides to sacrifice, then I am signaling I am willing to also. There is no reason for someone to not live it up if the collective is not going to also sacrifice.

> There is no reason for someone to not live it up if the collective is not going to also sacrifice.

If everyone thought as you do saying "Until everyone agrees to sacrifice, I won't either" then no one would ever sacrifice. Leading by example on the other hand is a proven way to help inspire change and can help avoid adding to harms caused by people who choose to live selfishly as long as they can point to anyone else also being selfish.

Housing is a subject full of complications and increased population density causes problems for the environment as well. Personally, I don't care of you live in a McMansion or a shanty town. I don't care of you buy the plastic razor with 47 blades or whatever they are up to now or switch to double bladed razors, but don't blame your selfishness on "the collective". You have no power over what they do, and they have no power over what you do. You alone are responsible for deciding for yourself what you're willing to give up in order to help the environment.

The collective has entire power over what you do. Global climate change was never solved by individual decisions, because when you live a different lifestyle than your workmates, you basically give up both the jobrace and the friends.

As for myself, I absolutely blame society for having a house. I live in France where class warfare is still a thing, and living in a block with people of the other ethnicity is unthinkable (they raped my goddaughter, but that’s only one example of storied - they kill gays at the train station too, so I take my car). Give me love and I’ll turn over my lavish house and happily live in a small flat, if I’m not hated for being there.

>I live in France where class warfare is still a thing, and living in a block with people of the other ethnicity is unthinkable (they raped my goddaughter, but that’s only one example of storied - they kill gays at the train station too, so I take my car).

Jesus, do you live in _Banlieue 13_ or something?

"They" ("the other ethnicity", as you put it) did nothing to your goddaughter. A criminal, on the other hand, did — and I hope they are paying a high price for it.

I live in France as well, and I share a block with many ethnicities. Without exception they've been warm, welcoming people.

Quite frankly, your comment exposes your racism. C'est une honte.

> Jesus, do you live in _Banlieue 13_ or something?

I live in the center of Lyon. The problem has grown bigger than you imagine.

> Quite frankly, your comment exposes your racism.

The one who did my goddaughter at the age of 7, I invited him home because I wasn’t racist. I couldn’t imagine they systematically raped the white girls when given the opportunity. I also couldn’t imagine police knew it and left him free despite 7 previous condemnations. He was a nice guy, met at salsa lessons, invited several people for my birthday.

Police left him free. Police left him free because the judges free them. They wouldn’t free a white guy. It’s outrageous. Police left him free!!!

> They wouldn’t free a white guy.

You have read too much conspiracy websites I'm afraid.

Faulting people for stereotyping and generalizing is not going to do any good. It is human nature, and the nature of all animals, to do this. You get bit by a hyena, you avoid hyenas. You cut yourself with a knife, you become careful with all knives. You may very well be correct, but lecturing someone usually only hardens their resolve. This lesson is something people have to learn for themselves.

People should be called on their bullshit. And saying that an entire race is to be held responsible for a rape is bullshit.

If it were a "white" person that had raped his god-daughter would he be clamoring to live in a different community. Without knowing this person, I can confidently say no based on the stereotypical racism in his outlook.

Racial categories are a societal invention. They are completely made up and arbitrary which is why we should be especially intolerant of racists. Not only is it a cruel viewpoint, it's a stupid one.

A knife is a knife is a knife. But the definition of what race someone belongs to is entirely up for debate depending on where in the world they are.

I don't think he mentioned race, I think the word he used was "ethnicity" which is inclusive of culture, and doesn't necessarily include race at all. Culture is a shorthand way of saying "behavioral trends within a self identifying community." You might say its a "dog whistle" for race, and you may be right, but we argue the point and take people at their word, in good faith, here.

If I were a white person that lived in a white community that had problems with women getting raped, I'd leave. There are communities like this, and plenty of people trying to find a way out of them. If I were a brown person that lived in a brown community with these problems, I'd leave, which is why I am sympathetic to immigrants leaving their countries and going to ones where women don't get raped all the time.

Also, after reading more of this thread, I don't think he's saying "this ethnicity rapes people" necessarily, I think it's more like "when someone from this ethnicity does rape someone, they don't get punished because the judges are afraid of being wrongly called racists, so if I move away from them, at least the rapists where I move will go to jail. It's not safer because they rape less necessarily, its safer because the rapists are in prison."

But that's all beside the point. You can't fault people for generalizing, we are pattern finding creatures by nature. It's a shortcut to bettering our lives. The pattern might only be correlation and not cause, but that doesn't change the improvement we get when we make decisions based off the recognized pattern, hence the evolutionary advantage to pattern recognition. The apparent pattern might not even exist, but behaving as if it does might not cause us any detriment at all, so there's no selective pressure against it. Berating people for this doesn't solve the problem, it in fact worsens it, and if you're indeed right, then over time people will meet nice people that fall into a negative stereotype in their mind and adjust their world view accordingly, no lecture required.

> I don't think he mentioned race, I think the word he used was "ethnicity" which is inclusive of culture, and doesn't necessarily include race at all. Culture is a shorthand way of saying "behavioral trends within a self identifying community." You might say its a "dog whistle" for race, and you may be right, but we argue the point and take people at their word, in good faith, here.

Ethnicity in french is the equivalent of race in english, when we speak about human beings.

If a white person raped my goddaughter, he would be in jail, period.

The guy wasn’t in jail. Think why.

> People should be called on their bullshit.

I’m calling you on your bullshit, but only because you present it that way: You are denying that there is a widespread rivalry between two ethnicities in France, and there are real victims. Real victims on one side (including rape, murder) and mostly paper victims on the other, and you are helping this situation to happen, mostly by putting pressure on the police to not jail the culprits. It’s like foxes in a hen enclosure, where you would blame the hens for speaking up.

> You are denying that there is a widespread rivalry between two ethnicities in France

The real issue is islamophobia and racism especially amongst the oldest who are sadly the majority of the population and the last to vote.

There is no widespread rivalry of any kind in France. You have to live an extremely sheltered life and watch to much TV to believe that.

> The collective has entire power over what you do.

No, they don't control you, but they can influence you, just as you can influence them and their choices.

Climate change isn't solved by individual decisions because the worst of it isn't the result of an individuals choice. Corporations are primarily responsible and as individuals we are largely powerless to change their practices. That doesn't mean we can't make personal choices that reduce the harms we cause, it's just not going to solve the problem.

I have yet to visit France, but I doubt everyone there would share your view that living with people of another ethnicity is unthinkable or would by necessity result in rape. That doesn't mean you shouldn't make sensible decisions to protect your safety. If your train stations are unsafe, don't feel bad about driving a car, but you should probably be pushing for improvements to the security of your public transportation. Make choices that are good for the environment where you can. Our circumstances may limit our choices, but if we're doing our best that's all anyone can ask.

This is circular. If the individual is constantly checking the dysfunctional apparatus of the public, then the public won't change because the individual won't. Gandhi pretty much tackled this in whole. Individuals have to independently strive towards this, of their own volition, to dismantle the heteronomous shitshow that the West has constructed with their virulent socioeconomic modal.

Nobody in their right mind agrees with the state of civilization, probably at all; this is the consequence of heteronomy. So even if you're affine to laissez-faire idealities, their realities with the concentration of wealth and the fundamental aspect necessitates someone ultimately is sacrificed to turn the wheel, typically the "third world". Or any of a huge battery (probably infinite) of other similar moral concerns.

We're all culpable for the continuity of this, myself included. We need exceptional individuals to live exceptional lives more than ever, though. We need to take it upon ourselves to begin dismantling these systems and their fundamental concepts.

Yes, there is. Personal fulfilment. Living up to your own standards.

Why do you want to consume because everyone else is doing so? Is the only reason you're willing to consider doing otherwise to save the world? Is life worse without the disposable products? Why are the decisions you make in your life contingent on some insurmountable, unachievable goal such as "everyone else must do it first"?

Life is worse without disposable products. In some cases, the disposable products are cheaper. In other cases, they are more convenient. In most cases, you can't buy products without a ton of disposable plastic, foam, and cardboard packaging. It's hard/extremely expensive to not buy a detached single family home in the US. Public transportation in America sucks and you can't get anywhere without a car.

I want to live a world with as close to zero carbon footprint as possible, however, short of sacrificing all my possessions and living like a hermit, I can't do that without collective change. I've taken many steps to minimize it but it feels like the next step I take will have almost no impact while also making the quality of my life significantly worse.

Well I disagree. Life is better without disposable products. Life is better with less things in general.

I use almost no disposable products. I think the disposable products I do use once, would be floss picks and fuel for the car. I even avoid buying trash bags and just reuse grocery bags. My carbon footprint is on the order of a village dweller from a third world country, and I don't even do it because of my carbon footprint, I do it because life is better when it is simpler. I'm not a hermit, I have an active social life and an active life in general. And my life is good, better than it was when I had a bunch of things and lived in an apartment.

I don't care about carbon emissions, the collective, any of that, and I am doing vastly more for those causes than 99% of the people that lecture me about them, and my only motivator is living by my standards, being honest with myself. That's all it takes, if you care about these things live like it, if you can't be bothered to live by what you say then quite frankly shut the fuck up about it.

You consume grocery bags, you dispose of trash, you buy floss picks, and you put fuel into a car, and those things alone put you way above a village dweller from a third world country, who buys no floss picks, owns no car, puts no fuel into a car, and does not buy groceries at a market that hands out bags.

I use on the order of a half gallon of gas a month. I'd say a village dweller has a larger carbon footprint in firewood alone.

I re-use grocery bags for trash and use no trash bags. I reuse any disposable plastic I can, at least once. That cut's my plastic output roughly in half compared to other people around me.

I've taken to using a water pick now, so a bag of those picks takes me maybe a year to use. That's miniscule.

I don't know if you've ever been to a third world country, but plastic bags even at small street shops are all the rage. I probably dispose of less plastic than they do. And to top that off, most developing nations don't have the infrastructure to handle it, and you see the bags clogging up waterways and blowing around, it's a big problem. So the direct pollution, even if I used more plastic, doesn't compare because most of the plastic I use goes to a landfill, not the local creek that's used as a sewer.

Like all environmental discussions, they always degrade into whatever moral failure someone cares about.

Throwing out 500 lbs of unnecessary plastic packaging has nothing to do with single family houses.

I think environmental damage scales directly with consumption of energy, whether it be to move mass or manufacture plastic. The sheer amount of consumption due to living far away from each other, with all the human mass, water, fuel, trash, machines, food, and everything else that has to move because of the distance people are from each other dwarfs everything else.

There is no “sustainable” world and a lifestyle that allows 8 billion people to have their own cars, fly to island vacations, and live in suburbia, with current energy transformation technology. Doing all the other things is a rounding error.

At the end of the day, the physics is simple. Moving mass a certain distance takes a certain amount of energy. Our current method of harnessing that energy results in a lot of byproducts, and we have yet to find alternatives with sufficiently better properties. Either we find that breakthrough technology, or reduce the mass and/or distance it is being moved.

Reminds me of George W Bush vs Al Gore in that Bush had a modest ranch house with all the eco friendly features and Gore, the environmentalalist had some 20,000+ foot megamansion.

Yea... it was unfortunate that so many people focused on that instead of the general problem and now we are barreling toward a very bad outcome. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what wealthy people do - they're going to be just fine regardless of what the rest of us do, except that if we kick and scream about their big houses and refuse to do anything we just wind up inheriting the problem and they're still right where they started. I somewhat feel this way about abortion - like I can afford to move my family or fly a family member somewhere to get one. Can you? Might want to think about that.

The other issue is that focusing on something like this megamansion (as grotesque as it is anyway - seriously a lot of these rich people are just tasteless losers) leads down to a never ending condition where you just never do enough to satisfy people who have no interest in changing their habits anyway.

If Gore sold his megamansion they'd say "hey you are still flying", if he stopped flying they'd say "hey you're still driving a car", if he stopped driving a car they say "hey you're not growing your own vegetables", if he started growing his own vegetables they'd say "hey the tools you use come from a carbon emitting supply chain" and if he stopped using tools and made his own they'd just keep on and on and on forever until we get global warming anyway and so many people are screwed. There's no genuine interest in solving the problem, they just want to distract you.

people need to set examples. "Do as I say not as I do"

it's not about distraction, it's about showing you're sincere. If you're like "save the planet" out of one side and on the other planning your 5th airflight you don't "actually" care.

it's like asking poor countries to bare all the burden of climate change and rich countries doing little. "I've got mine and sorry you don't but too bad, you're not allowed to have it" is not going to convince anyone except to follow your actions, not your words

I think the difference comes down to a question of leadership style and effectiveness vs correct policy making. For example I used to be 100% vegetarian for ~5 years due to ethical concerns. The reason I stopped is that I am pretty sure that no single animal's life got spared because of me not eating meat. However, I'd immediately have voted "yes" to ban all meat eating. If I had run for office on that platform nobody would have elected me because they perceived me as insincere. Not understanding that might be bad leadership rather than actual insincerity.

I don’t disagree. But at the end of the day it’s our problem. So it doesn’t matter what they do.

Greta Thunberg the way she travels to the conferences is admirable, she genuinely lives what she is talking about and it is a stark contrast to every single politician that turns up to a climate change conference with a giant team in a plane and lives extravagant lives.

Its not about the complete abolition of everything its about the hypocrisy of being one of the biggest polluters in a country let alone the world while suggesting others on substantially less consumption drastically change their lives when they are least financially able to do so.

Didn’t famous Greta’s yacht trip included flying two crews? One after the initial trip and another for return?

Simply flying would have been 10x better. Let alone joining via Zoom.

Not sure if it's sarcasm? Greta's travels are famous for looking eco friendly while not being so: https://oilprice.com/The-Environment/Global-Warming/Greta-Th...

That is a laughably bad source.

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Alright, but what's wrong with the claims?

That they didn’t cite a reliable source. One can’t be expected to just “trust it.”

I didn't ask anyone to trust anything, I only asked what's wrong with the claims. I don't trust it either, but I'm curious.

If they were eco-conscious they wouldn't travel in first place. Anyone who travels to fight against climate change is a hypocritical liar. I expect them to absolutely minimize their footprint. That is no heated conferences, just single loudspeaker with regular phone call to present their ideas, outside. Anything more is just pure destroying of the planet.

> If Gore sold his megamansion they'd say "hey you are still flying", if he stopped flying they'd say "hey you're still driving a car"

This is not true at all. People aren't stupid. They know the difference between Mega mansions/private jets and driving a car. Sure, there might be a few trolls online that will still say "But you don't grow your own vegetables". But it would definitely not become a nation wide focus in a way that living as hypocritically as Al Gore does.

You're comment comes off as really dismissive. Almost like you're saying "the people calling him out for his mega mansion are just as bad as people who would call him out for not growing his own vegetables".

I am being dismissive. The whole point is focusing on his stupid mansion is just a useless distraction and doesn’t stop climate change whatsoever.

> People aren't stupid.

Then why are they getting hung up on his mansion instead of demanding that their government do something? Him having a mansion doesn’t change basic scientific facts even if he’s the one stating them.

Quite. It's easy to find fault, but if you could magically rank everyone who's ever lived by the indirect CO2 reductions of their actions, I'm pretty sure Al Gore would be near the top of that list.

And on other hand what about direct CO2 caused? I think all of those events people travelled for would rank him pretty high on the list.

The bad-faith narratives about Al Gore's personal life were hilariously wrong and offensive and irrelevant 25-30 years ago. I guess some people still haven't caught on.

Al Gore was right about, well, basically everything he said on major policy issues.

BTW, that supposed "megamansion"? It's a 5-bedroom home, really quite modest by the standards of today's billionaires. It's basically what you'd assume a former Senator and Vice President might have. Efforts to paint this as somehow offensive are obviously in bad faith.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that everything he said on major policy issues was correct... seems like that'd a lot of room to be wrong there, but he was sure as hell right that global warming was real and needed to be addressed.

The attacks on him for his house were just to distract from his message. He also paid extra cash to his utility company to get blocks of "green power" produced using renewable sources to help offset the extra power his home consumed each year.

He was right about the Internet, too, very very early, and gets zero credit for it.

> until then you should feel ashamed to lecture anyone about anything

I'd take it a step further and say -- just do what you feel is best, what matches your morals, etc, and skip the lecture in any case. 99% of what is wrong with social media has to do with people lecturing the world as if their own personal opinion deserves special consideration. Focus on doing, not talking about it.

A lot of corporate propaganda has gone into this line that the consumers are the most to blame for “disposable crap”.

They are. You don't have to buy any of it.

It’s not a multi-billion industry on account of it not working.

This individualistic refrain doesn’t make sense in the context of a critique of the overall system. Maybe as advice on how to be a self-flagelating low-eco-impact consumer or how to better master your personal finances. But ultimately it’s just an excuse for corporations to do the usual thing because the buck stops with the consumer (and corporations can just claim that they are just fulfilling a need that someone else would fill in their stead; they only sell the proverbial guns, they don’t pull the trigger).

But it's true. If people don't buy it they won't make it. We have all the power, not them.

They fight back.

Laws, propaganda, tradition, abusing human weaknesses like addictions.

Our power is diffuse and slow.

They're Javelin anti tank weapons pinpoint targeting our weakest points.

The fight is not fair and they're winning.

Part of the point of this article is that more economical and environmentally friendly alternatives have been made harder for consumers to find. There's nothing wrong with shaving or drinking tea, yet when we go down to the shops to get the things we need, all our choices are limited to plastic disposable razors and pre-filled plastic tea bags. We don't always have the choice to vote with our wallets because the alternatives aren't equally accessible.

Yes, people are being steered towards behaviors that are more profitable for manufacturers and away from behaviors that are better for themselves.

And the way to stop it is to stop buying that stuff. Stores get pressured to stock things, and they can only justify it if it gets bought. If a store doesn't stock the things you want, don't buy things from that store except the things it does have that you do want. They will make the alternatives equally accessible when we demonstrate that we can go without what they have on offer. We always have a choice, always.

You have a choice to the extent that you're willing to be homeless and live without income and act in violation of the law. The rest of us are constrained in our choices by the society we live in and the expectations it places on us.

I want a cell phone that respects my privacy, but none exist on the market today so I have no choice. I still need a cell phone though since my work requires one. We also don't all have the same amount of choices. Those with fewer resources have fewer choices. People should do the best they can given their circumstances, but its worth trying to remove the artificial barriers which limit our choices where we can. Especially when those barriers are put in place to funnel profit into the hands of a small number of people at our expense.

We aren't talking about purchasing products anymore. We were talking about purchasing products at the store a minute ago.

"If I don't participate in this economy I'll be homeless, so I have to by Gillette mach 20 disposable plastic razor cartridges." Do what you can where you can. Can you stop buying disposable razor cartridges made of plastic and still not be homeless? Then do so.

> "If I don't participate in this economy I'll be homeless, so I have to by Gillette mach 20 disposable plastic razor cartridges."

More like: "I want to get a job, the employer requires me to not look homeless so I have to shave my face, which means I have to buy a razor, but I've never heard of double bladed razors, or seen them being offered for sale and every store I can access that sells razors only sells plastic razors with disposable plastic razor cartridge so that's what I'll buy"

If you're lucky enough to have heard of a better alternative, and you have the means to get it, you should, but unless nearly everyone has the means, opportunity, and then does that thing, it will never force stores to change how they stock shelves.

I haven't shaved with a blade in 11 years, minus the one time 6 months ago I decided to see what this 10 blade thing was all about. I have gotten jobs in that time. Good jobs even. I have not been homeless once within that time frame. If I can do it, you can too.

> I've never heard of double bladed razors...

now you're jumping through flaming hoops to rationalize your excuses. I challenge you to find a man with hair on his face anywhere in the world who has never heard of single blade razors, straight razors, double blade razors, electrical razors, or trimming a beard with scissors.

The article itself brought up the point:

" The double edged razor has become a product that you can only buy on the internet, and which you will only buy if you know that it exists."

How did you learn of this product? Have you ever seen ads for one? I only knew of them because I've seen it discussed online (in the context of "shaving club websites") but you'd be kidding yourself to think that that's something everyone would stumble on.

Electric razors are an alternative, and I've seen them in shops although they were expensive enough that it might be hard for some. I'm sure they can picked up at low prices elsewhere, but again, that will vary by location. Straight razors I've heard of (thanks to Sweeney Todd and old cartoons), but I've never once seen them for sale anywhere. I guess growing a beard with scissors is an option for workplaces that allow beards, but I wouldn't trust myself to do it well enough for a job interview. Another option might be an old fashioned barber shop too, but while I'm sure they still exist I've never seen or been to one that offered shaves.

It really all just depends so much on where you are and what you've been exposed to. When you're counting on the masses to have identical access, experience, knowledge and behavior to drive changes on store shelves I don't think you'll find much success and I don't think we have to depend on speculation there since we can see from the state of store shelves now that things have not been working out to our benefit.

What if we already do so, the status quo is already the equilibrium, and thus your idea already worked? But it cannot find any more understanding in those doing their complex routine. You’re asking to sleep less, to work more and to get less from people literally competing to have some nice time.

It is of course true that we have some choices. But we have less power than the companies that shelf and produce all of that stuff.

Each company has their own marketing department. Public Relations is the science of manipulating desire, developed for over one-hundred years now. And they just have to focus on selling their coffee machines or whatever.

Take just one commodity as an example. A soda. They sometimes put just a little bit of salt in it to (1) mask the sweet flavor, and (2) to make you more thirsty. But you of course don’t notice any salty taste or the fact that it is unreasonably sugary because the salt and the sugar (to a point) cancel each other out. But a reasonably conscientious consumer could read the what’s-in-this-shit label, go on a message board and convince a lot of others (hundreds? thousands?s) to do a boycot campaign until all major producers start to issue “no salty business” labels on their products, so that the somewhat less conscientious consumers can pick the no-salt options without reading the what’s-in-this-crap label.

Now you just repeat the above step for all of the hundreds of items that you have to buy.

Who has time to do that on a big enough scale? No, not just on the scale of getting the bragging right of “I consume X times less than the average person”;[1] we’re talking about actually pressuring companies (with our awesome wallet power[1]) to stop producing whole lines of products.

Each company just has to sell their coffee machines or whatever else. And you just have to do wade through and make sense of the the propaganda given out by dozens/hundreds of companies, for hundreds to thousands of product lines.

[1]: Some fringe “anti-consumption” lifestyle groups does not threaten the bottom-line of any company.

[2]: Speaking of which: one can of course vote with one’s wallet. That is a form of power. But here the issue of how relative that power is painfully obvious: some (most) people have wallets (including savings) consisting of hundreds to thousands of dollars, while some people (and entities) have wallets with hundres of millions of dollars. This is not a one-person-one-vote kind of power!

What items do I have to buy? This is a serious question.

I'm going online right now, telling people how I live, maybe 10 see it and say "he's right, I have to live by what I claim to believe" and make an effort to change what they do. Maybe 10000 do, maybe none. But I did this because I wanted to.

I don't care what companies do, if they don't have what I want they don't get my money. It's really that simple. We talk about marketing and propaganda, how much marketing has gone into muddying the water and poisoning the discussion just to get people to forget this one fact? If everyone just lived by their own stated rules they wouldn't be able to get away with any of this. They get away with it because we let them get away with it, by making excuses for ourselves. They want you to make these excuses you're making, convince yourself why you need their junk, convince yourself that it is insurmountable because you can control only your own behavior. You're demoralized into wanting "the collective" to change your life for you. You focus on your peers instead of yourself, and this is precisely how they can get away with what they do, because of the choices you make, because of your focus on things out of your control.

My goal isn't to save the world, my only goal is to be honest with myself and live the way I want to. And that's all it takes, everything else is excuses.

I feel like you are all over the place. Or maybe just two places. Those two things:

1. We can “save the planet” (whatever that means to us) by forcing companies to change: ultimately it is we who have to change because the change flows from us

2. None of this matters: it’s just about personal integrity

Because these two can be combined: if everyone just had sufficient integrity/character then we could “save the planet”. We wouldn’t be trying to do that, as individuals, but that would be the emergent result.

What I’ve been complaining about all along is just the apparent idea that we can help the environment by voting with our wallets. But if this is all about (2) then I don’t give a shit at all: I don’t care about the personal finance aspect, the frugality aspect, or the “living your values” aspect; I simply think the idea that we as consumers have more power than companies is wrong. And specifically when it comes to “saving the planet”.

But if “saving the planet” is not a concern then we are just talking past each other.

And all of that crap about “excuses” is just you projecting your living-your-values mission onto others; I don’t care, for even one second, about that stuff. At least the way you present it.

It is, by the way, funny how you think that “companies” want us to think that we are powerless. Well sure, maybe they do. But they have indeed invested money in the idea of the all-powerful consumer. The now famous “carbon footprint” was an invention by British Petroleum: the idea that we should, as individuals—always as individuals—just turn off the bathroom light and maybe not drive on Sundays. The “carbon footprint” is of course the fault of individuals, not of entities like BP. British Petroleum and you would at least agree on that much.

Maybe the perfect consumer (as far as companies are concerned) does feel powerless. But she also has to feel a sort of paradoxical guilt for using about ten planets worth of resources (if extrapolated to the human race).

And yet another trick is to reduce people to consumers (as in only that). Hence your fallacious conclusion that my line of reasoning is that people should feel powerless. But that ignores the fact that people are also citizens, and they have more potential power as citizens (political animals) compared to your don’t-tread-on-me code of conduct.

I eat the carbon equivalent of about a half pound of plastic a day, the result of which either ends up in the atmosphere or in the ground. Whatever packaging I do use (and I don’t go out of my way to avoid it) is a rounding error compared to what goes through me for basic life.

Most of the resources used are in the supply chain anyway.

The most environmentally friendly thing I’ve done in my life is delay replacing my totaled car.

Carbon from animals? That carbon was already part of the carbon cycle (name?), unlike carbon from petroleum sources. Am I misunderstanding you?

Is that cycle natural? More people means more for-food animals, more petroleum on growing and logistics, doesn’t it. Everything depends on everything, there is no clear end of chain. Humans don’t naturally starve at scale anymore except in few fucked up regions.

More people means more of that carbon locked up in biomass, in the form of humans as well as animal and plant food.

I started using Braun electric razors about 34 years ago. This turns out to have been a good choice. They are lasting around 16 years each, on average. I recently had to get a new one; only the 3rd one I have had to buy in all that time.

No packaging used up for all kinds of shaving soap or cream or other products, no packaging or plastic or metal used up to buy thousands of blades, etc.

I've been using an electric razor for years, too, and I agree that they are much cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

The only reason I've had to replace them so far is that it becomes impossible to buy replacement blades and foil. So I have to buy a model that is only superficially different, instead of just replacing the expendables.

They do this on purpose, create non-interchangable disposable parts and EOL the system by ending manufacture of those parts.

You can do what the article says and just buy a double bladed razor, more environmentally friendly because you don't get stuck in this trap, the disposable part is just steel, it's easily manufactured and not proprietary. Or, you can buy the disposable parts for your electric shaver with the shaver, keeping in mind the actual, working lifespan of the device. Or, you can use a straight razor and a strop, no disposable parts necessary.

But you still need to replace the bits that do the cutting.

You do, but I have consistently found that you actually hardly ever have to do that, if you keep them clean. Certainly way, way less than the manufacturer insists that you have to.

In any case, whether you agree with me or not about this detail, it's vastly less use of throwaway plastics, less use of metal, less energy use from manufacturing and delivering all that stuff, and of course, way cheaper.

Are you sure you're not one of those people?