These large corporations, controlled by a relatively small number of _people_ have a disproportionate and coordinated impact on the environment that outstrips anything the average person can do.
They need to be held accountable, like we have done to other polluters and entities that have threatened public safety and security in our communities and society.
I don't know if this particular effort is the right approach, but I sure am sick of naive people pointing the finger at the average person saying they need to be personally responsible for fixing problems created by large corporations.
Edit: not saying the average person should do nothing, but it's literally the least impactful thing that we can do. Corporations and sources of pollution need to be made accountable first. Everything else is just noise.
Except that fuel is not literally addictive; it actually provides for some pretty basic needs for most people.
> These large corporations, controlled by a relatively small number of _people_ have a disproportionate and coordinated impact on the environment that outstrips anything the average person can do.
> They need to be held accountable, like we have done to other polluters and entities that have threatened public safety and security in our communities and society.
You might have point in some areas, but not demand for/use of fossil fuels. That is truly a democratic environmental problem.
Yeah, because people prefer and choose to use modern, energy-intensive technology.
It's not like the oil companies forced cars or HVAC systems on people who didn't want them. What actually happened was people wanted to drive cars and live in warm homes without spending months chopping wood, and that created a lot of demand for fossil fuels.
You see this with recycling plastics as well. YOUR fault for not tossing the yogurt container in the right bin.
individuals can't absolve themselves of responsibility by blaming the corporations that they buy their petroleum products from.
Planning according to policies set in large part by auto and oil lobbyists.
If we had any meaningful regulation, these companies would be forced to begin paying for their products' impacts on climate.
I was comparing the practice of large corporations who are actually to blame for societal problems deflecting that blame down to the end user.
You could argue prohibition was good because it drove all of those "evil" profiteering alcohol companies out of business, but at the end of the day the consumer demand was still there.
Your comment makes it sound like you’re ok with the the oil companies and corporations just ceasing operations
That's what accountability in politics is all about.
> It’s we consumers who ultimately burn the oil for our homes, hospitals, schools, cars, and general electrical needs.
This implies a willingness to ignore the entire complex context why humanity as a whole has ended up in this spot in the first place.
Consider this thought experiment. Try cutting out as many aspects as you can out of your life that depends on oil or it's derivatives. This includes the use of goods based on fossil-fuel based polymers, plastics or the combustion of oil for the generation of heat, light and movement.
The end result of that exercise would be you living a very different lifestyle and society being organized in a very different way. The vast majority would dismiss the idea as "reverting back to Medieval times" while a small niche is totally into homesteading.
Of course, there's a middle ground here when it comes to reducing the dependence on fossil fuels. But to be frank, it's a so-called Wicked Problem that comes with far more challenges then first meets the eye. In fact, the more you - or society - wants to try and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, the more deeply altering changes to your lifestyle you - or society - is going to have to accept. Beyond electrical cars, this implies changes to public infrastructure, how public space is being used, renewed thinking regarding the use of natural resources, agriculture, supply chains, construction of housing, packaging of goods, etc. etc. etc.
The idea of a carbon tax is not new. Guess which lobby groups successfully delay an implementation?
It's not like consumers were begging for expensive and unreliable sources of energy until oil companies intervened and changed their minds.
Instead of engaging in inflammatory rhetoric, let’s try something useful like a carbon tax that prices in the environmental impacts of fossil fuel consumption.