this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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This is such a fucking stupid argument to make.
The reason airlines make x% of CO2 emissions is because people want to fly, they're an airline, and there is no emissions free way to power a plane.
The reason the plastic company makes x billions of plastic sporks every year is because I want a spoon to eat my Taco Bell Nachos in my car. They're not making all the plastic pollution because they just hate the Earth.
They're not cartoon villains like in Captain Planet that pollute just to make pollution.
If it's that bad, then let's make a law that fixes the problem.
You can take this and just welp, plastic spoon is cheaper and all my concurrent are doing it so fuck it.
We want a greener industry? Make the fucking law reflect that otherwise, fuck off.
It's almost as if regulations are needed because humans are incapable of doing the right thing to protect themselves. Fairly common thing I might add but you'd require a slightly larger government to do it and we can't have that either.
Which is how this ends up being a chicken-egg problem.
Are people driving plastic usage or is capitalism driving policies that drive people to use more plastic?
And if so, why is industry writing policy instead of the public, or agents that are supposed to work for the public's interest?
None of this ends until enough "regular people" coordinate to take power back from industry so that we operate like an actual democracy again. If you want to preserve an environment on Earth fit for human habitation, you have to get loud about... Campaign finance reform : P. And then realized that as boring as that sounds, that that will be when things actually would get violent and scary bc real power would be threatened.
I am not optimistic we'll even get that far. Our population probably will take some very severe hits in our lifetime though. I'll cut down on meat where I can, but I am mostly just enjoying the good times we have left.
It doesn't help that a sizable subset of Americans will bitch and moan at any efforts to reduce the reliance on things like disposable plastic forks, plastic straws or plastic shopping bags because it's "woke".
For chrissake, remember when they sold Trump branded plastic straws?
Tbh the best way to avoid that is to use marketing instead of force, make carrying a reusable spork cool, market it differently to people (like for the woke say it's green and one company that makes a certain spork is employee owned by gay people, for the trumpets say it's good for their prepping or because the microplastics are estrogenating the children or some shit and also this other spork brand are god fearin' christians unlike GaySporks, etc), until they become common like nalgene bottles were and then you can either just phase out the disposables or then pass your law with more support, or just let them be as emergency rations for if you lost your spork on the way to taco bell today or whatever and you need another.
Edit: shit, you could even have fast food and fast food+ style places rebrand a spork with their logo and sell them instead of giving away free disposables. Capitalism is the problem and it won't go away? Exploit it against itself and make it work for the enviornment. To some degree it's not only doable but probably easier than force through law.
You get a lot less support with "plastic straws are now illegal, go buy a metal one and some pipe cleaners to carry now" than if you figure out how to make the straws popular with everyone first.
From what I understand, a lot of corporations have power over the options consumers have, the market isnt as free as this argument implies. For example, coal and fossil fuel lobbies do a lot to prevent sustainable alternatives from being adopted.
The US doesnt rely on oil and coal because thats what consumers want, or because its necessarily the cheapest, its because the people that run those corporations have the means to subvert democracy. They are not cartoon villains, but they are absolutely villains.
What you are saying is true for plastic straws and airlines, but I would guess it doesnt really apply to many of these 100 corporations
You can run it on biofuels. This is how Gates excuses his private jet, conveniently ignoring the possibility of combining biofuel AND comercial flights.
Some airlines are trying to, and electric on shorter flights.
Biofuel does emit around the same carbon output to the atmosphere (compared to storing it). Producing the amount necessary to replace most of petrol requires a ton of crop land, and alternatives means of production are not available quite yet, if ever.
I'm sure tons of voters are going to be happy and will reelect the politicians that make air travel 2x to 5x more expensive.
The proportion of politicians running on green agendas is increasing year on year. Younger people vote green.
You're absolutely right. They aren't cartoon villains. They're just rational agents acting according to very real incentives.
But where do these incentives come from? They depend on how we choose to organize our economy, what guiding principles our society follows in how to distribute resources, and harvest them from the environment.
They come from our economic system. Our economic system is capitalism. And one of the many, many problems with capitalism — it can't fucking slow down. In the eternal chase for greater and greater quarterly profits, there is no room for questions such as "is this growth sustainable?" or "I know there's demand for this, but should we really be doing it?".
Pointing fingers and blaming people is, indeed, a waste of energy. Instead, it may be better to ask: "How do we incentivise people to change their behaviour? What about our system needs to change? And how quickly can we dismantle the oil companies?"
We can't incentivize people to change their behavior because no one is going to deliberately lower their quality of life.
What politician is going to win on a platform of...
Let's make air travel so expensive that normal people can no longer regularly fly!
Vote for me I'm going to double your electricity bill!
You know that big SUV you love that is entirely impractical but you just like it because of how big it is... If you vote for me I'll make gas $7 a gallon so that you can't afford to have a giant SUV anymore.
You know how you like to eat your Taco Bell nachos in your car with a plastic spork... If you vote for me I'll replace the plastic spork with a cornstarch spork that starts to melt when you use it.
The only thing that is going to save us is technology. Like air travel being fueled by biofuels, electricity costs kept somewhat normal by building new nuclear generation, giant SUVs being powered by batteries charged by nuclear/renewable energy, actually recycling the plastic spork.