While I agree with the prediction, the tone they use seems somewhat too close to "well, if we're not going to make it anyway, how about we sell some more fossil fuels?"
Exxon produces less than 3% of the world's daily crude demand and in May its shareholders overwhelmingly rejected calls for stronger measures to mitigate climate change.
What else can be said, there are assholes that are legally allowed to actually pursue this and there is absolutely nothing in the way of the law that's going to stop it.
Our current system of governance isn't equipped for this.
I am form the EU and I don't "manage" anything. It just happens that on average, Europe has more efficient infrastructure, more strict regulation on pollution and is massively supporting green energy.
Don't be fooled to believe that your personal life-choices will make the difference. In most countries 50% of all emissions are determined by the electricity you are consuming with transportation coming in second.
The US used to be a railroad country. But that was bad for big oil, cars and aircraft so it was dismantled.
When it comes to being forced to drive in the US, sure, but everything in the US from cars to buildings to meals is massively oversized compared to Europe. That's a personal choice. Many americans also proudly vote against environmental legislation or public transport infrastructure. That's also a personal choice. Blaming big oil for that is just an excuse.
That alone cannot explain why the US pollutes twice as much. And as I have said, most of pollution comes from energy production. You are missing the mark.
However, your point is irrelevant as you have insufficient data to prove it. Stating that the average US citizen consumes twice as much is quite a daring that needs to be proven.
Personal life choices do make a difference. Do you drive a fuel efficient car or an oversized pickup truck? Do you take the bike or train instead of the car? Do you go on vacation by plane? Is your home insulated, and how high do you turn up the heat?
All of those things do matter. But of course they're not the whole story; plenty of industries pollute far more than consumers do. Regulations matter. And regulations, taxes and subsidies can do a lot to help both consumers and corporations to make better choices. I'd like to see heavy taxes on all fossil fuels, and the revenue from those taxes spent on increasing clean energy capacity.
It's politicians, and indirectly voters, who decide the way forward. Big oil companies might lobby and promote their stuff, but at the end of the day it's bad decisions by politicians and voters.
I think it’s more complicated than that. It’s pretty easy to live in most western European cities without a car. It’s almost impossible to live well in most American cities without several cars per family. America has been engineers around environmentally unfriendly habits. Today’s consumer has little to do with the massive foundation on which their society rests.
Edit: my family has only one car, but it’s because I hate driving / commuting and have worked remotely for 10 years. If I had to drive to work, we’d have two cars.
Yeah. I do all those things. I'm vegan and I have a single car, and I support local walking and biking trails. But even so, I bet I'm not as green as the average European because I still have to drive far more than they do.
One of the structural reasons is that US produces most of it's own energy (aka hydrocarbons) and has enough left to export, while afaik EU imports 50% of the energy it needs.
Most people in either region are not making any significant effort. They just live their lives like everyone else around them. The difference is in what that looks like.
Anyway, what's with this dichotomy "corporations should change behavior" vs. "consumers should change behavior"? Those two interact and influence each other. Obviously, both must change their behavior. This is a process that must be bootstrapped.
That's definitely true and top-down regulation is important so the whole economy has to clean up its act and it's not a competitive disadvantage for any one company to do it.
However, I don't like this frequently repeated claim that "it's actually big companies that are polluting!". They're polluting on our behalf, that's not an excuse.
It is more along the lines of "I can't do much personally against big companies". In the same way that you can't just "personally" create a better public transport system instead of driving.
And big oil & friends are massively lobbying to keep it just the way it is. It's easy to buy a senator, in same cases 10k are all you need to get his support.
Edit: Since the maximum nesting was reached. I will leave it at saying that "A party system is twice as good as a one party system".
In addition to US salaries being higher, energy (petrol and gas and electricity, each of them) are significantly more expensive in Europe.
Random US person, imagine if your salary was cut in half, auto gas cost $6/gallon, and your monthly utility bill tripled. You'd think hard about your consumption.
Governments are the parties who generally are responsible for fixing structural problems.
The market is composed of companies that operate within boundaries set by the government.
Individuals are more or less forced to live their lives by the market environment where they live.
The solution is in governments and corporations.
The only reason why one would want to fix the problem via individual consumers is in fact if one:
a) does not want to fix the problem
b) wants to direct blame from the more guilty party (energy companies) to the consumer
OFC this is not that black or white. Currently there are NO OPTIONS to fossil fuels to keep planetary civilization running.
No. Without hydrocarbons there is no food to start with. We are way, way, way behind a point where the humanity could decide to stop using any hydrocarbons cold turkey and not mass starve in the billions. Then comes rest of the industry (on which food production depends). I hope the reality was different.
That is not to say rich world consumption is not a pathological facet of the equation. But it's far from being the only consideration.
There's a huge gap between "cold turkey into starving" and current goals (which are still not enough and also mostly won't be achieved). A transition away from fossil fuels that was just constrained by ensuring no mass starvation would look very different. This is not at all what the discussion is about. Meanwhile, mass starvation will be on the agenda at 3°C of warming...
People need to feed their family, and in order to do that, they need transportation. Until public transportation is good enough not to make you miserable, people will use cars.
Blaming people for consuming is like blaming the victim of domestic abuse from not running away and becoming homeless.
Cars are only a part of the problem, but people who need to drive any old car just to work are an even smaller one. There are many many people who drive oversized fuel inefficient cars for no particular reason, or are just as wasteful in the rest of their lives. Even in Europe many people drive alone in their cars even when great public transport is available just because it's more comfortable.
That's not the gas station's or the car manufacturer's fault, it's the driver's.
Cars are basically the entire problem. Cars allow everyone to consume more space per person, and more space per person means more mass can be consumed and that mass has to travel further distances. And all of that translates to more energy consumed per person.
When it comes to the overall problem of climate change cars are only one issue, the others being manufacturing, construction, services, agriculture, travel, etc. Many of these don't have a clean solution yet for the current demand so fossil fuels are here to stay unless we manage to reduce that demand, which the individual consumer needs to accept.
That is true, I guess if people did not have personal cars, then that consumption could be replaced by air travel and/or more food that travels further (even more than the current amounts).
If public transportation was as reliable, comfortable and cheap as driving a car, nobody would drive a car. That's my whole point. But it's not - it's expensive, unreliable and utterly uncomfortable.
In my city we have fantastic public transportation that's cheap, comfortable, reliable and faster than sitting in traffic. Despite that, the streets are full of single-occupant cars with drivers who just don't want to mingle with the plebs. They're not helpless against big oil - they're just wasteful.
> the streets are full of single-occupant cars with drivers who just don't want to mingle with the plebs
I assume the "comfortable" public transportation still requires one to occupy same space with many other people, perhaps even sharing personal space during rush hour?
If my assumption is correct, I'd say that public transportation is not nearly as comfortable as it needs to be to replace cars. Not many people like having to share room with strangers, especially when there is no requirement of personal hygiene or quieteness.
And that's not even mentioning the issue of safety - how safe are you from getting mugged and/or killed on your public transportation? The risk is drastically lower when you're in your own car.
> If my assumption is correct, I'd say that public transportation is not nearly as comfortable as it needs to be to replace cars. Not many people like having to share room with strangers, especially when there is no requirement of personal hygiene or quieteness.
Well then those people can't pretend that they have no choice but to pollute or that it's big companies' fault, they're just too spoiled to accept any change to their lifestyle. That's my whole point.
> And that's not even mentioning the issue of safety - how safe are you from getting mugged and/or killed on your public transportation? The risk is drastically lower when you're in your own car.
Where I live (Budapest) you're way more likely to die in a car crash than get killed on public transport (or anywhere). This isn't the US or Somalia.
For comparison, last year there were 89 murders and 201 traffic fatalities. People make 3.2 million trips on public transport every day.
> they're just too spoiled to accept any change to their lifestyle
You can blame people for not sacrificing their individual comforts (while probably enjoying many certain comforts yourself), but it's pointless, because you'll never get all the people to stop using cars individually one by one by guilt tripping them
Why not blame government that doesn't want to create comfortable public transportation, or cars, effectively making public transportation the most comfortable of all available? Government is the only one capable of actually making a change, so how are they not to blame for not doing it, and why are individuals (who by themselves cannot make a change) to blame?
The very view that "public transportation is supposed to be less comfortable than cars" is the reason why cars will never die out. At least until that view dies out.
According to you being among strangers is already uncomfortable, so by your logic comfortable _public_ transportation is impossible.
I'm not guilt tripping anyone, I'm just saying if someone gets in their car because they don't want to be next to other people then they lose the right to shift the blame to big companies. You don't get to blame McDonalds for pollution if you choose to eat a Big Mac there every day.
> According to you being among strangers is already uncomfortable, so by your logic comfortable _public_ transportation is impossible.
Being among strangers is less comfortable than driving alone. A big part of comfort is being able to control your environment. Are you saying you wouldn't care if random strangers started walking around your house every day?
It is not necessary to be among strangers in public transportation - there are many trains that provide private cabins. It's just cheaper to not have them and just cram everyone into a one big room.
> You don't get to blame McDonalds for pollution if you choose to eat a Big Mac there every day.
I disagree. If McDonalds is polluting the environment, the government is to blame for not stopping them. Consumers are not, as they individually can't do anything about them.
You seem to imply that consumers should magically synchronize and all stop eating McDonalds at the same time to teach them a lesson, but I hope you see how that's just a pipe dream.
> It is not necessary to be among strangers in public transportation - there are many trains that provide private cabins. It's just cheaper to not have them and just cram everyone into a one big room.
This is totally impossible for urban transport like trams or buses. When you walk on the street, you're among strangers. It's exactly the same. This idea of travelling around in the city in your private little bubble is a half-century old luxury and not the standard (unless you were an aristocrat).
> If McDonalds is polluting the environment, the government is to blame for not stopping them. Consumers are not, as they individually can't do anything about them.
> You seem to imply that consumers should magically synchronize and all stop eating McDonalds at the same time to teach them a lesson, but I hope you see how that's just a pipe dream.
It's exactly the same argument as with democracy. No individual voter can decide the election but they have an individual responsibility to act according to their values. If many individuals vote with a spine, the dictator won't get elected. If many individuals consume with a spine, polluting companies will go out of business.
The people who drive huge cars can be blamed, but it's pointless because you'll never get people to voluntarily stop driving huge cars if they want to drive huge cars. You can, and should, blame the government for allowing manufacturers to sell huge cars and people to drive them, if the problem is so huge.
If there's a point to your comment, I did not get it.
The point is that people who buy huge cars can't claim that it's Ford's fault for polluting when it's their personal choice to get a wasteful vehicle. Same with people who fly a lot for fun or any number of environmentally damaging things.
Yeah, but each individual, by themselves, cannot make any significant positive change by giving up huge cars, while doing so means giving up something they want. So the gain/loss tradeoff is not good on an individual level.
You can assign collective blame, but what good is that, except for virtue signalling and guilt tripping? It's not an effective method of social change.
There is an organization (government) that can make those changes that you want (ban huge cars) - so why not blame them for not doing it?
Sure, if just one person decides to not fly it will still fly. But what if 10% of consumers? 30% of consumers? 80% of consumers? If nobody is standing at that gate does the plane still fly? Sure, regulation quirks mean a few will, but would they keep flying that empty plane forever?
If half the people buying bottled water stopped this year, would the bottled water industry keep production the same, increase it, or decrease it?
And thus, we continue to spiral into the same thing most people are harking on in this thread. Should single family homes with large yards be available to only rich people?
And unless the government starts shooting private planes out of the sky, even government regulations aren't going to stop rich people from flying.
I'm not saying you should never fly. I don't know your life. I agree there's a lot of good economic outcomes from having an aviation industry and overall it brings the world closer together, which is probably good. But I do think global tourism probably isn't the best thing in the world climate-wise.
I'm just trying to push back against the idea that end consumers have zero say about what corporations do climate-wise. Those planes are flying because people want to sit in those seats (generally, outside of those flights during covid to keep routes). Bottled water makers make bottled water because people buy it. Car companies keep making bigger cars because most Americans keep wanting bigger cars. There's a feedback loop, and ignoring it or flat out denying it isn't going to help solve these challenges.
I'm not saying never board another plane in your life. I know I am, eventually. I'm just suggesting, maybe swap some trip involving a flight for a more local vacation every now and then. If we all reduced the demand for the flights a bit, fewer planes would fly. I'm not saying never buy another bottled beverage. I'm just saying, maybe the tap water isn't that bad, and its not too difficult to just fill a cup instead of grabbing a single use bottle every time.
That's because under current regulations they would lose their license to fly that route, which is certainly bad, but it doesn't extend to everything else.
The past decades have shown the massive shift from public/national actors to the private actors. It is just as expected that now, the government cannot act strong enough to fight against a (global) crisis of the common people. Or perhaps it is the cause why we face so many threats to our planets all so seemingly suddenly.
Most of all, consultancies have taken the job of people in ministries. This brain drain is another reason why the government seems so lobotomized to outsiders. But when one of your large clients is Exxon mobile and another team should consult a government about climate change... oh well
This is one of those problems that takes either collapse or dictator to fix. It's just too big and nebulous for society as it is to even acknowledge it across the board.
The problem with both of those things is all the dead people.
But we seem to think we can just keep skating by like we are in perpetuity.
> The problem with both of those things is all the dead people.
Right. The consequences of communism or totalitarianism are well known and have recent precedents for how bad they will be. Climate change is an unknown, but throwing ourselves into the hands of a dictatorship (and that's what a lot of people are advocating, we're already seeing dictatorial rules in the name of climate) we know what will happen.
The alternative is a technological solution. People need to stop using climate change to push a political agenda (which is literally all that's done) and get behind building nuclear and carbon capture.
The alternative is that biased researchers are extremely bad at math when they want to demonstrate something they already agree with, and it’s a big nothing burger. Because, they’re so bad at math that when I compiled the figures they give, I find that we’ll get a +8°C and above scenario.
So, if announce it’s even remotely possible to not fall into that scenario, it must be that their figures are better than they say.
> The consequences of communism or totalitarianism are well known and have recent precedents for how bad they will be. Climate change is an unknown, but throwing ourselves into the hands of a dictatorship (and that's what a lot of people are advocating, we're already seeing dictatorial rules in the name of climate) we know what will happen.
It's a very popular culturally infused meme, but not really. There are levels of "authoritarianism"...for example:
> People need to stop using climate change to push a political agenda (which is literally all that's done) and get behind building nuclear and carbon capture.
People might benefit from wondering what needs to be done, rather than assuming that their intuition is correct. If we don't desire to know what is true, we may never reach it.
