• Neato@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    There’s nothing the average person can do to significantly curb their CO2 emissions. We still have to use electricity, drive cars to get to work and errands, and buy food grown with fossil fuels. The best the average person can do is to NOT have any children. The second best is to stop eating all meat, or at least greatly curb eating meat, especially beef.

    I’ve already done both of those due to personal preferences but I doubt most people are willing.

    Paper straws and reusable bags are nice but they ain’t doing shit. Most Americans can’t choose public transport most of the time. There really aren’t major things we can do besides push for politicians to regulate emitters more/

    • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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      9 months ago

      I am assuming from your last paragraph that you are US American? Because as an US American you can do much more to reduce, given that Europeans with a similar if not better quality of life use significantly less energy.

      • Neato@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        So that states that the type of homes commonly in America are more energy-intensive than in Europe. Where they have more apartments and duplexes. I don’t think Americans can really affect what kind of homes are built. And while individuals can choose smaller homes or attached homes, that doesn’t work en masse because of what’s available.

        And a lot of the energy use is AC and heat. Things that people NEED in America with our climates and things that are literally deadly to not have. So these are not things people can do reliably. And that doesn’t even get into that people pick the homes they can afford near their jobs and with the housing market, generally don’t have huge amounts of choice.

    • Kichae@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      I’m not sure why you’re pulling drinking straws and shopping bags into this. The move away from plastic straws and bags has nothing to do with arguments around carbon. That’s all about sea life, microplastics, and single use plastics.

      You’re just injecting “Fuck the turtles in particular” into this for seemingly no reason at all.

      • drekly@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Because they’re things that make the general populace feel like they’re helping reduce pollution while in reality it’s doing nothing in comparison to corporations.

        The same way that plastic recycling and carbon footprints were just tricks. We can’t recycle the majority of plastics and our individual carbon footprints are miniscule on the grand scale of the world.

        Many of us work our asses off and spend more to help the world, but it does nothing. Corps buy governments, governments allow corps to continue. Money rules the world and money will destroy it.