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Comment by shakezula | Hacker News Reader

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was getting the average person to blame themselves and not corporations for climate change.

The numbers simply don’t add up for a consumer oriented solution to make any sense.

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I mean, who is consuming the products built with these resources? The corporations aren't building them for fun, or each other.

The fossil fuel companies knew their product was harmful years before the words global warming were even part of the zeitgeist. They could have begun planning for the future in a responsible way. Instead they spent millions of dollars every year spreading lies, misinformation, doubt, and turning it into a political wedge issue.

Probably 40% of Americans now live inside of a subculture that would ridicule them if they did decide to accept the science and take it seriously and that is a direct consequence of decades and hundreds of millions of dollars of concerted effort on the part of the industry.

corporations are building these products and then paying other corporations to convince people that they need to buy these disposable products made from nonrenewable and unsustainable resources.

We wouldn't buy the dumb shit that we use if we weren't convinced that we needed it by marketers.

It seems that you have become quite aware of the people that are trying to convince you to buy all these things. Now that you know this, are there steps you are taking to become less convincable?

You're pivoting right back to blaming the individual.

Why is it my responsibility to not be convinced - but if those companies are bombarding me with propaganda each day, backed by state-of-the-art psychology, that's perfectly fine?

Throw away your TV and always use an ad blocker online. You will still be exposed to some ads, but nothing compared to what you are avoiding.

In my case it works so well I am often unaware of new "trends" in products adverti

I am. Though it's hard to overcome the constant drumbeat of ads that exploit baser instincts. And while education is part of the answer it clearly doesn't work quickly or as thoroughly as regulation to protect the commons.

Our society is actually built so that if we stop consuming these products we will face an economic collapse.

The article isn’t really about whether blame should fall on the individual versus a corporation, but why do you feel it doesn’t fall on individuals? It is individuals’ consumerist habits and hunger for extreme convenience that makes these corporations viable? I see the argument that the individuals didn’t know the tradeoffs (due to deceptive corporate actions the article mentions) but I am not confident that greater clarity would have mattered much either.

I feel much of the problem is due to our culture - if you have a large population that wants a lot of things, bad things will happen. If a culture is willing to emphasize living more simply and portraying happiness and status in other ways, consumption will reduce. But culture is bigger than individuals and corporations - and I can’t see blaming just one of them.

Exxon had their own state of the art climate science department. Way back in 1982 they accurately predicted that in 2020 co2 would be around 415ppm and there would be about 1C of warming.

At a time when the average person had never even heard of global warming Exxon had already confirmed their product was irreversibly damaging the planet and shortly thereafter shuttered their science program and began spending millions a year funding public influence campaigns to sew doubt misinformation, and turn the issue into a political wedge.

Of course the companies are vastly more culpable than the public. The average person is far too busy trying to keep their lives in order to educate themselves on a highly complicated scientific issue. Especially when much of the population lives within a subculture that would turn on them and ridicule them if they did look into the issue deeply because the fossil fuel PR machine managed to co-opt all of their political and cultural leaders.

The corporations had the information, the clarity, and the opportunity to do the right thing. Instead they chose to poison the discourse and stymie progress any way they could.

edit: Exxon accurately predicted 1C of warming by 2020 not 2C

As I understand, Oil companies only reviewed other scientists theories, they didn´t do research themselves.

At the end of the day it will come down to you lowering your living standards by using less energy. Much less energy. And a really large reduction in living standard where everything you consume will cost at least double of what you pay today. Even if you blame the fossile fuel industry, you will have to pay. Oil is the cheapest energy there is. You have the choice today to stop all your emission of co2, so why don´t you? Because it´s uncomfortable. Your comfort is the cause of climate change. I´m fortunate enough to realize that climate change caused by co2 is a thermodynamic impossibility because it implies that earth heats itself by energy creation. Life is much easier without believing in doomsday cults.

That's bullshit. There is a myriad of ways to get energy without fossil fuels. Wind and Solar are both cheaper than coal now and electric cars are like 97% efficient compared to ICE cars that are closer to 40%. We can replace the fossil fuel energy we use and add more to meet growing demand using wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, tidal, etc. We need a price on carbon and we need people to get their heads out of their own ass.

Also you're understanding of the thermodynamics of climate change are completely bat shit.

Exxon HAD ITS OWN CLIMATE SCIENCE PROGRAM which was outfitted with better equipment than most government programs. They weren't just reviewing other scientists theories.

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