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Comment by mptest | Hacker News Reader

>parent commentators reduction in emissions has been useless

Useless? Of course not. Completely negligible? Absolutely, 100%. I'm no climate scientist but voting literally once for the party that believes in climate science probably has about a million x the effect of you not going on vacation.

>Be conscious about what we can do as individuals

All I'm contesting is that the most effective thing we can do is participate and organize in politics.

Not going on vacation and markedly decreasing your quality of life to reduce climate emissions by 1x10^-9999999 percent is naively negligible at best, a propagandized (by an oil company nonetheless) abdication of their larger responsibility to participate in politics causing the actual damage as science denying lunatics fill offices around the nation at worst.

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> Not going on vacation and markedly decreasing your quality of life to reduce climate emissions by 1x10^-9999999 percent is naively negligible at best

The sad thing is that, with all the COVID lock downs and travel restrictions, carbon emissions only slightly went down a couple percent in 2020, and promptly went back up to "normal" levels in 2021.

Given all those rhetorical shaming of individuals to consume less, it's illuminating to actually look at the data and see what's the actual the effect even if you could literally force (instead of shaming) everyone to live that lifestyle.

>Given all those rhetorical shaming of individuals to consume less, it's illuminating to actually look at the data and see what's the actual the effect even if you could literally force (instead of shaming) everyone to live that lifestyle. Yeah, almost like the entire notion of a "carbon footprint" was a piece of propaganda produced by a literal oil company[0] to move the blame of polluting the planet from the corporations that knowingly did it, to earnest and empathetic individuals like the original person I replied to, causing them to abstain from vacation (and more) for negligible benefit while the corporations continue to pollute with impunity.

[0] https://youtu.be/1J9LOqiXdpE

I wouldn't disagree with you but I agree with gp that you need both sides. If you had a population that was apathetic and didn't believe change was possible (and did not act accordingly), then really nothing would get done. The only way stuff gets done is through outreach and education. Once a critical mass of people truly believe that the only way forward is through intense environmental law reform, then it will happen. Of course companies will fight tooth and nail to not make it happen but that shouldn't be the primary deterrent for not doing anything about the problem.

>The only way stuff gets done is through outreach and education. Once a critical mass of people truly believe that the only way forward is through intense environmental law reform, then it will happen

Exactly. I completely agree with the both sides bit, I just think we've got the direction of priority wrong.

Reduction in consumerism comes downstream from that type of education and outreach. Going at consumerism first just makes you seem like a reactionary who wants to "steal our gas stoves" to the ignorant propagandized, and unfortunately needed, masses

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