Then OP is essentially saying that we appear not to choose politicians that are prescribing bitter medicine.
Sort of. I think it's more accurate to say that there are just enough fiscally irresponsible politicians in office to prevent a government that pays as it goes via taxes. The vast majority of those politicians are Republican, taught by Ronald Reagan that they could have massive spending AND tax cuts without political penalty (indeed, Reagan was rewarded with adulation for nearly tripling the national debt). Democrats have been fairly consistent in reducing the deficit, and if they'd had their political druthers, would've reduced it even further with additional taxes. The reality is that maintaining a modern superpower of over 300 million people requires much more in annual taxes than voters realize, at least in part because they've been misled by Republican leadership to believe that taxes (particularly progressive taxes) are unnecessary.
When something is permitted, it becomes mandatory to somebody, and oil is used widely. Personally choosing to avoid products that used oil in their manufacturing would basically relegate you to having to farm your own food by hand. That is not feasible in a society with competition.
Hundreds of millions will die due to climate change if we don't act.
The problem I think, is that oil would still be mandatory because of competition between countries. Especially if there were wars.
We literally have no choice but to make small insignificant changes that does not harm the bottom line of those responsible too much.
Universally in this world people live most ecologically in parts of the world where they are too poor to act otherwise, not where they are most climate or environment conscious. Voluntary personal responsibility gets you nowhere when it comes to solving large-scale problems.
That sounds great and all until your granny can’t afford heat in the winter or there’s no food in the stores, etc. Then people will vote out the politicians making the policies or revolt.
That’s what I’m talking about personal responsibility. Not regarding individual actions per se, but accepting that most of us in the developed world are as complicit as the big oil companies.
That said, technology is improving to where the cheapest option is the ecological one for power. A fair bit of that has been due to individual actions of many folks wanting and paying for solar power and electric vehicles, etc.
Ironically to me, the individual preferences of the Green Party members also put lots of political pressure to shutdown nuclear power in Germany. That caused Germany to fallback to coal and natural gas.
Good luck clawing back the 10% of SNAP benefits spent on soda.
Yes everyone should be ethical in their consumption. If I gave you an arbitrary product and asked you to tell me if its ethically sourced, there's a high chance you can't. Even if I give you the internet and a week to research.
So, that's one problem. Another problem is that even if you could tell what is/isn't ethical you can't necessarily switch away.
Sometimes the more ethical choices aren't available, or are too expensive, or are outlandish. I'm sure everyone in the US would love to eat grass fed pasture raised beef. Meredith, who works two shifts at the town Dairy Queen, who's trying to give her son some protein, so his tiny muscles don't atrophy, doesn't have the funds for that.
Cars and oil are perhaps the most clear-cut example of this. People don't drive because they want to, they do it because they have to. It's literally life or death. A car in the US isn't just a box on wheels, it's a lifeline.