Tommy Siegel | Bluesky | website
Transcript
Comic in 4 Panels:
Header: It’s That Easy!
Panel 1: The year is 1994. A dad with short black hair, in a blue shirt, red shorts, and white sneakers with calf high white socks, kneels with one arm resting on a knee and the other raised demonstratingly in front of a kid in a green ball cap, yellow shirt, blue pants, and green sneakers. There is a round metal trash can behind them.
Dad: Pick up your litter and save the Earth!
Panel 2: The year is 2004. Same dad, but in brown cargo shorts, brown shoes, and ankle high white socks speaking to the same kid. There is a green recycle bucket behind them.
Dad: Recycle and you can save the Earth!
Panel 3: The year is 2014. Same dad, but wearing a bike helmet, black athletic pants, and black sneakers to the same kid. A bike is behind them.
Dad: Reduce your carbon footprint and you can save the Earth!
Panel 4: The year is 2024. Same dad, but he’s in the same outfit from panel 1. There is a massive fire behind them.
Dad: Completely restructure global economic systems and you may be able to save a remnant of humanity!
Yes and no.
With stricter ecological protections, corporations would be forced to decrease their carbon footprint. In their absence, the choice for the consumer is limited, and likely leaving you without a properly ecological option.
(Bad) Example: plastic straws. Before the ban, finding alternatives was difficult. Now suddenly it’s possible.
Same goes for computers with ecologically sourced rare metals. There is just no good option at the moment, and this will be the situation up until stronger regulations will come in effect.
I'm not against the abolition of the plastic straw. It's a step in the right direction. But if you look around in a supermarket and count the plastic on the shelves...
The plastic straw ban was a drop in the ocean, a symbolic act, a propaganda piece without addressing the heart of the problem.
What would have been a real solution? Make plastic more expensive, for example by introducing a tax going towards research for a solution and subsidizing plastic alternatives.
Why wasn't something like that done before? It would cost money, and rich doners control the politicians.
So we get performative actions only - rolled back by the next government of course.
This point exactly. It seems to me that a lot of people don't really understand how profit motive works in our capitalist world. Corporations will burn the entire planet so long as the burning is far enough down the road that it doesn't affect today's profit projections. I find it sad, because we as a species learned quite a while back that the only way capitalism can actually work is with a strong hand steering it to make sure it doesn't drive us right off (another) cliff. This is the entire reason for the rise of modern liberalism (not talking liberals as in Democratic party, talking liberalism as in liberal democracy, which was a political/economic movement to protect capitalism from eating it's own tail).
Of course this is why I'm not a liberal, I think the idea that capitalism is a beast that can be tamed is flawed, liberalism and capitalist regulations are just Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill. Ultimately under capitalism we have individuals with far too much power, basically kings, but instead of kings of land, kings of industry, which is actually a far more dangerous form of power, because it's significantly more versatile and can reshape itself for survival when needed, it can even run PR campaigns to fool the populace into thinking it's changed, when in reality it's just the abusive narcissistic spouse convincing you to come back for another beating.
Anyways, I digress, corporations will ONLY prioritize profits in the short term, to ensure things are built that benefit society we must have strong regulations guiding them, paired with charismatic leaders who can push back against the "wah wah baby doesn't like big bag government" messages coming from their corporate PR campaigns, claiming "we can't possibly survive" even though they are swimming in massive profits.
We could ban single use plastic containers globally, we have alternatives that work quite well. Bamboo can replace all plastic utensils.
Hell most of the plastic alternatives if scaled would likely be a carbon sink. Grow plants to make packaging, as plants grow they absorb carbon, packaging is discarded, then sealed away in a land fill trapping the carbon.
It probably wouldn't be net 0 given the industry around production and transport, but still a lot better than what we're doing.
This is generally not how it works and/or a bad idea. Anaerobic bacteria tend to reduce carbon compounds to CH₄ (as opposed to CO₂ - makes sense). It is a lot worse as a greenhouse gas, and it will eventually bubble up and escape from the landfills, we can't realistically seal them in the same way as ancient peatlands did for our current oil and gas reserves.
A better way is to recycle that packaging into mulch/fertilizer of some kind so that this carbon is absorbed, directly or indirectly, by newly growing trees.
Fair enough, my understanding was that most modern landfills were so full and sealed that they limited the ability for waste to breakdown significantly.
If we get the infrastructure there mulch and compost away
Companies will basically do the cheapest thing they can get away with, so it is again down to the ordinary people to make sure that the cheapest thing isn't harmful. Sure, criticise the companies for doing shitty things, but that alone won't achieve anything, and nor will trying to shift the blame "back" to them.
I want regulation to bound what companies can do, such that “the cheapest thing” is not harmful. We can’t and shouldn’t expect the population to take on such gargantuan task as figuring out its own personal carbon footprint. That’s insane, but has been normalized since for ever, thus we do.
We need a carbon tax, and we need to get people on board with a carbon tax. Which we can campaign for at the same time as campaigning for individuals to make what choices they can do.
Flying less, cycling more, eating less meat, buying less, delaying replacement of things, making replacements greener - these are all things everyone can and should do, now, while the world drags its feet on making emissions cost money.
Personally I don't think that encouraging people to think about their carbon footprint absolves companies at all and despite the popularity online of this line of thinking, I have never once seen evidence that it was devised by companies to do that. I think instead it helps foster a shared purpose, which will ultimately help generate the consensus needed to resist wealth.
If you look through the other comments you'll see numerous people patronisingly imply that I can't think straight about this because I've just swallowed the propaganda, yet mysteriously the "propaganda" hasn't actually managed to get me to think that companies' actions are OK.