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Opinion: You Are Not the Problem — Climate Guilt is a Marketing Strategy
(news.climate.columbia.edu)
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this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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This might work at the higher end with tech brands and expensive products. People near the poverty line or people with no savings (most people) simply can't afford to do any of this. Sustainable, green, locally sourced = expensive.
It's a good thing to do if you can. But this won't change the world or the corporations generating most pollution. Everyone needs heat and food. Everyone needs power. And most of us, wealthy and poor, don't get to choose who creates our electricity or supplies us with water.
There are economic policies that can greatly mitigate this. Carbon taxes that subsidize sustainable projects, for one example.
For what it's worth, this often isn't true. Here in NYC, for instance, electricity generation and transportation are somewhat independent markets. Any NYC resident can choose to change who actually supplies their electricity, and there are companies that guarantee renewable sources. It does, of course, cost more.
But those are not things individuals can choose directly. Those are regulations and laws that require organization.
Of course, that's a political aim, but individuals can prioritize pro-environment policies in their own voting decisions and personal political advocacy.
No, there aren’t. Cheap stuff is cheap because it’s mass produced using techniques and materials that combine cost savings and externalized environmental effects with the deprivation of global trade.
The point is that carbon taxes can price those environmental externalities into the actual cost of the product, and that money can be invested into climate-friendly projects.
Does everyone get a raise too?
Shouldn’t the carbon tax be paid out to the places with the mines and factories?
Shifting towards environmentally friendly practices does cost money, yes, and that money will have to come from somewhere. Directly imposing it on companies will naturally cause it to be passed on to the consumer in higher prices.
You seem to be suggesting that we should somehow magically eliminate climate-harmful processes while preserving the cheap costs, the demand for which being exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. The world doesn't work that way.
But, again, the money raised can be used towards investing into and subsidizing climate-friendly processes, which can result in those products being cost-competitive.
Okay no one gets a raise to pay for this stuff, loud and clear.
Is the carbon tax money at least going to go to the places with the extractive and intensive industries the carbon comes from?
If you can find a politically acceptable policy that makes money for raises to everyone suddenly appear, lots of people would be very interested in that.
You cannot demand that we stop using cheap processes and then simultaneously be surprised that the alternatives are less cheap, but for the final time - and I'm afraid I'll be checking out here - revenue can be used to subsidize those alternatives and make them more affordable.
Cheers.