Comic Strips

We failed them like our parents failed us

The individual action PSAs were a deliberate fraud perpetrated by the worst polluters.

I already reduced my carbon footprint. For some reason people get really mad when I try and blow up an oil refinery to reduce theirs.

One of the most brilliant (and evil) tricks that big corporations have used is to shift the blame for climate change to normal people: just recycle, don't use plastic straws, and buy our CO₂-neutral products, and everything will be fine!

While not unimportant, it's a very small change compared to the pollution of corporations and private jets. It's easy for them to pay lip service to the environment while the real pollution goes on unimpeded.

Environmentally inclined people feel like they do something and don't rally against the real problem. They just have to convince everyone to live like they do and the environment will be saved!

tbf the solution was always the last one.

it's just that they've been stringing us along.

Great comic. Good to see this is finally starting to dawn on people.

Good news is that we're facing an incredible economic crash worse than anything we've ever seen, and the degrowth of GDP is going to be great to reduce greenhouse gasses.

Just pick up that trash and YOU'LL BE SHOT IN THE FACE BY A MASKED GROUP OF PARDONED JAN 6 TRAITORS IN ALL DIFFERENT HOMEMADE ARMY MAN COSTUMES, CHARGED WITH "ULTRA LEFT WING" TERRORISM AND DEPORTED, AS AN AMERICAN CITIZEN, WITHOUT A TRIAL, FOR WOKE MARXIST CANCEL CULTURE AND DOUBLE TRANS!!!!

What was the post on lemmy earlier today? The solutions are very simple, the problem is the people profiting off keeping things broken.

drawing attention to that is cool, i guess, but doesn't shed light on the underlying issue.

america loves victim blaming the individual rather than ever admitting that there's some kind of issue with the system or wealthy people.

every single house in america could be built on the edge of a cliff prone to landslides and someone would always come out of the woodwork to act like it's your own fault you bought it.

'shoulda lived in a shopping cart.'

If individual behaviour didn't matter, Canada wouldn't have 307% of global per capita emissions, and the US wouldn't have 285% while Finland only has 118% and Sweden has only 71% of the world average.

I picked those European countries in particular because they're rich, have cold winters, and have a low population density in a lot of the country.

The reality is that the US and Canada are decades behind Europe when it comes to these things. Sure, this guy in panel 2 is telling his kid to recycle, but Americans never took recycling seriously. Meanwhile in Zurich you have separate bins for green glass, brown glass, clear glass, along with the normal paper and plastic. If you don't want to recycle, you can do that, but it's going to cost you. You have to buy expensive special garbage bags to throw out anything that you don't recycle.

In panel 3 the guy is shown with a bike, but less than 0.5% of people bike to work. Meanwhile, in Finland, it's about 10% of people who commute by bike.

"Just don't use AC (during a heat wave killing thousands) and you can save the Earth!" (2026)

Also 1994, don't use ac refills that are bad for the environment. (Freon)

1984, don't use these aerosaw cans that will kill the ozone layer.

1974. Make sure you have a catalytic converter to not hurt the environment.

1964 Oil companies noted oil will have marked climate changes by 2000. (We just didn't do enough to stop it)

I kinda feel like the years are all 10 too late. I definitely remember “reduce reuse recycle” as more of a 90s thing and the city I lived in got a recycling program around 1994. The no littering thing was already well engrained by then.