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That's so very sad, especially because Shell just does it for fun. If, at the very least, there would be some kind of product we could reduce demand for to stop Shell from being so bad. But alas, we can only blame them and never challange our own behaviour - since you know, no one single person ever made any difference at all.
But corporation bad no?^/s
I mean — despite our own collective apathy, and want for oil-based products — the answer is still unironically yes
Maybe we could stop them from lobbying so hard against alternatives that they frequently kill support for them? Maybe we could stop them from bribing lawmakers to support subsidies for themselves while denying subsidies for alternatives?
Or wait, here's a good one, maybe we could stop them from spending billions of dollars on ad campaigns and BS propaganda that downplays their contribution while pushing a message that the real problem is all those awful individuals like us who are really the ones who should be sacrificing rather than the multi-billion dollar international conglomerates?
Great, instead of Shell, just buy BP, or Exxon.. Oh wait.. they're up to exactly the same shit, and are all together deliberately holding us captive and keeping any realistic alternative from being accessible to the masses because they know it will replace them..
First remove head from ass, then form opinion..
Great suggestion, I can help you pull! After your head is free, maybe consider life style changes like, you know, using your legs instead of a car. Or a bike. I'm not saying that everyone can do that and certainly not on every trip, but I'm definitely saying that a lot of people drive their cars around without needing to. Not to mention the amount of people driving around in cars that are way too large and way too heavy.
Oh, but wait, those are obviously unrealistic alternatives and even if they weren't, Shell executives would come over personally and break your legs. How could I forget - silly me.
That’s a bit like saying “you think individuals consume a lot of food? Look at restaurants!”
Yeah it's a shitty parsing of it, because my mind went there too.
But if the restaurant was using 1 entire cow to make 1 single 1/2lb burger, that's on the restaurant to do better.
There's a lot of that happening that corporations need to focus on.
The emissions attributed to Shell are the emissions of their customers. People love to play dumb to make a point.
True. Plus the whole backstory of car companies buying and destroying what little public transit there was in this country to force us into cars.
destroying what little public transit there was
Hey now, let's not stray into historical revisionism. Make no mistake: there was a lot of public transit back in the early 20th century. For example, here's Atlanta's streetcar map from exactly 100 years ago:
That's not just a fuck-ton more streetcar (or subway/other rail) routes than Atlanta has now; that was legitimately good coverage of most of the city!
Edit: Oh yeah, and that applies to intercity rail too, by the way:
Never forget the full breadth and scope of what was stolen from us.
Sure, but perhaps people could stop eating at that restaurant?
Because how some people currently are acting is that they continue to support these corporations, unwilling to switch to alternatives.
You need a car to get to work. How are you supposed to not buy oil? The point is the fossil fuel industry gave us no real alternative, you don't have to eat at a restaurant to survive but you need a job to.
No I don't. I don't even have a driving license.
It's also not just about cars. Oil is in other products people can try to avoid. Everyone can do something. Everything between voting for the right direction to changing your whole life around it. It doesn't matter where, as an individual, you can exist on that spectrum. As long as people don't just throw their hands to the air and deny all responsibility.
But 58 million Americans emit as much as shell
That just means we have to get rid of 58 million Americans to balance it out!
Ah, the old "this solution isn't 100% effective, thus I shall ignore it".
Shell is creating products you are buying. We can regulate them harder, but you can ALSO just not buy their product. We can do multiple things that contribute, you just don't want to, because it's slightly inconvenient for you.
I'm not buying any Shell products. Yet they destroy my life and world.
It's basically impossible not to buy Shell products. Even if you don't buy from Shell directly, chances are there are products of Shell in the products you buy. And even if that isn't the case, chances are the factory the product is made uses a lot of Shell products and so do all the factories that made the components and so do the shipping companies that shipped all the stuff around the world.
Shell is freaking huge, they are everywhere and one of the biggest companies in the world. They don't just make gasoline, they have so many products and have their claws in a lot of industries.
Your personal action affects only your own carbon footprint, and if you somehow eliminate it entirely, you alone can reduce carbon emissions by 16 tonnes per year.
However, by funding climate research, educating the public, and most importantly: contacting your lawmakers, you can affect the footprints of many thousands or potentially millions of people. If you do even 0.001% of the work required for getting a law passed that cuts Shell's emissions by only 1%, you will have reduced the global carbon footprint by approximately 90 tonnes per year (58000000 * 16 * .01 * .00001 = 92.8). That's more than 5 times as effective a use of your time, assuming you were able to do each with an equivalent amount of effort.
Vote with your wallet, yes, but NEVER underestimate the power of campaigning for change. A person's actions carry further when they affect the actions of others.
Remember everyone, corporations aren't at fault for climate change, it's YOUR fault for living in a country that requires driving a car where everything is made of plastic and powered by coal! Shame!!!
/s, fuck off with the blatant propaganda that is your "carbon footprint". You should support more sustainable stuff when you can, literally nobody is claiming otherwise (besides oil and car companies). But your carbon footprint is a molecule of water in the pacific ocean. Plus oil and car companies have been specifically trying to make other options less accessible. Fuck off if you think that climate change is caused by people and not corporations
You guys know we buy shell products right?
You know shell along with a handful of other companies actively block any other option for us, and hold us captive to their exploitation, right? 🙄
Objectively false/hyperbolic statement. Shell haven't stopped me buying a second hand electric car and a heat pump for my property.
If you're wealthy you can avoid shell
Yeah I'm sure shell and co really forced the sale of 750k F-series trucks last year, right?
No they don't. They don't understand that industry emits carbon because we consume their products.
Daily reminder that carbon footprint is a myth created by big oil
Not a myth. Most of your actions in this world are generating carbon.
More accuratly, it was a PR campaign to shift blame from big oil.
The only thing is that there are 9 billion people per shell
The only other thing is that the entire 9 billion wouldn’t all be emitting the same amount as each other.
And honestly more practical to deal with 1 rather than 9b
but the problem is that we need to do both. we're not blameless, and throwing our hands up and doing nothing because they won't either is incredibly not helpful.
just like when voting, individual action may feel pointless and hard, but it's still necessary. we can still do things and make choices, but everyone is just giving up now because of this feeling...
of course corporations are polluting more, but so are we, and we can still force change through consumer action. just like conservatives are dumb for bitching about companies "catering to the left" when it's actually just the same things they always have and always will do: cater to the average. if more of us would stop and think "huh, this product uses less packaging, maybe that should be a factor in my purchasing decision."these companies would start using less packaging. but no, most people just open something over packaged, and either don't notice, or shake their heads for a moment and comment on the plastic waste before buying the same thing again next time...
we can't be defeated by the inaction of others. if we do, then even their action won't be meaningful if/when it comes. it's going to take more than just one side...
what you are doing is called "Individualization of Responsibility" and it is a successfull tactic used by fossil-fuel-lobbies to shift blame away from themselves.
https://medium.com/@mitpress/individualization-plant-a-tree-buy-a-bike-save-the-world-ecb916df95e4
edit: don't get me wrong. I don't think you are doing this intentionally. But I do think, that by accident you are being useful to fossil-fuel companies
addendum: this is not an excuse to do nothing on a personal level. you are just as bad as the corporations if you act carelessly like you can’t help change anything. go vegan
Whenever I say this I get gang downvoted by people on this site.
What most fail to understand is they are contributing to the emissions of shell and other major contributors to global warming by purchasing or using anything which relates to their products.
The wealthy humans can afford to avoid these products, but they cop out. Personally I've bought a second hand electric car and gone vegan over the last 18 months. It's more expensive than not changing my car but I could afford it and now I don't support the oil industry at all. Next on my list is my natural gas house boiler.
I've had people say 4 return flights a year isn't many flights and isn't a factor to climate change, especially compared to businesses which fly employees everywhere. Madness
Joke's on you: I plan to live at least 58 million years.
Jfc, it's distressing to see how many people buy in to the personal responsibility propaganda and are actively not only licking the boot that's on all our necks, but doing the corporations' dirty work for them, gleefully, ignoring the entire picture (the deliberate spending of many trillions, and holding governments in their pockets to keep us dependant on oil and having no viable alternative) except the tiny little fragment they're comfortable confronting - other individuals. It's both gross and concerning.
It is not a matter of responsibility, it is a matter of action. Being less consumerist on a grand scale would be a kick in the balls for most of these big corporations which rely on our consumption habits. They exist because we consume. %90 of the stuff Amazon sells is unlikely essential goods, yet we buy them. We eat much more meat than we should and then we get angry at deforestation. Blame them all you want, most wont exist without our over-consumption habits.
Legit question, because I never really see a breakdown of these numbers. I always hear about corporations emitting n number cO2, but it's never really the whole story (I don't think) But, is this from developing their product, or is is it the development of said product plus the use of that product? Like in Shells' case, is it them making gas (I know they do more, but for the sake of argument...) and the use of their gas in vehicles across the world? Or is the use of the gas calculated into the individual person's number?
I'm not trying to start anyrhing, I am genuinely trying to understand.
This is my big criticism of these claims, because it really seems like the latter.
Yeah, it’s a disgusting mess. Yeah corporations are given far too much privilege. But if Shell weren’t around, there’d still be demand for oil that would be met by someone else.
The problem there isn’t Shell…not directly, at least (they’re certainly guilty of a lot, including lobbying to protect their position)…the problem is the oil. Redirecting to “the corporations” just ignores that.
You could say the same about the meat producers and the people who are clear cutting the rainforests and planting alfalfa in the deserts of Arizona to feed cows in the Middle East. Some seriously fucked chain of events must’ve happened to make that the logical and profitable choice yet, here we are.
But don’t use plastic straws.
This is a false dichotomy, the way you shutdown O&G is through political action, making personal choices to limit your personal carbon output is a political action. It directly hurts O&G and directly helps the alternatives.
Making a personal choice helps drive political will which changes how people make personal decisions which drives political will. Arguing about which step to bootstrap the process seems pointless. If it's easier for you to show up at Tuesday at 11am to city council meetings and yell for more bus routes do that. If it's easier to increase your commute 20minutes and drive up ridership to give ammo to the council people, do that. If it's easier to drop a big sum of money to lobby the government do that. Just do whatever you can that helps.
We are all drops of rain in an ocean, but without the rain the ocean would run dry.