Wait, I thought the top 100 corporations produce 70% of emissions *now*.
Does that mean that not recycling, plastic straws and gas/diesel cars account for less than 1% of global emissions?
Your use of gas cars is being rolled into that 70% figure. For example, emissions from all Toyota cars are being counted as global emissions by Toyota the company. Ultimately, fewer people driving those cars would bring down that 70%.
Additionally, a significant amount of emissions come from trade (I.e. cargo ships). The thing that makes up the majority of this trade is all the random bullshit we buy. It’s unbelievably dishonest to suggest that we as individuals have no responsibility for ending the climate crisis, when statistically we as individuals and as a society are easily the biggest consumers in all of history.
If cargo ships are taken in the calculation then I have my doubts:
One large container ship at sea emits the same amount of sulphur oxide gases as 50 million diesel-burning cars.” there are over 50.000 large cargo ships in continuous use.
Sulphur Oxides are a category of sulphur-based compounds which includes Sulphur Dioxide. It’s sometimes abbreviated as SOx to account for ALL sulphur emissions, similarly to Nitrogen Oxides or NOx. If we’re talking about fuel combustion it’s absolutely including SO2, a known contributor to acid rain and other adverse environmental effects.
Not a greenhouse gas, sure. But it contributes to climate change in other ways.
Sure, but we also have had much greater access to goods at an international level in the past 100 years than all time to before the dawn of man. Do we consume more than Ancient Rome? Sure we do. But back then only the extremely wealthy could afford goods brought in from Asia. Now Japanese made cars are some of the most affordable and accessible in North America. You are comparing apples to oranges. You really think if the Romans, who basically collapsed their empire through excess and greed, would not have out-consumed us today if given the same access?
Not even. That statistic comes from the Carbon Majors report, which only looks at fossil fuel producers. The gas you used to drive to work got blamed on the company (or state entity) that mined the petroleum. So did the fuel that powered the cargo ship that carried the cheap plastic junk you bought online. Based on that stat, we all had zero emissions, and so did Amazon, Toyota, and Microsoft.
People have been using that report for years to sidestep personal responsibility, without ever understanding what it says.
Actually not those 100 companies are energy companies.
So for you car the emissions are counted towards the oil producing companies
A better name for that list would be "100 companies extract 70% of the global fossil fuels"
No sh#t sherlock. They wouldn't if we wouldn't use the fossil fuels
Actually, the majority of emissions' impacts comes from electricity production, at least back in 2019 when I read the report. Like, 74% comes from electricity/energy production, 16% comes from ruminant production/farming, and around 8% comes from logistics like cargo ships, planes, etc.
Of course, we are producing electricity for a reason, but that tells us where we should act if we want to tackle the problem. I don't know the most recent numbers, haven't gotten around to reading the updated report yet. I really don't understand why there is such a dissonance between everyone blaming everything and what not, and never pointing out the elephant in the room. If we would convert all power plants with a green version with a magic wand, we would fix so much of the problem. Unfortunately it can take up to 20 years to build a green power plant.
I'm sorry, emissions from vehicles I drive count towards emissions' companies generate? That makes no sense to me.
And are we just stopping at cars? Is it washing machines or fridges as well? Doesn't that just mean that those 100 companies produce a large amount of devices that use energy? Doesn't that make the "70% by 100 companies" claim completely meaningless?
No. Corporations aren't polluting because they get off on it. They're polluting because people buy their shit. If you stop buying their shit, they'll stop polluting.
Stop blaming the common people. People buy it because its available, if its not available they wont.
Its 100% down to the big companies. Its pathetic that people believe all their lies and blame everyone else.
even though the statistic from the OP image is defeatist and misleading BS, personal responsibility is not going to halt climate change, regulation is.
Regulation will only come with voters taking personal responsibility. And regulation will come with its own costs - like an increase in the cost of goods and decrease in the amount of goods you’ll be able to buy.
Like in some ways a few wealthy people are disproportionately to blame but in others the average person being unwilling to have ‘less’ is a major cause of lack of regulation.
I could literally do everything for the rest of my life to save the planet, and it'll still be less saved than if a big company did it for a day.
I'm not the one that needs to save the world, they are.
The company that raises their costs by reducing their environmental impact will have their market share replaced by the company that focuses on lower prices, so long as the consumer is uninterested in making ethical purchasing decisions at a cost to themselves.
It is a systems problem not a problem of any specific company. No one company can change things just like no one person can. There are only two ways a change comes about:
1. Consumers make alternative decisions about what they purchase, creating demand-side change that creates an incentive to produce more expensive products that are less environmentally taxing.
2. Individuals vote in representatives that legislate regulations that either enforce environmentally friendly practices on manufacturers, or else they can create new financial structures that align costs with externalities (carbon taxes etc).
Either way, the solution starts with societies of individuals like you and I making collective decisions.
>and it'll still be less saved than if a big company did it for a day.
Damn, you're saying you have less impact than a company hiring thousands of people to make goods for millions of people? That's crazy...
Pretty sure people prefer having stuff available. They would NOT like if all the stuff they can buy suddenly disappeared or became less available (i.e., much more expensive).
Recycling and plastic straws have little to do with emissions. It's about not putting the material into the environment. Emissions are gasses.
Of course they don't fucking affect global emissions.
The report is actually about fossil fuel emissions where they count every emission of a product as being "from" the company. So if you buy gas from say a Shell gas station it's counted as emissions "from Shell".
From that perspective it's basically just a statement about market concentration. 100 companies are responsible for 70% of fossil fuel emissions because 100 companies produce 70% of the fossil fuel we use.
Obviously this wouldn't change if only the quantity changes.
Those corporations make the things that people use like plastic straws, gasoline, cars ect
They aren’t pumping out greenhouse gasses for no reason - they are making money off of people’s consumerism.
The best kind of correct! :)
I would just rather see people urged to change their habits and to stop buying so much shit they don't need than oversimplifying the problem by portraying private business as the sole culprit.
This narrative also perfectly plays into those very corporations' cards...
Suuure average consumer, don't feel bad about your wasteful lifestyle, just blame the big bad "other thing" and continue buying our shit. Nothing you can do to improve the situation anyway right?
In fact, the opposite is true. Putting the responsibly on customers (co2 foot print, an invention by the oil industry) distracts them from seeing what would actually bring change - different laws and industry practice.
What I mean is, let's say some pro-environment president and party comes into power and they heavily tax oil and try to reduce its consumption. They would be voted out immediately as soon as the price at the pump goes up.
It doesn't matter whether the change is done by consumers at a grass roots level or enforced from the top by laws/government - the net result is going to be the same, which is a reduction in lifestyles
Actual environmental activists were not happy when recent federal measures to track carbon emissions from corporations did not include the carbon emissions from consumer consumption. This idea that consumption of goods isn't a major part of the issue is exclusive to slacktivists
Or like, the entire country of China. Yeah, a country with 3x the population of America produces emissions, it’s just that being a single state owned entity means that number looks really big. Significantly less per capita than us though.
I'm sick and tired of people lapping up the corporate-spawned, garbage idea that the blame for modern pollution lies with the individual. The term "carbon footprint" was coined by BP. Corporations have realized there is more repeat business in making products shittier and shorter lived (see planned obsolescence). Yet they want to put the blame for this on the consumer. The automotive industry and oil and gas lobby have been spending the last century dismantling public transit throughout the US, giving people no alternative to driving to and from work. Corporate consolidation gives people fewer options than ever to divest and boycott staple items, and wage growth is stagnant, so all the more eco-friendly, local alternatives to existing products are too expensive for regular people. Government reps, who vote lock-step with the corporate lobbyists that whisper in their ear all day will never vote to fund better public transit, set price controls to protect consumers, or do anything whatsoever that may benefit the public, at the expense of the profit margins of these greedy, rapacious corporations.
Corporations and the governments that operate at their behest are entirely to blame for our current wasteful society. Saying anything else is deluded at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst.
People don't drive cars and use gasoline (a petroleum product) to fuel those cars?
You don't use a corporate-manufactured device to engage with the internet?
Tens of millions of people every day aren't buying shit they don't need from places like Amazon?
Of course large companies and the government kowtowing to them is a huge problem. There's no denying that. But until the citizenry reevaluates it's own consumerist problem, nothing's going to change.
Yell at the sky all you want, but things will only change when people stop spending their money on certain things.
Ok but the production of buses and public transit vehicles still creates emissions. You're missing the point which is that it's individual consumption that leads these corporations to pollute, they don't just do it for fun.
Yeah, let me overhaul my lifestyle for a more difficult and probably more expensive one so i can fell morally good.
Voting with your wallet can work, but it needs political incetives to help the transition, otherwise it is all a giant market strategy to boost green products sells.
What else do you expect?
When you buy a car, you aren't doing any emissions, you just Uber to a dealership and do a bank transaction. But the corporations that produce your car need to mine iron, aluminum, copper, oil and sand, smelt it into metal, glass, plastic and paint, then transport it to the factory, then assemble and transport once more.
When you order something from Temu and it's transported on a container vessel from China, the corporation is burning the fuel in the ship engine.
Of course the pollution and CO2 emissions are on them. Do not pretend that corporations burn the oil and mine ores because they are evil. They do it for you.
It’s like a couple of mosquitos agreeing that only big wolves kill deer bc they’re just tiny winy individuals, then the camera zooms out to see that the collective swarm of billions of mosquitos has in fact killed ton of deer
Not really. The 70% figure blames companies for all downstream uses of their products. As most of those companies are oil companies everybody switching to an electric car would lower the oil used each year by around 30%. (Figures are a bit fuzzy i found anywhere from 20-40% of global oil is used to fuel cars depending on the source)
Ignoring the elephant in the room, aren't we?
It's not like the problem is wasteful consumerism, right?
The vast majority of eco-friendly products and initiatives are all basically green washing, for both the company and the consumer. If we avoided unnecessary wasteful consumption and instead of cheap polluting garbage we bought durable quality products, consumerism related pollution would massively go down AND over time we'd have much higher standards for quality.
Doesn't matter if the massage gun is 10$ or 1000$
You shouldn't own it. That's his point. Having tools that sit 99% of the time idle is a waste. Even more so if the are (ressource) expensive to make
We wouldnt criticize people for buying cheap necessities like a toothbrush. The criticis. Is for unnecessary things like coffee pods or slow cooker liners
I dont think that people buy cheap shit from temu and shein, because they have no money... More because they are addicted to buy cheap plastik shit waste...
The majority of landfills are from stores overstocking simply because it subconsciously makes people purchase more, and even if they throw the majority of it out the increased sales makes up for it in their pocket books.
Unfathomable amounts of foods and products trashed every day for the sole reason that having them on the shelves even if just for a little while tricks people into spending more than they otherwise would have.
These stats are misleading, for example they include all car emissions as part of the total emissions for the car companies - but obviously you can’t ignore that car usage is also responsible for those emissions, so cutting down on driving or getting an electric car would drive that down significantly if a lot of people did it.
I also recall, and I may be incorrect, that one of those 100 corporations was essentially the state run company that operates basically all of China. Which is misleading, obviously, since that’s an entire country.
It amazes me how you easily most people shirk responsibility for everything. Gee, I wonder what those companies are doing... I wonder if maybe there is some kind of demand that ordinary people have that they're supplying. No, it must be that they're just making useless widgets for the fuck of it. Dudes in suits getting up at the crack of dawn to run companies that produces nothing and yet somehow makes billions. Just digging up coal and oil to burn it and dump toxic sludge into the local river. Just for fucking kicks.
Those companies do so because you and me pay them to do so.
Everybody always complains how everybody else is at fault for pollution and yet nobody is willing to change their own lifestyle. This is so hypocritical.
Using more public transportation/bikes, reusing plastic bags, eating local, eating less meat, etc are all things most of us can do to at least some extent.
And it absolutely does matter if millions of people change their habits.
I'm pretty sure that a worldwide switch from plastic to paper straws will make less of an effect than Taylor's flights for one year. But someone can do the math if they want
They have different effects. Microplastics in water and pollution in the ocean is harmful to sea life. CO2 emissions is harmful to everything in a different way.
When it comes to the environment it should always be "both and" not either or.
Absolutely correct. But that doesn’t mean we should collectively shout “F*CK IT” and give up. Hold them accountable while also making an impact (however small) yourself.
Yeah everyone wants to blame the big bad corporations but the truth is they are only producing what we are buying. This is suggesting that if we stopped buying the shit that is creating the issue they would keep making it??
So many people not getting the point of this. It is far easier to tackle 100 companies than it is to change the habits of ***billions*** of people
Truth is, how often are we buying things purely out of choice? Public transport near me is diabolical, work is too far to commute by bicycle and for anything I do need a personal vehicle for, the infrastructure for electric cars is appalling near me.
Is it more likely that I and millions like me change my habits and drastically impede our own lives for long enough that these world-dominating, multi billion dollar corporations go under (bearing in mind they have enough capital to survive with no income for many, many human lifetimes) - or that they're forced to fail, and living conditions improved for everyone?
It is unrealistic too you’re right. You’ll never get a solution that will work. Because for a solution to work everyone has to agree on it and implement it
This statistic gets thrown around all the time, but it's *incredibly* misleading.
Most of those corporations are the big names in the energy sector, and the emissions caused by the energy they sell is included in that statistic. Meaning, everyone burning gas they bought from from one of those companies contributes to that 70%. Pretty much all it says as a result is that 70% of emissions come from fossil fuels, which everyone already knew!
Have fun with your flooding house. Sounds like you maybe should have not bought it. Might have be easier than relying on breaking up the 100 most powerful conglomerates in the world.
It’s not about breaking them up, that’s a separate but important issue. If 100 corporations get split into 10,000, but the amount we’re buying as individuals doesn’t change, then those 10,000 companies are going to produce roughly the same total emissions as the 100 currently are.
Breaking up the corporations is about reducing inequality, but it does nothing to prevent the rampant consumerism that absolutely defines modern society. This is deeper than that, we need to change our philosophy, not just the provider of all the pointless bullshit we buy.
Only the ultra-rich are going to be able to buy their way to safety from the climate crisis.
Worth having a little compassion for your fellow normies. Today's safe bet could be tomorrow's drought, wildfire, or flood zone. Shit's loopy rn.
That's not true... Those corporations are made of people, which will be included in the 100%, and they will recycle too.
Or you don't consider corporatists people??
Corporations only do all of these things to satisfy the demand of customers. While I'm sure corporations could use some more effective methods to lessen their environmental impact, that doesn't absolve the consumer of all responsibility. They are doing it because we pay them for the items that pollution creates. It's a global team effort. Driving less, using less plastic and recycling what we do use, and using renewable energy sources are us doing our part.
The flip side of forcing corporations, by legislation, to use more environmentally friendly methods is that the products will almost certainly be more expensive because the corporations can no longer cut corners. So we as consumers would rather complain about the problem and not boycott continuous offenders or elect officials that will make these changes because we get the feel-good of being on the side of the planet but the convenience of paying bottom dollar for killing the planet.
We are all responsible, and we all have to work together to make significant changes.
I am sorry this post in a non-serious subreddit got me off on a tangent, but this is something I have become passionate about recently.
This stat is a load of shit.
It includes waste associated with the product those companies sells in the 70%. Full up your 3 litre engine at Mobil and then go do skids? Why would Mobil do this to the environment?
When you litter you aren't actually littering, the big corporation who produced the plastic is littering.
This is a hand washing exercise and encouraged a form of climate paralysis.
This is a disingenuous. Corporations don't produce emissions for fun. They produce emissions in the process of meeting customer needs. Those customers could be consumers, or they could be other businesses that produce things for customers. The bottom line is that it all comes down to consumers. Reduce the number of consumers, and how much they consume.
Fossil fuel companies are creating emissions to fuel corporate and consumer demands. They are not the users of the products that require these emissions. Which is why this stat makes zero actual sense.
Does electric car go vroom vroom? No. Then why should I drive it? Until they ban gas cars and motorcycles, I will drive them. After that, I will never drive again. The amount of "harm" I will do to the planet my entire life, will get outclassed in seconds, by a factory in China. I won't live to see the end of the planet, nor will my great great great great great great great descendants. By the time this planet is in a "bad state" we will be living on Titan or something...
This is the dumbest line of logic. It completely ignores the fact that corporations are composed of people. And that their goal is to meet the demands of other people. If we all stopped demanding waste, corporations would also stop generating waste. You have to be personally responsible. It's the only way anything will change.
Yes it would. That Gaurdian article being referred to here absolutely includes consumption of those producer's products. The majority of a corporation's carbon footprint comes from the consumption of their products. If people stop using these corporation's products the corporation's carbon footprint will be smaller. The issue is how to incentivize such action
Alone the process of making e-cars isn't nature friendly at all, starting with the cobalt mines with their child labor.
But brainwashed people are easier to control and eco propaganda is very effective.
If all of us stop using platic straws, plastic bottles, stop eating meat because cows produce to much co2 we only eat bugs now, only use overcrowded busses and metro it would mean that singers, actors, politicians, big ceo and the ultra rich would be able to travel even more with their private jets. Lets make this effort for the good of the planet 🙏 /s
In the US I don’t think that we currently have the capability to make enough electricity to charge an electric car for everyone. Unless we fire back up all the coal burning turbines that we shut down over the last years
if everyone just
* stopped buying useless imported consumer goods
* bought locally produced foods and cooked for themselves more often
* went vegan
* used public transit more often
* demanded denser/mixed use zoning and neighborhood construction
* recycled, not just municipally, but specialty recycling as well
* demanded renewable energy production
then YES THINGS WOULD GET BETTER
ONLY DOOMERS BELIEVE THERE'S NOTHING THEY CAN DO
if there's something you CAN be doing, then do it, don't wait for someone else to do the right thing before you start doing it yourself
STOP TRYING TO WEASEL OUT OF RESPONSIBILITY
Think about it if we had these zero point energy “generators” Dr Steven Greer speaks of, the current corporations that rule would be powerless. For once, we could stick it to them where it hurts.
Think about that!
It's not 100 corporations. Try [reading the report](https://cdn.cdp.net/cdp-production/cms/reports/documents/000/002/327/original/Carbon-Majors-Report-2017.pdf?1501833772) that that stat comes from. The top one, by a wide margin is “China (coal).” It is the entire coal industry of the nation of China. The second one is the entire oil industry of Saudi Arabia. The third is Russia’s oil and gas industry, and the fourth is Iran’s oil industry. Then comes ExxonMobil, followed by Indian coal, Mexican petroleum, and Russian coal. This is not a list of who burns fossil fuels, and it is not a list of companies (most are national industries). This is a list of who extracts fossil fuels. Which, technically, is indeed who’s “responsible” for emissions, in that our furnaces can't emit without someone giving us the fuel, but it doesn’t tell us anything about who’s polluting. Emissions come when fossil fuels burn. When the EPA categorizes sources of emissions, they break down who’s responsible for burning the stuff, not who makes it. The EPA also breaks it down by sector, not by company, because waaaay more than 100 entities are at play.
Wait, I thought the top 100 corporations produce 70% of emissions *now*. Does that mean that not recycling, plastic straws and gas/diesel cars account for less than 1% of global emissions?
Your use of gas cars is being rolled into that 70% figure. For example, emissions from all Toyota cars are being counted as global emissions by Toyota the company. Ultimately, fewer people driving those cars would bring down that 70%. Additionally, a significant amount of emissions come from trade (I.e. cargo ships). The thing that makes up the majority of this trade is all the random bullshit we buy. It’s unbelievably dishonest to suggest that we as individuals have no responsibility for ending the climate crisis, when statistically we as individuals and as a society are easily the biggest consumers in all of history.
If cargo ships are taken in the calculation then I have my doubts: One large container ship at sea emits the same amount of sulphur oxide gases as 50 million diesel-burning cars.” there are over 50.000 large cargo ships in continuous use.
sulphur oxide is not a climate change gas. Cargo ships are way better for climate than trucks.
Sulphur Oxides are a category of sulphur-based compounds which includes Sulphur Dioxide. It’s sometimes abbreviated as SOx to account for ALL sulphur emissions, similarly to Nitrogen Oxides or NOx. If we’re talking about fuel combustion it’s absolutely including SO2, a known contributor to acid rain and other adverse environmental effects. Not a greenhouse gas, sure. But it contributes to climate change in other ways.
Sure, but we also have had much greater access to goods at an international level in the past 100 years than all time to before the dawn of man. Do we consume more than Ancient Rome? Sure we do. But back then only the extremely wealthy could afford goods brought in from Asia. Now Japanese made cars are some of the most affordable and accessible in North America. You are comparing apples to oranges. You really think if the Romans, who basically collapsed their empire through excess and greed, would not have out-consumed us today if given the same access?
Holy shit. You actually argued against yourself without noticing
Maybe try reading it again
Are you saying the fact that our ancestors probably would have done the same if they were in our position makes it okay?
Not even. That statistic comes from the Carbon Majors report, which only looks at fossil fuel producers. The gas you used to drive to work got blamed on the company (or state entity) that mined the petroleum. So did the fuel that powered the cargo ship that carried the cheap plastic junk you bought online. Based on that stat, we all had zero emissions, and so did Amazon, Toyota, and Microsoft. People have been using that report for years to sidestep personal responsibility, without ever understanding what it says.
Actually not those 100 companies are energy companies. So for you car the emissions are counted towards the oil producing companies A better name for that list would be "100 companies extract 70% of the global fossil fuels" No sh#t sherlock. They wouldn't if we wouldn't use the fossil fuels
Actually, the majority of emissions' impacts comes from electricity production, at least back in 2019 when I read the report. Like, 74% comes from electricity/energy production, 16% comes from ruminant production/farming, and around 8% comes from logistics like cargo ships, planes, etc. Of course, we are producing electricity for a reason, but that tells us where we should act if we want to tackle the problem. I don't know the most recent numbers, haven't gotten around to reading the updated report yet. I really don't understand why there is such a dissonance between everyone blaming everything and what not, and never pointing out the elephant in the room. If we would convert all power plants with a green version with a magic wand, we would fix so much of the problem. Unfortunately it can take up to 20 years to build a green power plant.
I'm sorry, emissions from vehicles I drive count towards emissions' companies generate? That makes no sense to me. And are we just stopping at cars? Is it washing machines or fridges as well? Doesn't that just mean that those 100 companies produce a large amount of devices that use energy? Doesn't that make the "70% by 100 companies" claim completely meaningless?
No. Corporations aren't polluting because they get off on it. They're polluting because people buy their shit. If you stop buying their shit, they'll stop polluting.
That seems as easy as switching everything to metric.
Yup. If we just stop buying gasoline and electricity and go cold turkey we'll stop the top 10 most polluting companies! Haha... ha... we're fucked.
Stop blaming the common people. People buy it because its available, if its not available they wont. Its 100% down to the big companies. Its pathetic that people believe all their lies and blame everyone else.
> ban things because I have no self control. Surely there’s a middle ground here
Fuck me you people are allergic to any amount of personal responsibility eh
even though the statistic from the OP image is defeatist and misleading BS, personal responsibility is not going to halt climate change, regulation is.
Regulation will only come with voters taking personal responsibility. And regulation will come with its own costs - like an increase in the cost of goods and decrease in the amount of goods you’ll be able to buy. Like in some ways a few wealthy people are disproportionately to blame but in others the average person being unwilling to have ‘less’ is a major cause of lack of regulation.
>personal responsibility is not going to halt climate change, regulation is. But only because nobody is actually taking responsibility.
I could literally do everything for the rest of my life to save the planet, and it'll still be less saved than if a big company did it for a day. I'm not the one that needs to save the world, they are.
The company that raises their costs by reducing their environmental impact will have their market share replaced by the company that focuses on lower prices, so long as the consumer is uninterested in making ethical purchasing decisions at a cost to themselves. It is a systems problem not a problem of any specific company. No one company can change things just like no one person can. There are only two ways a change comes about: 1. Consumers make alternative decisions about what they purchase, creating demand-side change that creates an incentive to produce more expensive products that are less environmentally taxing. 2. Individuals vote in representatives that legislate regulations that either enforce environmentally friendly practices on manufacturers, or else they can create new financial structures that align costs with externalities (carbon taxes etc). Either way, the solution starts with societies of individuals like you and I making collective decisions.
>and it'll still be less saved than if a big company did it for a day. Damn, you're saying you have less impact than a company hiring thousands of people to make goods for millions of people? That's crazy...
Pretty sure people prefer having stuff available. They would NOT like if all the stuff they can buy suddenly disappeared or became less available (i.e., much more expensive).
Recycling and plastic straws have little to do with emissions. It's about not putting the material into the environment. Emissions are gasses. Of course they don't fucking affect global emissions.
The report is actually about fossil fuel emissions where they count every emission of a product as being "from" the company. So if you buy gas from say a Shell gas station it's counted as emissions "from Shell". From that perspective it's basically just a statement about market concentration. 100 companies are responsible for 70% of fossil fuel emissions because 100 companies produce 70% of the fossil fuel we use. Obviously this wouldn't change if only the quantity changes.
I'm so glad to finally see someone with a brain
Those corporations make the things that people use like plastic straws, gasoline, cars ect They aren’t pumping out greenhouse gasses for no reason - they are making money off of people’s consumerism.
So um, who uses the products that corporations make?
Shh, we don't ask questions about beloved enemy images
Well it is technically correct. Corporations would still produce 70% of emissions, just there would be a lot less emissions produced.
The best kind of correct! :) I would just rather see people urged to change their habits and to stop buying so much shit they don't need than oversimplifying the problem by portraying private business as the sole culprit.
This narrative also perfectly plays into those very corporations' cards... Suuure average consumer, don't feel bad about your wasteful lifestyle, just blame the big bad "other thing" and continue buying our shit. Nothing you can do to improve the situation anyway right?
In fact, the opposite is true. Putting the responsibly on customers (co2 foot print, an invention by the oil industry) distracts them from seeing what would actually bring change - different laws and industry practice.
But at the end of the day, isn't it the common folks who are blocking those laws and industry practices?
Yes, because influential groups like "big oil" successfully made people think that it's our fault and not the companies
What I mean is, let's say some pro-environment president and party comes into power and they heavily tax oil and try to reduce its consumption. They would be voted out immediately as soon as the price at the pump goes up. It doesn't matter whether the change is done by consumers at a grass roots level or enforced from the top by laws/government - the net result is going to be the same, which is a reduction in lifestyles
Actual environmental activists were not happy when recent federal measures to track carbon emissions from corporations did not include the carbon emissions from consumer consumption. This idea that consumption of goods isn't a major part of the issue is exclusive to slacktivists
Yeah exactly people won’t take blame for their own consumerism
Not to mention that a lot of those “100 corporations” are state-owned oil companies for Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Or like, the entire country of China. Yeah, a country with 3x the population of America produces emissions, it’s just that being a single state owned entity means that number looks really big. Significantly less per capita than us though.
I'm sick and tired of people lapping up the corporate-spawned, garbage idea that the blame for modern pollution lies with the individual. The term "carbon footprint" was coined by BP. Corporations have realized there is more repeat business in making products shittier and shorter lived (see planned obsolescence). Yet they want to put the blame for this on the consumer. The automotive industry and oil and gas lobby have been spending the last century dismantling public transit throughout the US, giving people no alternative to driving to and from work. Corporate consolidation gives people fewer options than ever to divest and boycott staple items, and wage growth is stagnant, so all the more eco-friendly, local alternatives to existing products are too expensive for regular people. Government reps, who vote lock-step with the corporate lobbyists that whisper in their ear all day will never vote to fund better public transit, set price controls to protect consumers, or do anything whatsoever that may benefit the public, at the expense of the profit margins of these greedy, rapacious corporations. Corporations and the governments that operate at their behest are entirely to blame for our current wasteful society. Saying anything else is deluded at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst.
People don't drive cars and use gasoline (a petroleum product) to fuel those cars? You don't use a corporate-manufactured device to engage with the internet? Tens of millions of people every day aren't buying shit they don't need from places like Amazon? Of course large companies and the government kowtowing to them is a huge problem. There's no denying that. But until the citizenry reevaluates it's own consumerist problem, nothing's going to change. Yell at the sky all you want, but things will only change when people stop spending their money on certain things.
People have to drive cars because the government doesn't fund public transit because of lobbying efforts by big companies
Ok but the production of buses and public transit vehicles still creates emissions. You're missing the point which is that it's individual consumption that leads these corporations to pollute, they don't just do it for fun.
Yeah, let me overhaul my lifestyle for a more difficult and probably more expensive one so i can fell morally good. Voting with your wallet can work, but it needs political incetives to help the transition, otherwise it is all a giant market strategy to boost green products sells.
What else do you expect? When you buy a car, you aren't doing any emissions, you just Uber to a dealership and do a bank transaction. But the corporations that produce your car need to mine iron, aluminum, copper, oil and sand, smelt it into metal, glass, plastic and paint, then transport it to the factory, then assemble and transport once more. When you order something from Temu and it's transported on a container vessel from China, the corporation is burning the fuel in the ship engine. Of course the pollution and CO2 emissions are on them. Do not pretend that corporations burn the oil and mine ores because they are evil. They do it for you.
It kind of looks like OP thinks electric cars (and electricity to run them) come out of thin air without any pollution involved.
It’s like a couple of mosquitos agreeing that only big wolves kill deer bc they’re just tiny winy individuals, then the camera zooms out to see that the collective swarm of billions of mosquitos has in fact killed ton of deer
That is the stupidest take I've seen today.
Would the author be more happy if he divided them into 400 subsidiaries, or merged into 10? I don't get which way he wants to go.
Not really. The 70% figure blames companies for all downstream uses of their products. As most of those companies are oil companies everybody switching to an electric car would lower the oil used each year by around 30%. (Figures are a bit fuzzy i found anywhere from 20-40% of global oil is used to fuel cars depending on the source)
Ignoring the elephant in the room, aren't we? It's not like the problem is wasteful consumerism, right? The vast majority of eco-friendly products and initiatives are all basically green washing, for both the company and the consumer. If we avoided unnecessary wasteful consumption and instead of cheap polluting garbage we bought durable quality products, consumerism related pollution would massively go down AND over time we'd have much higher standards for quality.
Nobody enjoys buying cheap stuff. Most people that buy cheap stuff do so out of necessity.
Necessity may be a stretch. There are a whole lot of things labeled necessity in the west that most definitely are not.
What do you mean? I totally need that $10 massage gun and $3 fake gucci cap off temu.
Doesn't matter if the massage gun is 10$ or 1000$ You shouldn't own it. That's his point. Having tools that sit 99% of the time idle is a waste. Even more so if the are (ressource) expensive to make
r/Whooosh
We wouldnt criticize people for buying cheap necessities like a toothbrush. The criticis. Is for unnecessary things like coffee pods or slow cooker liners
I tried one of those liners once, and it was gross.
I dont think that people buy cheap shit from temu and shein, because they have no money... More because they are addicted to buy cheap plastik shit waste...
They don't make durable goods in most segments of the consumer market. That's by design.
The majority of landfills are from stores overstocking simply because it subconsciously makes people purchase more, and even if they throw the majority of it out the increased sales makes up for it in their pocket books. Unfathomable amounts of foods and products trashed every day for the sole reason that having them on the shelves even if just for a little while tricks people into spending more than they otherwise would have.
Yet that unfathomable amount is a small fraction of the stuff that actually gets sold.
Poor people want washing machines too you know
These stats are misleading, for example they include all car emissions as part of the total emissions for the car companies - but obviously you can’t ignore that car usage is also responsible for those emissions, so cutting down on driving or getting an electric car would drive that down significantly if a lot of people did it. I also recall, and I may be incorrect, that one of those 100 corporations was essentially the state run company that operates basically all of China. Which is misleading, obviously, since that’s an entire country.
A country with 3x the US’s population and yet the same emissions per capita
the alternative better be reusable straws not the shitty paper ones or i’m boutta riot
I read that when California got rid of plastic straws Starbucks switched to paper straws - in plastic envelopes.
Sounds like when we got rid of plastic bags for thicker, "reusable", plastic bags.
I wonder who could be buying all the things that those corporations make? Those are the real devils.
It amazes me how you easily most people shirk responsibility for everything. Gee, I wonder what those companies are doing... I wonder if maybe there is some kind of demand that ordinary people have that they're supplying. No, it must be that they're just making useless widgets for the fuck of it. Dudes in suits getting up at the crack of dawn to run companies that produces nothing and yet somehow makes billions. Just digging up coal and oil to burn it and dump toxic sludge into the local river. Just for fucking kicks.
Those companies do so because you and me pay them to do so. Everybody always complains how everybody else is at fault for pollution and yet nobody is willing to change their own lifestyle. This is so hypocritical. Using more public transportation/bikes, reusing plastic bags, eating local, eating less meat, etc are all things most of us can do to at least some extent. And it absolutely does matter if millions of people change their habits.
I'm pretty sure that a worldwide switch from plastic to paper straws will make less of an effect than Taylor's flights for one year. But someone can do the math if they want
They have different effects. Microplastics in water and pollution in the ocean is harmful to sea life. CO2 emissions is harmful to everything in a different way. When it comes to the environment it should always be "both and" not either or.
Psst… its just 3 countries…
Corporations are people, too … well, only when it benefits them then they’re not.
Reducing consumer emissions just allows corpos and ultra wealthy to raise theirs.
Absolutely correct. But that doesn’t mean we should collectively shout “F*CK IT” and give up. Hold them accountable while also making an impact (however small) yourself.
Yeah everyone wants to blame the big bad corporations but the truth is they are only producing what we are buying. This is suggesting that if we stopped buying the shit that is creating the issue they would keep making it??
.......so corporations arent on earth?
So many people not getting the point of this. It is far easier to tackle 100 companies than it is to change the habits of ***billions*** of people Truth is, how often are we buying things purely out of choice? Public transport near me is diabolical, work is too far to commute by bicycle and for anything I do need a personal vehicle for, the infrastructure for electric cars is appalling near me. Is it more likely that I and millions like me change my habits and drastically impede our own lives for long enough that these world-dominating, multi billion dollar corporations go under (bearing in mind they have enough capital to survive with no income for many, many human lifetimes) - or that they're forced to fail, and living conditions improved for everyone?
30% reduction sounds good to me.
they produce those emissions because we buy their products that produce it. if everyone stopped buying it, they wouldn’t produce nearly as much
That’s unrealistic though isn’t it
yea but it seems just as unrealistic to get the corporations to stop when they control the politicians
It is unrealistic too you’re right. You’ll never get a solution that will work. Because for a solution to work everyone has to agree on it and implement it
This statistic gets thrown around all the time, but it's *incredibly* misleading. Most of those corporations are the big names in the energy sector, and the emissions caused by the energy they sell is included in that statistic. Meaning, everyone burning gas they bought from from one of those companies contributes to that 70%. Pretty much all it says as a result is that 70% of emissions come from fossil fuels, which everyone already knew!
Electric cars are not good for the environment
Stop consuming the products these 100 corporations produce. That is the only real solution.
Pretty hard when those corporations own nearly everything
[удалено]
Have fun with your flooding house. Sounds like you maybe should have not bought it. Might have be easier than relying on breaking up the 100 most powerful conglomerates in the world.
It’s not about breaking them up, that’s a separate but important issue. If 100 corporations get split into 10,000, but the amount we’re buying as individuals doesn’t change, then those 10,000 companies are going to produce roughly the same total emissions as the 100 currently are. Breaking up the corporations is about reducing inequality, but it does nothing to prevent the rampant consumerism that absolutely defines modern society. This is deeper than that, we need to change our philosophy, not just the provider of all the pointless bullshit we buy.
Only the ultra-rich are going to be able to buy their way to safety from the climate crisis. Worth having a little compassion for your fellow normies. Today's safe bet could be tomorrow's drought, wildfire, or flood zone. Shit's loopy rn.
Huh?
good luck stopping using computers
Many of those corporations would be airlines if I had to guess
That's not true... Those corporations are made of people, which will be included in the 100%, and they will recycle too. Or you don't consider corporatists people??
Boy you are not good at math
Pretty sure at least a couple of the corporations would go bankrupt under those circumstances
I should have kept my old diesal van (20 years) .
Corporations only do all of these things to satisfy the demand of customers. While I'm sure corporations could use some more effective methods to lessen their environmental impact, that doesn't absolve the consumer of all responsibility. They are doing it because we pay them for the items that pollution creates. It's a global team effort. Driving less, using less plastic and recycling what we do use, and using renewable energy sources are us doing our part. The flip side of forcing corporations, by legislation, to use more environmentally friendly methods is that the products will almost certainly be more expensive because the corporations can no longer cut corners. So we as consumers would rather complain about the problem and not boycott continuous offenders or elect officials that will make these changes because we get the feel-good of being on the side of the planet but the convenience of paying bottom dollar for killing the planet. We are all responsible, and we all have to work together to make significant changes. I am sorry this post in a non-serious subreddit got me off on a tangent, but this is something I have become passionate about recently.
This stat is a load of shit. It includes waste associated with the product those companies sells in the 70%. Full up your 3 litre engine at Mobil and then go do skids? Why would Mobil do this to the environment? When you litter you aren't actually littering, the big corporation who produced the plastic is littering. This is a hand washing exercise and encouraged a form of climate paralysis.
This is a disingenuous. Corporations don't produce emissions for fun. They produce emissions in the process of meeting customer needs. Those customers could be consumers, or they could be other businesses that produce things for customers. The bottom line is that it all comes down to consumers. Reduce the number of consumers, and how much they consume.
Why come you no have tattoo?
Usual trashpeople logic
Fossil fuel companies are creating emissions to fuel corporate and consumer demands. They are not the users of the products that require these emissions. Which is why this stat makes zero actual sense.
Does electric car go vroom vroom? No. Then why should I drive it? Until they ban gas cars and motorcycles, I will drive them. After that, I will never drive again. The amount of "harm" I will do to the planet my entire life, will get outclassed in seconds, by a factory in China. I won't live to see the end of the planet, nor will my great great great great great great great descendants. By the time this planet is in a "bad state" we will be living on Titan or something...
True. But 70% of a smaller number is still a smaller number.
Stop signs don't stop all accidents, therefore they must be useless.
This is the dumbest line of logic. It completely ignores the fact that corporations are composed of people. And that their goal is to meet the demands of other people. If we all stopped demanding waste, corporations would also stop generating waste. You have to be personally responsible. It's the only way anything will change.
Such a confusing post. Emissions of what? Recycling, straws, and cars only account for less than a percent of these "emissions"? Ok.
Love all the people in here (elephant guys lmao) who are just gobbling massive corporate dick.
Come on. They produce 70% of the emissions in service of consumption.
Yes it would. That Gaurdian article being referred to here absolutely includes consumption of those producer's products. The majority of a corporation's carbon footprint comes from the consumption of their products. If people stop using these corporation's products the corporation's carbon footprint will be smaller. The issue is how to incentivize such action
NNNNNOOOOPPE. The products those corps make, transport, and we use, ARE the 70%. This tweet is a lie.
The percentage would be >70%. If one category goes down relative to others, that’s just how percentages work.
Alone the process of making e-cars isn't nature friendly at all, starting with the cobalt mines with their child labor. But brainwashed people are easier to control and eco propaganda is very effective.
So we’d be 30% better off?
If all of us stop using platic straws, plastic bottles, stop eating meat because cows produce to much co2 we only eat bugs now, only use overcrowded busses and metro it would mean that singers, actors, politicians, big ceo and the ultra rich would be able to travel even more with their private jets. Lets make this effort for the good of the planet 🙏 /s
And ask China to just stop it too.
So 30% progress?
That is a reason to be angry at the system, but not a reason to stop bettering yourself
In the US I don’t think that we currently have the capability to make enough electricity to charge an electric car for everyone. Unless we fire back up all the coal burning turbines that we shut down over the last years
So the next logical step would be to stop buying products and services from those 100 corporations
Not true, they then would procure more than 70% because they take a bigger fraction of the now lower overall emissions
Maybe, but it'll be less emissions.
Maybe, but the % would then be of a smaller total. Same slice, but from a smaller emission pie
Paper straws make me sad! Hate the flippin’ things.
Good god our education system is fucked. Do they not teach basic math anymore?? 🤣
CoRpoRatIons bAd! Who buys the goods and services corporations sell?
if everyone just * stopped buying useless imported consumer goods * bought locally produced foods and cooked for themselves more often * went vegan * used public transit more often * demanded denser/mixed use zoning and neighborhood construction * recycled, not just municipally, but specialty recycling as well * demanded renewable energy production then YES THINGS WOULD GET BETTER ONLY DOOMERS BELIEVE THERE'S NOTHING THEY CAN DO if there's something you CAN be doing, then do it, don't wait for someone else to do the right thing before you start doing it yourself STOP TRYING TO WEASEL OUT OF RESPONSIBILITY
Think about it if we had these zero point energy “generators” Dr Steven Greer speaks of, the current corporations that rule would be powerless. For once, we could stick it to them where it hurts. Think about that!
It's not 100 corporations. Try [reading the report](https://cdn.cdp.net/cdp-production/cms/reports/documents/000/002/327/original/Carbon-Majors-Report-2017.pdf?1501833772) that that stat comes from. The top one, by a wide margin is “China (coal).” It is the entire coal industry of the nation of China. The second one is the entire oil industry of Saudi Arabia. The third is Russia’s oil and gas industry, and the fourth is Iran’s oil industry. Then comes ExxonMobil, followed by Indian coal, Mexican petroleum, and Russian coal. This is not a list of who burns fossil fuels, and it is not a list of companies (most are national industries). This is a list of who extracts fossil fuels. Which, technically, is indeed who’s “responsible” for emissions, in that our furnaces can't emit without someone giving us the fuel, but it doesn’t tell us anything about who’s polluting. Emissions come when fossil fuels burn. When the EPA categorizes sources of emissions, they break down who’s responsible for burning the stuff, not who makes it. The EPA also breaks it down by sector, not by company, because waaaay more than 100 entities are at play.
And 52% of that would still Come from India and China
Who will tell him, that ev cars are worse than regular cars...
They're not. Electric is faster and funner.
Do you understand the climate grift yet?
the BP propaganda since the 90s is strong in this comment section....oof