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People saying:
"Voting doesn't matter. They're all the same." "Things can't be solved because the global elite won't allow it" "I don't have to do anything because it won't matter" "This is all big industry's problem, why should I do anything"
have been manipulated/influenced/radicalized by a combination of paid media shills, RW billionaires and Saudi/Kremlin/Iranian propaganda.
Snap out of it and let's all pitch in to save our children and world.
Voting matters, but unfortunately it appears to be an incredibly sub-optimal solution for dealing with climate change for the following reasons:
- Just because you can vote, doesn't mean that the option you need is even on the menu. It often isn't.
- Through hard work you can get the option in the menu, but that doesn't mean your politician won't do "deals" after they are in power.
- Lobbyists get access to politicians 24/7 and have a lot of influence, you have one vote every 4 years;
- Even if politicians do what you want, it is unlikely that your country by itself will make a difference, this is a global problem.
Meanwhile we are all fucked. It is likely too late already for preventing severe climate change. Our only hope now is geoengineering. The USA and EU are already considering blocking the sun.
The people who (rightly) have a sense of urgency about this are taking more radical action. They are blocking roads and throwing soup at famous paintings. These are desperate acts that seem rational in the face of the horror that we should strive to avoid, but the majority opinion of our species seems to be that these people are "too radical" and that common folks just trying to get by should not be inconvenienced, and that these radical eco-terrorists should be thrown in a cage.
To be honest, I'm not sure that our species deserves to survive.
Fun fact, there are climate lobbyists as well.
You can (very) easily join up here: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/
They are serious, bipartisan, and get face-to-face time regularly with elected leaders.
I do. Others don't. Unfortunately it will end only one way. We all know how.
Real shame. Civilizations rose and fall. Ours was very fast
Frankly, the biggest blame lies with Russia. They saw climate change coming, right after coming out of COVID-19, and they said "Y'know what would be a good idea? To go full conquest mode given our short-term advantage in the oncoming crisis' and force the rest of the world to have to cut back on their climate change pledges to defend against our imperialism."
I mean, not that the climate pledges were doing much, but Russia went in the completely opposite direction and gave countries the perfect excuse to give them up. I'm definitely not claiming other countries have no blame, but even China and the US were at least posturing against climate change.
No, they're not rational in the face of anything. They're stupid virtue-signalling that does nothing to reduce climate change. The only way they could possibly be rational is that they get people talking about them, but climate change is not some little-known issue. The entire world has been screaming about it for the past 20 years. If you haven't been listening, some cunt with soup isn't going to change that.
"Virtue-signaling" is just another though-terminating cliché of the current culture wars. It implies that the action has no cost to the person and provides some social credit. These people are risking their lives, violence, prison time, etc. Everyone hates them. Nobody knows their names. They keep doing it. Your hypothesis doesn't hold. If we all decided that we don't give a shit about this civilization-ending event, might as well through some soup at a van Gogh painting. Why not? It won't matter anyway.
Even if these people were horrible "virtue-signaling" vandals, it is a microscopic problem in comparison to the real one: clime change. And yet the media focus on the former. Why? You do the math.
Agreed, at least in principle - but your statement is so reductive it really could be said about anything.
It's so hard to motivate people to vote, people are exhausted and finding ten minutes in the day to feel good about oneself, much less performing a (seemingly futile, thanks to those poisonous ideas you've mentioned) civic duty is bordering on impossible. When 1 in 15 people in the UK need drugs just to keep their desire to live one more day in check - and a good chunk of the remaining population from that statistic are barely holding on - fighting the futility for someone else is an insurmountable goal.
I don't know if we can afford to wait for climate to get worse for people to take action. People are dying preventable deaths, if it weren't for the very evident effects of man made climate change being politicised or obfuscated, maybe it'd be just a warm Summer in Europe right now.
How long can we wait for a peaceful solution to form?
If we don't wait - how many heads would we need on pikes next to Mortimer Buckley or Larry Fink before we start seeing positive change? When would be the tipping point for the guillotine to become the most ethical solution?
Sorry, I'm rambling. I just feel so hopeless sometimes, and putting a X in a box 2 or 3 times a decade doesn't do anything to make me feel like we're making progress...!
"Reductive" is the exact word that popped into my head, while reading PP's comment.
I have come to suspect that we can look forward to continued basic survival being monetized, as VC-funded startups enter the space to disrupt breathing and skin-based evaporative cooling, and just generally making it to the next minute.
Green and renewable investment is the fastest-growing investment sector among VCs
This doesn't address your entire post/point but make sure to vote in every election, not just 2 or 3 times a decade - local and state (assuming USA, sorry?) elections definitely matter!
Voting is still good, but it's the bare minimum. Not everyone has the time, but if you do, you should try to advocate publicly, and preferably in a group. Just like with unions, collective action is more effective. If I give feedback to my city individually, I'm a data point. But as part of an advocacy group, they reach out to us.
Absolutely! That's what I mean. We have to do it ALL. Even the tiniest things have value. 👍
stuck fin
But you're not talking about the people who are already doing everything they can you're talking about the people who aren't, and they haven't, and they won't, so it is industry and government who needs to do the things for them, because they won't. If our votes aren't enough then there is nothing more that can be done under the current system.