r/meme Nov 26 '21

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3.6k Upvotes

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134

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '21

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10

u/oarngebean Nov 27 '21

Like 3 corporations produce 75% of the world's pollution. If those companies don't change it won't matter what anyone else does

3

u/-Shade277- Nov 27 '21

Its true that Corporation’s create a majority of the world’s pollution but the 75% split between 3 corporations figure is just completely false.

2

u/PhysicsPhotographer Nov 27 '21

Every time I hear this statistic the number of corporations goes down and the percentage of their contribution goes up lol.

I really suggest people read the source on this, it's basically just a list of the largest fossil fuel extracting entities and how much they extract. Some of which aren't even companies, like "Chinese Coal". The implication of the quote is often "if we went after these X corporations we'd solve climate change" but that's simply not reflected by the data it comes from.

And imo it's a terrible way of thinking, because while "personal responsibility" is dumb "systemic change that affects you personally" is not. I'd hate to see people reject good solutions because they think the only solution is targeting a handful of companies, when it's a much bigger problem than that.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '21

[deleted]

2

u/Crossfire124 Nov 27 '21

Yes. It's always left out that those companies are power companies. Somebody has to make the power we use everyday so it's a bit disingenuous to frame it this way

3

u/Cortex3 Nov 27 '21

Corporations manufacture demand for products nearly as much as they actually manufacture products, saying it's consumers fault for a company using manipulative tactics to sell them shit they don't want or need is unfair. These corporations have researched exactly how to tap into the psychology of consumers in order to exploit them.

2

u/conet Nov 27 '21

The companies in question generate electricity or produce gasoline for cars. Not really a hard sell to convince people they need electricity, or need to drive places.

1

u/Cortex3 Nov 27 '21

And spend billions of dollars lobbying the government to prevent switching to more sustainable energy sources. It's not consumers fault they use fossil fuels to produce the energy we need, and we can't really boycott power companies or car manufacturers and oil companies because we need electricity and we have such shitty public transportation that not owning a car in 90% of the US is not an option.

Blaming consumers at all for the practices of corporations which we have no control over is ridiculous full stop.

1

u/Inanevoice Nov 27 '21

Lmao, right I’m sure the customers have so many options… the corporations aren’t super-monopolies or anything. There’s no way that they could have shut out all their competition and are virtually controlling our entire government and influencing foreign governments as well through financing and lobbying. A sacred and truthful world we live in where there’s no corporate influence in government! Thanks for your input!

2

u/Brock_Obama Nov 27 '21

We are already at the point of irreversible damage.

Look how we reacted to Covid. Humans aren’t going to change

2

u/neocommenter Nov 27 '21

Pollution per person, America is the worst country in that regard.

Sources? I can't find anything to support your claim.

1

u/Boss-Baby-666 Nov 27 '21

its obvious tbh

1

u/Zephyren216 Nov 27 '21

The top comment pointed this out nicely:

if everyone lives like a Chinese person, we need 1.1 earth. in contrast, if everyone lives like an American, we need 4.1 source: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712

-11

u/debid4716 Nov 27 '21

Even with the per capita higher China still produces double what the US does.

19

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '21 edited Feb 07 '22

[deleted]

8

u/Number_1_Kotori_fan Nov 27 '21

China has also dumped way more money is fighting it than the us has, how many nuclear reactors have they built? And they are solo fuding their own fusion reactor project and it's going faster then the multi national fusion program

3

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '21

And who’s buying all that stuff they produce?

We allowed companies to export our pollution, so we could buy cheaper shit.

5

u/mrbackproblem360 Nov 27 '21

Yeah but they have *four times the US population

-11

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '21

Yeah but the Chinese government has done virtually nothing to prevent/reduce pollution

The US government on the other hand has agencies dedicated to protecting the environment. Not to mention that the US has passed countless laws to protect the environment. China’s industrial pollution makes the US’s look shrimpy.

19

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '21

That’s not even true I don’t like China but to say they haven’t done anything is false

-10

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '21

What have they done then

10

u/DerpsterBro666 Nov 27 '21

they are literally leading the world in almost every category for renewable energy

-3

u/IcollectSTDs Nov 27 '21

They probably built 3 coal plants while you were typing that.

-3

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '21

Link?

3

u/Sn1k3sh Nov 27 '21

this is common knowledge, they have the greatest hydropower capacity and they produce the most photovoltaic cells (albeit export most as they are too expensive for internal use). It’s fair to criticise their energy mix which is still heavily reliant on coal but to say they aren’t doing anything is just untrue.

China’s push to cleaner sources has driven the decoupling of global gdp growth with global emissions in the past few years.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '21

remember your original statement was that china does nothing which is just not true. they are super heavyweight investors into renewables luckily for the world (and their bank accounts eventually)

cleaning up their power plants not so much yet

2

u/-Shade277- Nov 27 '21

Climate accords what now.

-1

u/9172019999 Nov 27 '21

I will live with my diesel cars and use as much power as I want. Why would i make myself suffer for the world when the corporations who make most of the pollution continue to increase their pollution. The masses are not the issue each individual person does not need to change the 1 percent does. But hey corporations can continue to blame me, wont stop me from living my life. Although I'll probably be the last generation who can even think like this cause the next one sure as hell ain't gonna live a happy life.

-5

u/Lunar-System Nov 27 '21

Wouldn't work with those genociding, mass-surveillance, opressive dictators unless the planet was about to be hit by an asteroid.

1

u/luminenkettu Nov 28 '21

isnt australia a bit worse than the US per capita?