Originally Posted by Kirk007
Yes personal consumption is a contributor to climate change, but the consumption that is killing us isn't bicycles or textiles.
It's the huge consumption of fossil fuel, the strategic delay of changing from fossil fuels by big oil and coal so that they can eke out every last penny of their existing infrastructure and investment despite knowing the ramifications. It's the false notion that natural gas is a clean fuel, ignoring the intense impact of methane releases. It's the western reliance on energy intensive protein sources from animals that emit huge amounts of methane. It's the out of control birth rates in third world countries - a direct result of poverty, lack of education and resource scarcity, exacerbated by perverse religious driven resistance to providing birth control and education. It's the failure to recognize that the insatiable engine of the leading economic system in the world, capitalism, exernalizes the direct cost of contributors to climate change, just as it has always externalized production costs usually with the acquiesence of government. It's the hugely difficult problem that is coming - if we cut consumption, and hence the production of stuff, how do people make a living - we already answers to what will happen with the continued automation of tasks and AI. Its the failure of every person around the world who, if they have the means, fails to hold their elected leaders accountable for the welfare of the commons, allowing them to endlessly give in to the allure of power and money. And it is as bad in the USA as anywhere in the world right now. In 6O years on earth, at least 45 of which I've been paying attention, never, ever have I witnesses a time of such graft, self interest and cowardice than that currently occuring on a daily basis in at least 2 of our branches of federal government, and I'm not so sure the third branch is much less toxic at the upper levels.
At the end of the day most of us hanging out here, given our age and resources, will get off relatively light, but our children, grandchildren, those kids taking to the streets around the world they are and will continue to be the . ones who suffer as a result of myopic selfish nature of humans. And the reality is its already too late to change of the fate of millions of humans who by no fault of their own were born in low elevation, coastal areas of third world countries. If you really want to understand the immigration crisis and why its going to get much much worse, one need only consider the resource scarcities already occurring and that will get worse. As homes, cities, islands, nations are literally wiped out, where will those people go? Who will take them in? And it won't be too long before Americans in similar locations suffer the same fate; some already are. While it may be possible to mitigate some of the impacts make no mistake, the crisis, and the losses are already here.
Good for the millions who took to the streets today. Good on each and everyone here who is taking personal responsibility by reducing their own consumption and encouraging others to do so. Good for VSalon. But its going to take a lot more than that to overcome the rot that has taken hold of "the leaders of the free world."
I wish I had answers and solutions. But I've been pushing the rock of care for the non-human species of this earth, and having it roll back down the hill crushing me for so long, well, its hard to be optimistic. But tomorrow I'll get up and pull up my big boy pants and start pushing again. My kid deserves that much.
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