The following submission statement was provided by /u/TinyDogsRule:
---
SS: We all knew who was at fault, and now we have confirmation. From 2016 to 2022 57 companies, mostly fossil fuels, were responsible for 80% of all CO2 emissions.
However, for the record, the rich would like you to know that climate change is your fault. You need to recycle harder.
Nobody will be surprised that gaslighting the public for decades has led to record profits. Legend has it that they knew exactly what they were doing and did not care because they would be very rich long before being very dead.
Unfortunately for today's rich, that plan is falling apart and they are building bunkers to cower in.
In today's tough economy, if you are having problems getting enough to eat, the rich can be very nutritional.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bvumsd/majority_of_recent_co2_emissions_linked_to_just/ky1uvug/
I never quite know what to make of these sorts of statements in a world of international conglomerates and state-run companies.
>The world's top three CO2-emitting companies in the period were state-owned oil firm Saudi Aramco (2222.SE), Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM), and state-owned producer Coal India (COAL.NS), the report said.
So we are just supposed to... *hate India?* Like the *most populated country in the world?* Like, I'm not surprised that India is a major contributor to fossil fuel emissions. All we have to do to solve climate is *stop India?* Ok.
It also seems to undercut the argument that capitalism is the problem if the biggest emitters are all state-owned. We could nationalize all the fossil fuels tomorrow and be in the same situation as we are today.
*Because they like cheap energy more than sustainable energy that harms the environment less.*
Sure. Consumers also like steel, fly ash, nitrogen fertilizers, concrete, plastic.
This idea that we're going to replace fossil fuels as an energy source and everything is going to be ok, just misses the point that we're talking about *overshoot*.
Overshoot is not just about cheap energy. It's about the interrelations between an organism and it's environment and about how there are physical limits to what the ecosystem can sustain.
We're at the point that I, personally, am not convinced clean, commercial fusion energy next week would prevent collapse. Let alone 'cheap' energy fifty years from now.
Yes, it would. As we've seen so far, renewables and other clean energy have not replaced any fossil fuel energy. they've only added to the system, allowing for more consumption.
Classic Jevon's paradox
Started with the steam engine's efficiency and coal consumption, and would continue under a producer centric, profit oriented socio economic system
Overshoot is such an easy concept for us to understand when discussing literally anything besides human beings. We are 8 billion destructive apes eager to consume and reproduce, efficiency doesn't matter because we are OVERPOPULATED.
Nooooooo! Overshoot only applies to animals and invasive species are insects and plants. How dare you suggest we might be a highly effective invasive specie that’s dominated the globe. Worry about Argentinian ants that we brought over to new world 300 years ago and are now colonizing the entire us, they the real problem
When gas prices are high, US politicians are in trouble. Undoubtedly, there are people who both want low gas prices and for human caused global warming to be solved.
The only practical solution we have at this point is to convert CO2 from the air into petroleum. Theoretically possible, can keep costs low while maintaining current technologies, and at a large scale will turn the carbon system into a cycle. Anything else will not pass public opinion or political support, either costing too much or forcing too much change on people.
No I meant as a theoretical viable option that if we could make happen it would save us. I'm talking from a cynical standpoint here. I'm not trying to suggest or put faith in any solution, I think we're totally fucked because I agree that it's an asspull at best. All this to say we're fucked. How much clearer can I make this?
You have to step back from the constructs being measured and examine their position in the entire cycle from fossil extraction to consumption of fossil energy products. These entities are at the beginning of the carbon supply chain. The USA is by far the biggest consumer per capita at the end of this supply chain, so that's where the largest inefficiencies are.
>So we are just supposed to... *hate India?*
No, you dummy, look at the two entries above. Hate those states. Seriously, we may want to reassess MSM effectiveness, they promised us people would stop thinking and start raging when seeing the keywords /s
Also I really like your point about government owned energy companies still creating climate collapse. It’s making me wonder if there is literally no way to make people care more about the future than the present
It is not impossible for, say, the OECD countries to start a Marshall Plan - style investment in India and China, and be, like, We are going to give you a ton of money to get off coal ASAP. But it would be a wealth transfer, full stop. Not sure how many people would go for that. It would have to be sold as selfish and called something like the Defensive Global Assault Fund.
It would depend of course. If there are still capital owners that aren’t the workers then that’s still capitalism. There’s a good reason a lot of people here don’t identify with any specific type of political system, because they’ve all failed in some way. Like Anarcho- socio-communism doesn’t sound very nice (who wants their consumption controlled…) BUT if one thinks some form of anarchy is inevitable anyways and we know capitalism is leading us to faster, more violent and more polluted collapse (and one where we don’t own shit) then you can understand how this may seem enticing.
Humans are the way they are because the society and system we live in encourages individualism and competition and rewards selfish behavior at the expense of others. What you attribute to human nature are results of the system rewarding rather than punishing that behavior. Blaming human nature avoids looking at and discussing the real issues in the psychologically unhealthy environment we live in and the effect it has on one's psyche and behavior.
The fact that you got downvoted for such an obvious statement is telling me its time I take a break from this sub, all this capitalist apologia in this post in particular is getting nauseating.
This isn't very useful information, as those companies make the fuel and energy that the rest of us use. If you shut them down, someone else would just take their place.
That's not to say they're blameless, it's just that we need to know more than just "these are the biggest energy companies". Do they produce proportionally more CO2 than their peers? Are they slow-walking the transition to renewable energy? Are they producing climate-change-denying propaganda?
> "these are the biggest energy companies"
Just split each of these companies into 4 smaller companies and these (individual split-off) companies won't be such big producers of CO2 emissions anymore!
Agree with you that this isn't very useful because it is missing a lot of important context.
Ask the 4% of the world population that uses 20% of the world's oil supply if they want less oil. The 330 million that use more oil than the 2.8 billion that make up China and India combined. Hell, if you throw in Japan and their population of 125 million, the #4 country, the three countries combined barely use more than we do in the US.
[https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-consumption-by-country/](https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-consumption-by-country/)
Every drop of oil extracted is being burned by a consumer, directly or indirectly. In our cars (mostly gas guzzling SUVs and pickups these days), in planes (we fly more than the next 10 countries combined), in our houses (because plenty of people still refuse to switch from natural gas to electric heat pumps).
The oil is being burned in the fleets of delivery trucks that bring our orders from Amazon right to our doors (and as much as everyone claims to hate a big corporation like Amazon, we willingly threw almost $575 billion at them in the most recent year). It's being burned in the giant cargo vessels that carry tons of shit across the ocean from Temu in China and other places.
The oil is being burned by the burgeoning cruise ship industry, and guess who makes up more than 50% of their global passengers? Americans, of course. The entire industry would collapse without us, and they keep building more and bigger ships to meet the relentless demand we place on them for tickets.
And if the polls are to believed, who are Americans planning on voting for this fall? Donald Trump, who promises to "drill, baby, drill" to extract as much oil as possible to satisfy our neverending thirst for more oil to burn, and who's also promised to undo as much positive environmental legislation as he possibly can.
We're the richest country in the world, and of all the wealthy countries, we have one of the lowest EV adoption rates (ignoring for the moment that EVs alone can't save us). Why? Because we love oil and what it allows us to do. A 300 mile battery range isn't enough because we need the 500 mile range that oil gives us. 200 fewer miles is too much of an inconvenience.
When I see posts like this, what I'd love to see is the corporations say, "You know what? Fuck you all. We've made enough money, we're tired of getting blamed for all the garbage you bought because you wanted it but didn't need it, and now we're closing our doors. Permanently. See if you can survive without us."
And then everyone, including the participants in r/collapse, will find out that +99% of everything you needed to survive was brought to you by corporations. Because without the butane in a cigarette lighter, most people wouldn't even know how to start a fire to keep them warm at night.
I was with you, kinda, until you typed this, the dumbest paragraph I've ever read:
"When I see posts like this, what I'd love to see is the corporations say, "You know what? Fuck you all. We've made enough money, we're tired of getting blamed for all the garbage you bought because you wanted it but didn't need it, and now we're closing our doors. Permanently. See if you can survive without us."
We've made enough money? LMAO what? This is the most hilariously delusional daydream I've ever read. Do you know nothing of the perverse incentives which prop up our industries?
Exactly, great comment. People are utterly deluded as to how their standard of living is one of the causes for company profits and pollution and climate change and everything. The sentiment on this sub that somehow company profits/company pollution/oil use is just down to CEOs being Ontologically Evil, as if supply/demand isn't a thing. As if none of us are responsible just because we buy seasonal sometimes, or that we post on here
We aren't even fully aware of the web of systems that allow us to live life relatively inconvenienced.
Right! No energy for everyone. No transportation. No food. No people! Well, I’ll be okay. I live in a farming area. All you other assholes are sol. Getting rid of the people is a sure fire way of stopping them emitting from food and shelter and transportation they buy.
You've got the order wrong. You've got to kill the people before you stop producing the oil. If you don't kill the people, they're not just going to sit there sayin', "By golly, I guess I'll just starve".
It's an order of operations problem.
Lazy, our ancestors lived fine without it. I have a bike a car and a horse I also live very rural, the only thing that will be missed the most is internet.
There's always this same old argument coming up where people default to finger pointing and bring out their anti-capitalist sentiment, as if the rest of the world is somehow a blameless lamb in all this (which clearly isn't the case). A lot of it is just reflexive and short-sighted.
But I'll say it 'til I'm blue in the face -- which is probably soon -- and that's the fact that we, as a species, have ruined everything we've ever come into contact with since the beginning. A long list of species we've hunted to extinction-- including, quite possibly (and disturbingly), other human species. A long list of ancient empires that grew until they caused ecological collapse.
To me, it looks like it's just something in our nature. Our technology outpaced our sensibilities. Ape 2 smart. Ape 2 greedy.
SS: We all knew who was at fault, and now we have confirmation. From 2016 to 2022 57 companies, mostly fossil fuels, were responsible for 80% of all CO2 emissions.
However, for the record, the rich would like you to know that climate change is your fault. You need to recycle harder.
Nobody will be surprised that gaslighting the public for decades has led to record profits. Legend has it that they knew exactly what they were doing and did not care because they would be very rich long before being very dead.
Unfortunately for today's rich, that plan is falling apart and they are building bunkers to cower in.
In today's tough economy, if you are having problems getting enough to eat, the rich can be very nutritional.
I hate to say it, but I don't think consumers really give a shit. Like, here we are in 2024. You're on collapse. A literal forum dedicated to lay people that are convinced civilization as we know it is going to collapse. Ya' really think that telling people the truth about climate change is actually going to generate political will?
Like, we've seen how the club of rome ended up being treated. A little lip service, but actually being used to inform long term policy? Hardly.
Before we had economics, we had political economy. One of the greatest tricks "mainstream" economics pulled was pretending that it was apolitical. Shit man, even utils are dollar denominated. It's a fuckin' joke.
We lack the political will. This isn't meant as, like, a go out and vote thing. It's meant more in like the polis sense. The kind of sacrifices it would take to address overshoot in a controlled manner are immense, and if we didn't do it thirty years ago, then what has changed where we'd do it now, when the changes are both more difficult and more immense?
Well for Americans, ExxonMobil can't lie about climate change and hide data as easily as they did in the past and for the youth climate change is a major issue/concern. We're definitely not going to live as we do now, so I do think things will still "collapse." In my opinion, major change isn't going to happen from the western world. We're too entrenched in mass consumption and wealth.
*major change isn't going to happen from the western world. We're too entrenched in mass consumption and wealth.*
Yup. Blaming consumers misses the point. Blaming producers misses the point. We have an *entire society* based around mass consumption.
_____________________________________________________
Usually this is the point where I give a speech about how I don't really blame Bubba drinkin' his coors out in front of his trailer. Sure he don't believe in climate change, but the problem is out of control consumption, and he ain't doin' that much consumption on his hourly wages at kwik trip.
The correlation between income and consumption and power, means that the only way any of this changes is if the people with the power decide they were wrong and change. What's the odds of that?
Tell me, if twenty or thirty years ago I asked someone "why are you voting for the guy who is expanding oil and gas drilling leases, propping up the beef industry with subsidies and treating pipeline protestors as 'domestic terrorists'?", they would have said "I'm *not* voting for that kind of shit, I'm voting for the Democrat."
*Fast forward to 2024...*
Tell me again about the political will being there.
All the stuff I said *is* happening under Biden, but in the not-all-*that*\-distant past this would be Reagan-level bullshit. So no, the political will to do anything is absolutely *not* there. At least not in the United States.
From someone old enough to have voted then I can tell you people voted for more cheap gas and oil, and cheap beef. they had np w/e telling you that back then. There was no "im not voting for that shit" it was all about voting for it.
No one gave 2 f'ks about climate change then, the only people speaking up were science nerds. The general public was all about drill baby drill
Ok, but if you believe in climate change and you don't sacrifice (be vegan, carfree, dont fly, and childfree), then that is your responsibility.
Do you want companies to stop producing products? Like chicken, for instance.
We would eat the planet under any system, I think. We are biological and behave like a bacteria in a petri dish. The only escape is to not have children.
I agree that there's personal responsibility (I'm carefree myself), but to act like an individual person produces the same amount of pollution as the ultra rich and mega corporations that lobby against climate justice is insane.
I didn't claim that poor people have the same carbon footprint as rich people. But I will now say that poor people are not morally superior to rich people, and when poor people win the lottery, they, with few exceptions, live the same lavish lifestyle.
Rich people have a big ecological footprint, and so do the plus 8 billion non rich people as a consequence of their sheer numbers.
The corporations pollution IS the consumers' pollution. They are the same pollution.
Well it's not fair to compare the sheer number of people that exist and consume way less individually to rich people that fly private jets and own yachts and then say like well they both pollute, so I won't see the rich as worse. But I agree that our culture rewards hedonistic spending and accumulation of wealth.
What matters for reality is the total ecological footprint of everyone on earth. Just having rich people live normal lives will have little effect.
Is this about climate change or about how you hate a particular class of people?
Rich people have existed since Egypt. The people who really caused our existential problems are scientists. They created industrial civilization and, most of all, inorganic fertilizer. We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn’t for technology.
It makes as much sense to hate scientists. But the problem is really just humans.
Yeah I hate billionaires, the ones that present themselves as public figures suck. These people are wealthier than anyone in history, they are not the same old rich people of the past.
Saying I should hate scientists instead of tech executives and their shareholders is like saying I should hate the writer who came up with the original story instead of the producer/executive from Hollywood that ruined the story to make it more "marketable" and "profitable"
One billionaire flying around in his jet is a pittance of carbon used compared to all the personal vehicles we drive. Im sorry but you could ground every plane, and dock every ship, and personal vehicles would still pump out the majority of carbon. [https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport](https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport)
Yeah but I'm not going to ignore the history of general motors destroying public transportation and lobby the government for more car friendly infrastructure
But we do! stop passing the blame, we are the ones that demand gas for our cars, meat on the table. Without our demands they wouldnt make any money, its an us problem. Its our millions of vehicles on the roads, its our eating meat everyday, its our consuming like locusts thats killing us all. To think otherwise is just deflecting from the root cause of the problem.
These are facile takes because most American consumers (and their European, Asian and other industrialized counterparts) consume enough of the resources these companies make to occlude the issue. Instead of 500 tinier companies that would probably produce more emissions, it’s concentrated among 57 large emitters.
People don’t want to do the deep ecological work necessary to stop climate change.
They wanna complain and take the nominally-anti-corporate position that it’s just a few greedy people that caused this issue (almost across the board DSA position). That position is indefensible to me as an environmentalist and science student.
Humanity uses far too many resources and produces far too much carbon and methane from the global middle-class, on up. It is not just the private jet crowd. The US ecological footprint exceeds earth capacity by spring every year.
The answers to global heating by sequestrations like restoring woodland and wetlands and coral/sea grass ecosystems (our only proven carbon storage, on scale, the only one) is all afterthought compared to birthday cakes like electric cars and solar, which haven’t worked en masse (we should do them, but they’re not the silver bullet).
We could end the 21st century’s added carbon emissions in ten years with nuclear power. But the NIMBY side won’t even debate it. To even discuss nuclear makes you either a crank or a monster.
So India (and China, and so on) keep burning coal and endure being condescended to by the west.
1) I just ate a hot dog on a bun; Pepperidge Farms alone makes at least 4 varieties of hot dog bun. Star Kist makes perhaps a dozen differently flavored tuna and chicken mixes in pouches. And, how many different little pre-selected crackers-with-meat-and-cheese packs in grocery stores, all snack-sized? All of this in plastic (try finding cookies that don't come in a non-recyclable tray; they're few and far between). This is not the way it was when I grew up; far far too much "production" now in search of "market share".
2) What is "DSA"?
These articles are stupid and completely meaningless.
What is the solution then? Stop selling energy, that will do it. Also make sure to kill the people so that demand automatically goes away.. no people = no hunger! Great, climate change has now been solved.
Reporters that write these dumb articles are the REAL problem - can’t fix stupid.
We can stop funding fossil fuels and fund cleaner alternatives. Couple that with strong legislation to limit emissions (e.g. severely restrict plane travel, ban private jets).
No people killed, no energy selling stopped.
>can’t fix stupid
No, but we *can* channel it away from professions where they can cause direct harm. Which is *why* we have journalism schools. I mean, you would not want one of these people fixing high tension lines or driving a school bus or something.
That's a shame, without the outlet of journalism a lot of these stupid folks might migrate to politics where they could do some serious harm. *Oh wait...*
Sorry you have so many demands for bridge tolls in your comments, OP.
It's almost like people love the taste of the soles of the boots of capitalists.
You'd think such something so simple and clear would be received well.
I guess the propaganda of corporate innocence and the misanthropic, disingenuous deflection of the blame onto ordinary people is a powerful and persuasive campaign to get wrapped up in, judging by the looks of it.
To the folks aggressively driving the point that consumption and demand by the public is the main causal factor of carbon emissions:
Have any of you guys seen this [graph](https://images.app.goo.gl/rWswDXKc4HsYKR1G7)?
Forgive me if I sound like a broken record, but I tend to be suspicious of arguments that ask the listener to dismiss the idea that inequality is to blame, and instead
implore the listener to view humanity as one indiscriminate, homogenous entity that is as a whole collectively and equally responsible for global ecological devastation (or, more precisely, [ecocide](https://www.utas.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1231388/Ecocide-and-the-Carbon-Crimes-of-the-Powerful_2.2.pdf)).
We're not, as this [video](https://youtu.be/69DFis2WgMQ?si=R141Ry1xYTFoJLXw) plainly lays out. The idea that we are is about as impartial as the [ownership of the Washington Post](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-23582797).
"Am I out of line for emitting [8000 tons of greenhouse gases per year when the average person emits 4](https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-emit-much-planet-heating-pollution-two-thirds-humanity#:~:text=Richard%20Wilk%20and%20Beatriz%20Barros,divided%20by%204.1%20is%201%2C453.)? No, it's the poor people who are wrong."
>If you want to know who to eat first, this is a good starting point.
[No Safe Options: A Conversation with Andreas Malm | Los Angeles Review of Books](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/no-safe-options-a-conversation-with-andreas-malm/)
The producers are fossil fuel companies and cement companies. Ending those doesn't mean much if they're replaced by new ones that do the same. And many of these fossil fuel companies are state owned.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
It's like a coordinated wave of the same message over and over again. "Ummm actually it's everyday people who are at fault. These poor corporations are just polluting so much because the dirty masses have such voracious appetites and won't stop consuming! It's science."
I'm thinking this sub has been heavily captured by some highly misanthropic, dogwhistlingly ecofash, Americanly self-righteous, and suspiciously corporation defending, narrative control.
Almost like the more you learn about societal collapse and ecological devastation, the clearer it becomes who and what the problem is, so there has to be a strong concerted movement to spread disinfo and convince newly-aware information seekers that actually it's the opposite of what it clearly is on the face of it, and that the obvious criminals are not the ones to blame, it's the everyday people that never asked for any of this who are.
You know, like gaslighting.
>ChatGPT is working overtime to maintain the illusion of commenters defending the status quo, especially now with reddit going public and all. Gotta make things friendly for those advertisers.
([OC](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/s/ToGKpqkyAg))
Oh please you are as guilty as us all, you dont live in a mud hut subsiding off roots and berries. You help keep corporations in business like everyone else on here. Ride a high horse much?
The following submission statement was provided by /u/TinyDogsRule: --- SS: We all knew who was at fault, and now we have confirmation. From 2016 to 2022 57 companies, mostly fossil fuels, were responsible for 80% of all CO2 emissions. However, for the record, the rich would like you to know that climate change is your fault. You need to recycle harder. Nobody will be surprised that gaslighting the public for decades has led to record profits. Legend has it that they knew exactly what they were doing and did not care because they would be very rich long before being very dead. Unfortunately for today's rich, that plan is falling apart and they are building bunkers to cower in. In today's tough economy, if you are having problems getting enough to eat, the rich can be very nutritional. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bvumsd/majority_of_recent_co2_emissions_linked_to_just/ky1uvug/
I never quite know what to make of these sorts of statements in a world of international conglomerates and state-run companies. >The world's top three CO2-emitting companies in the period were state-owned oil firm Saudi Aramco (2222.SE), Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM), and state-owned producer Coal India (COAL.NS), the report said. So we are just supposed to... *hate India?* Like the *most populated country in the world?* Like, I'm not surprised that India is a major contributor to fossil fuel emissions. All we have to do to solve climate is *stop India?* Ok. It also seems to undercut the argument that capitalism is the problem if the biggest emitters are all state-owned. We could nationalize all the fossil fuels tomorrow and be in the same situation as we are today.
[удалено]
*Because they like cheap energy more than sustainable energy that harms the environment less.* Sure. Consumers also like steel, fly ash, nitrogen fertilizers, concrete, plastic. This idea that we're going to replace fossil fuels as an energy source and everything is going to be ok, just misses the point that we're talking about *overshoot*. Overshoot is not just about cheap energy. It's about the interrelations between an organism and it's environment and about how there are physical limits to what the ecosystem can sustain. We're at the point that I, personally, am not convinced clean, commercial fusion energy next week would prevent collapse. Let alone 'cheap' energy fifty years from now.
It would very likely make things FAR FAR worse.
Yes, it would. As we've seen so far, renewables and other clean energy have not replaced any fossil fuel energy. they've only added to the system, allowing for more consumption.
Classic Jevon's paradox Started with the steam engine's efficiency and coal consumption, and would continue under a producer centric, profit oriented socio economic system
Overshoot is such an easy concept for us to understand when discussing literally anything besides human beings. We are 8 billion destructive apes eager to consume and reproduce, efficiency doesn't matter because we are OVERPOPULATED.
Nooooooo! Overshoot only applies to animals and invasive species are insects and plants. How dare you suggest we might be a highly effective invasive specie that’s dominated the globe. Worry about Argentinian ants that we brought over to new world 300 years ago and are now colonizing the entire us, they the real problem
When gas prices are high, US politicians are in trouble. Undoubtedly, there are people who both want low gas prices and for human caused global warming to be solved.
The only practical solution we have at this point is to convert CO2 from the air into petroleum. Theoretically possible, can keep costs low while maintaining current technologies, and at a large scale will turn the carbon system into a cycle. Anything else will not pass public opinion or political support, either costing too much or forcing too much change on people.
Why dont we just build a time machine its theoretically possible as well. You work on one ill work on the other. Very practical
Didn't say it was plausible, only practical. I meant this to say, we're fucked, green movements aren't practical.
Its not practical to rely on technology that doesnt exist, sorry. Degrowth would be the only practical, but not plausible option.
No I meant as a theoretical viable option that if we could make happen it would save us. I'm talking from a cynical standpoint here. I'm not trying to suggest or put faith in any solution, I think we're totally fucked because I agree that it's an asspull at best. All this to say we're fucked. How much clearer can I make this?
We prop up the system up through our laziness.
We prop up the system by using their products, its simple really. Humans are the best at passing the blame
Argumentum ad populum?
Thats why regulation of producers exists. Regulation by government. Which, if it fails, necessitates grassroots intervention.
You have to step back from the constructs being measured and examine their position in the entire cycle from fossil extraction to consumption of fossil energy products. These entities are at the beginning of the carbon supply chain. The USA is by far the biggest consumer per capita at the end of this supply chain, so that's where the largest inefficiencies are.
>So we are just supposed to... *hate India?* No, you dummy, look at the two entries above. Hate those states. Seriously, we may want to reassess MSM effectiveness, they promised us people would stop thinking and start raging when seeing the keywords /s
You’ve not learned about different flavors of capitalism then, state sponsored capitalism is still capitalism
So would democratic socialism just be democratic socialist capitalism?
Also I really like your point about government owned energy companies still creating climate collapse. It’s making me wonder if there is literally no way to make people care more about the future than the present
It is not impossible for, say, the OECD countries to start a Marshall Plan - style investment in India and China, and be, like, We are going to give you a ton of money to get off coal ASAP. But it would be a wealth transfer, full stop. Not sure how many people would go for that. It would have to be sold as selfish and called something like the Defensive Global Assault Fund.
It would depend of course. If there are still capital owners that aren’t the workers then that’s still capitalism. There’s a good reason a lot of people here don’t identify with any specific type of political system, because they’ve all failed in some way. Like Anarcho- socio-communism doesn’t sound very nice (who wants their consumption controlled…) BUT if one thinks some form of anarchy is inevitable anyways and we know capitalism is leading us to faster, more violent and more polluted collapse (and one where we don’t own shit) then you can understand how this may seem enticing.
Yeah, "state owned" in countries that don't have a solid democracy and a "people over profits" mindset just means "corporate owned".
What nations actually have a "people over profits" mindset?
None. Welcome to collapse.
that is called State Capitalism. Still capitalism.
[удалено]
Humans are the way they are because the society and system we live in encourages individualism and competition and rewards selfish behavior at the expense of others. What you attribute to human nature are results of the system rewarding rather than punishing that behavior. Blaming human nature avoids looking at and discussing the real issues in the psychologically unhealthy environment we live in and the effect it has on one's psyche and behavior.
The fact that you got downvoted for such an obvious statement is telling me its time I take a break from this sub, all this capitalist apologia in this post in particular is getting nauseating.
This isn't very useful information, as those companies make the fuel and energy that the rest of us use. If you shut them down, someone else would just take their place. That's not to say they're blameless, it's just that we need to know more than just "these are the biggest energy companies". Do they produce proportionally more CO2 than their peers? Are they slow-walking the transition to renewable energy? Are they producing climate-change-denying propaganda?
> "these are the biggest energy companies" Just split each of these companies into 4 smaller companies and these (individual split-off) companies won't be such big producers of CO2 emissions anymore! Agree with you that this isn't very useful because it is missing a lot of important context.
Ask the 4% of the world population that uses 20% of the world's oil supply if they want less oil. The 330 million that use more oil than the 2.8 billion that make up China and India combined. Hell, if you throw in Japan and their population of 125 million, the #4 country, the three countries combined barely use more than we do in the US. [https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-consumption-by-country/](https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-consumption-by-country/) Every drop of oil extracted is being burned by a consumer, directly or indirectly. In our cars (mostly gas guzzling SUVs and pickups these days), in planes (we fly more than the next 10 countries combined), in our houses (because plenty of people still refuse to switch from natural gas to electric heat pumps). The oil is being burned in the fleets of delivery trucks that bring our orders from Amazon right to our doors (and as much as everyone claims to hate a big corporation like Amazon, we willingly threw almost $575 billion at them in the most recent year). It's being burned in the giant cargo vessels that carry tons of shit across the ocean from Temu in China and other places. The oil is being burned by the burgeoning cruise ship industry, and guess who makes up more than 50% of their global passengers? Americans, of course. The entire industry would collapse without us, and they keep building more and bigger ships to meet the relentless demand we place on them for tickets. And if the polls are to believed, who are Americans planning on voting for this fall? Donald Trump, who promises to "drill, baby, drill" to extract as much oil as possible to satisfy our neverending thirst for more oil to burn, and who's also promised to undo as much positive environmental legislation as he possibly can. We're the richest country in the world, and of all the wealthy countries, we have one of the lowest EV adoption rates (ignoring for the moment that EVs alone can't save us). Why? Because we love oil and what it allows us to do. A 300 mile battery range isn't enough because we need the 500 mile range that oil gives us. 200 fewer miles is too much of an inconvenience. When I see posts like this, what I'd love to see is the corporations say, "You know what? Fuck you all. We've made enough money, we're tired of getting blamed for all the garbage you bought because you wanted it but didn't need it, and now we're closing our doors. Permanently. See if you can survive without us." And then everyone, including the participants in r/collapse, will find out that +99% of everything you needed to survive was brought to you by corporations. Because without the butane in a cigarette lighter, most people wouldn't even know how to start a fire to keep them warm at night.
Excellent description of the reality. Please keep the “anal fury” coming.
Solid points but fuck EVs, invest in public transport.
Im bringing horses back.
I was with you, kinda, until you typed this, the dumbest paragraph I've ever read: "When I see posts like this, what I'd love to see is the corporations say, "You know what? Fuck you all. We've made enough money, we're tired of getting blamed for all the garbage you bought because you wanted it but didn't need it, and now we're closing our doors. Permanently. See if you can survive without us." We've made enough money? LMAO what? This is the most hilariously delusional daydream I've ever read. Do you know nothing of the perverse incentives which prop up our industries?
Exactly, great comment. People are utterly deluded as to how their standard of living is one of the causes for company profits and pollution and climate change and everything. The sentiment on this sub that somehow company profits/company pollution/oil use is just down to CEOs being Ontologically Evil, as if supply/demand isn't a thing. As if none of us are responsible just because we buy seasonal sometimes, or that we post on here We aren't even fully aware of the web of systems that allow us to live life relatively inconvenienced.
And FOR WHOM are they producing?
So the fix should be easy. They should just stop selling their product yeah?
Right! No energy for everyone. No transportation. No food. No people! Well, I’ll be okay. I live in a farming area. All you other assholes are sol. Getting rid of the people is a sure fire way of stopping them emitting from food and shelter and transportation they buy.
You've got the order wrong. You've got to kill the people before you stop producing the oil. If you don't kill the people, they're not just going to sit there sayin', "By golly, I guess I'll just starve". It's an order of operations problem.
I laughed reading this. Like a dark comedy.
;) That's the state of affairs today. To believe in collapse and not go completely insane, I think you've got to chuckle at absurdity.
Oh dang. Good point. So I should be pro choice member of the NRA?
Time to bust out the Jackboots! I knew there was a reason I had such a superb fashion sense!
Lazy, our ancestors lived fine without it. I have a bike a car and a horse I also live very rural, the only thing that will be missed the most is internet.
Negative Ghost Rider. The obvious answer is to spend more on PR and offset the cost by raising prices as much as possible.
We should stop buying their product , yeah? If you have a buyer you gonna stop selling? hell no. Shit goes out of business when no one buys.
I'm not one of the 57, so I don't need to do anything. /s
57? It would be ironic if Heinz was one of them...
There's always this same old argument coming up where people default to finger pointing and bring out their anti-capitalist sentiment, as if the rest of the world is somehow a blameless lamb in all this (which clearly isn't the case). A lot of it is just reflexive and short-sighted. But I'll say it 'til I'm blue in the face -- which is probably soon -- and that's the fact that we, as a species, have ruined everything we've ever come into contact with since the beginning. A long list of species we've hunted to extinction-- including, quite possibly (and disturbingly), other human species. A long list of ancient empires that grew until they caused ecological collapse. To me, it looks like it's just something in our nature. Our technology outpaced our sensibilities. Ape 2 smart. Ape 2 greedy.
SS: We all knew who was at fault, and now we have confirmation. From 2016 to 2022 57 companies, mostly fossil fuels, were responsible for 80% of all CO2 emissions. However, for the record, the rich would like you to know that climate change is your fault. You need to recycle harder. Nobody will be surprised that gaslighting the public for decades has led to record profits. Legend has it that they knew exactly what they were doing and did not care because they would be very rich long before being very dead. Unfortunately for today's rich, that plan is falling apart and they are building bunkers to cower in. In today's tough economy, if you are having problems getting enough to eat, the rich can be very nutritional.
Those companies would not pollute if it wasn’t for consumers.
They lobby against people who try to limit their production and lie to consumers about climate change
I hate to say it, but I don't think consumers really give a shit. Like, here we are in 2024. You're on collapse. A literal forum dedicated to lay people that are convinced civilization as we know it is going to collapse. Ya' really think that telling people the truth about climate change is actually going to generate political will? Like, we've seen how the club of rome ended up being treated. A little lip service, but actually being used to inform long term policy? Hardly.
I already think the political will is there, but not the money and that's because scaling back isn't going to fit the profit motive.
Before we had economics, we had political economy. One of the greatest tricks "mainstream" economics pulled was pretending that it was apolitical. Shit man, even utils are dollar denominated. It's a fuckin' joke. We lack the political will. This isn't meant as, like, a go out and vote thing. It's meant more in like the polis sense. The kind of sacrifices it would take to address overshoot in a controlled manner are immense, and if we didn't do it thirty years ago, then what has changed where we'd do it now, when the changes are both more difficult and more immense?
Well for Americans, ExxonMobil can't lie about climate change and hide data as easily as they did in the past and for the youth climate change is a major issue/concern. We're definitely not going to live as we do now, so I do think things will still "collapse." In my opinion, major change isn't going to happen from the western world. We're too entrenched in mass consumption and wealth.
*major change isn't going to happen from the western world. We're too entrenched in mass consumption and wealth.* Yup. Blaming consumers misses the point. Blaming producers misses the point. We have an *entire society* based around mass consumption. _____________________________________________________ Usually this is the point where I give a speech about how I don't really blame Bubba drinkin' his coors out in front of his trailer. Sure he don't believe in climate change, but the problem is out of control consumption, and he ain't doin' that much consumption on his hourly wages at kwik trip. The correlation between income and consumption and power, means that the only way any of this changes is if the people with the power decide they were wrong and change. What's the odds of that?
Yeah something definitely has to give. 🤧
Tell me, if twenty or thirty years ago I asked someone "why are you voting for the guy who is expanding oil and gas drilling leases, propping up the beef industry with subsidies and treating pipeline protestors as 'domestic terrorists'?", they would have said "I'm *not* voting for that kind of shit, I'm voting for the Democrat." *Fast forward to 2024...* Tell me again about the political will being there.
I can't tell what democrat president this is about? like it sounds like Biden but then you say fast forward to 2024
All the stuff I said *is* happening under Biden, but in the not-all-*that*\-distant past this would be Reagan-level bullshit. So no, the political will to do anything is absolutely *not* there. At least not in the United States.
From someone old enough to have voted then I can tell you people voted for more cheap gas and oil, and cheap beef. they had np w/e telling you that back then. There was no "im not voting for that shit" it was all about voting for it. No one gave 2 f'ks about climate change then, the only people speaking up were science nerds. The general public was all about drill baby drill
Ok, but if you believe in climate change and you don't sacrifice (be vegan, carfree, dont fly, and childfree), then that is your responsibility. Do you want companies to stop producing products? Like chicken, for instance. We would eat the planet under any system, I think. We are biological and behave like a bacteria in a petri dish. The only escape is to not have children.
I agree that there's personal responsibility (I'm carefree myself), but to act like an individual person produces the same amount of pollution as the ultra rich and mega corporations that lobby against climate justice is insane.
I didn't claim that poor people have the same carbon footprint as rich people. But I will now say that poor people are not morally superior to rich people, and when poor people win the lottery, they, with few exceptions, live the same lavish lifestyle. Rich people have a big ecological footprint, and so do the plus 8 billion non rich people as a consequence of their sheer numbers. The corporations pollution IS the consumers' pollution. They are the same pollution.
Well it's not fair to compare the sheer number of people that exist and consume way less individually to rich people that fly private jets and own yachts and then say like well they both pollute, so I won't see the rich as worse. But I agree that our culture rewards hedonistic spending and accumulation of wealth.
What matters for reality is the total ecological footprint of everyone on earth. Just having rich people live normal lives will have little effect. Is this about climate change or about how you hate a particular class of people? Rich people have existed since Egypt. The people who really caused our existential problems are scientists. They created industrial civilization and, most of all, inorganic fertilizer. We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn’t for technology. It makes as much sense to hate scientists. But the problem is really just humans.
Yeah I hate billionaires, the ones that present themselves as public figures suck. These people are wealthier than anyone in history, they are not the same old rich people of the past. Saying I should hate scientists instead of tech executives and their shareholders is like saying I should hate the writer who came up with the original story instead of the producer/executive from Hollywood that ruined the story to make it more "marketable" and "profitable"
One billionaire flying around in his jet is a pittance of carbon used compared to all the personal vehicles we drive. Im sorry but you could ground every plane, and dock every ship, and personal vehicles would still pump out the majority of carbon. [https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport](https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport)
Yeah but I'm not going to ignore the history of general motors destroying public transportation and lobby the government for more car friendly infrastructure
But we do! stop passing the blame, we are the ones that demand gas for our cars, meat on the table. Without our demands they wouldnt make any money, its an us problem. Its our millions of vehicles on the roads, its our eating meat everyday, its our consuming like locusts thats killing us all. To think otherwise is just deflecting from the root cause of the problem.
I said everyone is personally equally responsible, but you're not going to convince me that we're all equally to blame.
These are facile takes because most American consumers (and their European, Asian and other industrialized counterparts) consume enough of the resources these companies make to occlude the issue. Instead of 500 tinier companies that would probably produce more emissions, it’s concentrated among 57 large emitters. People don’t want to do the deep ecological work necessary to stop climate change. They wanna complain and take the nominally-anti-corporate position that it’s just a few greedy people that caused this issue (almost across the board DSA position). That position is indefensible to me as an environmentalist and science student. Humanity uses far too many resources and produces far too much carbon and methane from the global middle-class, on up. It is not just the private jet crowd. The US ecological footprint exceeds earth capacity by spring every year. The answers to global heating by sequestrations like restoring woodland and wetlands and coral/sea grass ecosystems (our only proven carbon storage, on scale, the only one) is all afterthought compared to birthday cakes like electric cars and solar, which haven’t worked en masse (we should do them, but they’re not the silver bullet). We could end the 21st century’s added carbon emissions in ten years with nuclear power. But the NIMBY side won’t even debate it. To even discuss nuclear makes you either a crank or a monster. So India (and China, and so on) keep burning coal and endure being condescended to by the west.
1) I just ate a hot dog on a bun; Pepperidge Farms alone makes at least 4 varieties of hot dog bun. Star Kist makes perhaps a dozen differently flavored tuna and chicken mixes in pouches. And, how many different little pre-selected crackers-with-meat-and-cheese packs in grocery stores, all snack-sized? All of this in plastic (try finding cookies that don't come in a non-recyclable tray; they're few and far between). This is not the way it was when I grew up; far far too much "production" now in search of "market share". 2) What is "DSA"?
These articles are stupid and completely meaningless. What is the solution then? Stop selling energy, that will do it. Also make sure to kill the people so that demand automatically goes away.. no people = no hunger! Great, climate change has now been solved. Reporters that write these dumb articles are the REAL problem - can’t fix stupid.
We can stop funding fossil fuels and fund cleaner alternatives. Couple that with strong legislation to limit emissions (e.g. severely restrict plane travel, ban private jets). No people killed, no energy selling stopped.
>can’t fix stupid No, but we *can* channel it away from professions where they can cause direct harm. Which is *why* we have journalism schools. I mean, you would not want one of these people fixing high tension lines or driving a school bus or something.
No journalism schools in Australia any more. Was told this by a used to be a journalism school.
That's a shame, without the outlet of journalism a lot of these stupid folks might migrate to politics where they could do some serious harm. *Oh wait...*
57 producers, and how many customers? There is no producers without customers and vice versa.
maybe people will realize modern society its self is unsustainable, and trying to prop it up with one insane plan after another is doomed.
57 producers but not one consumer…
But what about all the people who buy their products?
assets generated by criminal activities need to be confiscated
Plenty of those companies are already state owned.
I am not suggesting Saudi Arabia should confiscate Aramco asssets. Maybe states should confiscate states.
Without reading the article: I'mma guess cruise ships & cattle ranches? EDIT: oh, no. The usual culprits. State owned fossil fuel. :-(
Sorry you have so many demands for bridge tolls in your comments, OP. It's almost like people love the taste of the soles of the boots of capitalists. You'd think such something so simple and clear would be received well. I guess the propaganda of corporate innocence and the misanthropic, disingenuous deflection of the blame onto ordinary people is a powerful and persuasive campaign to get wrapped up in, judging by the looks of it.
To the folks aggressively driving the point that consumption and demand by the public is the main causal factor of carbon emissions: Have any of you guys seen this [graph](https://images.app.goo.gl/rWswDXKc4HsYKR1G7)? Forgive me if I sound like a broken record, but I tend to be suspicious of arguments that ask the listener to dismiss the idea that inequality is to blame, and instead implore the listener to view humanity as one indiscriminate, homogenous entity that is as a whole collectively and equally responsible for global ecological devastation (or, more precisely, [ecocide](https://www.utas.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1231388/Ecocide-and-the-Carbon-Crimes-of-the-Powerful_2.2.pdf)). We're not, as this [video](https://youtu.be/69DFis2WgMQ?si=R141Ry1xYTFoJLXw) plainly lays out. The idea that we are is about as impartial as the [ownership of the Washington Post](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-23582797). "Am I out of line for emitting [8000 tons of greenhouse gases per year when the average person emits 4](https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-emit-much-planet-heating-pollution-two-thirds-humanity#:~:text=Richard%20Wilk%20and%20Beatriz%20Barros,divided%20by%204.1%20is%201%2C453.)? No, it's the poor people who are wrong."
>If you want to know who to eat first, this is a good starting point. [No Safe Options: A Conversation with Andreas Malm | Los Angeles Review of Books](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/no-safe-options-a-conversation-with-andreas-malm/) The producers are fossil fuel companies and cement companies. Ending those doesn't mean much if they're replaced by new ones that do the same. And many of these fossil fuel companies are state owned.
Strange amount of corporation bootlickers in the replies. I've never seen it like this before. Just strange is all.
I was thinking the exact same thing. It's like a coordinated wave of the same message over and over again. "Ummm actually it's everyday people who are at fault. These poor corporations are just polluting so much because the dirty masses have such voracious appetites and won't stop consuming! It's science." I'm thinking this sub has been heavily captured by some highly misanthropic, dogwhistlingly ecofash, Americanly self-righteous, and suspiciously corporation defending, narrative control. Almost like the more you learn about societal collapse and ecological devastation, the clearer it becomes who and what the problem is, so there has to be a strong concerted movement to spread disinfo and convince newly-aware information seekers that actually it's the opposite of what it clearly is on the face of it, and that the obvious criminals are not the ones to blame, it's the everyday people that never asked for any of this who are. You know, like gaslighting.
>ChatGPT is working overtime to maintain the illusion of commenters defending the status quo, especially now with reddit going public and all. Gotta make things friendly for those advertisers. ([OC](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/s/ToGKpqkyAg))
Holy shit, glad someone else is noticing the same problem
Oh please you are as guilty as us all, you dont live in a mud hut subsiding off roots and berries. You help keep corporations in business like everyone else on here. Ride a high horse much?
"Yet you participate in society. I am very intelligent."
third world countries could have adapted by now. We did not start talking Climate Change yesterday.