Blaming it on the individual is just a strategy to delay regulation. Yes, it is lots of individuals, who buy the climate-killing products. But regulating the company does nothing else than prevent those individuals from buying the climate-killing products.
In particular, this is also in the interest of all individuals to solve via regulation, because it creates a new baseline, where companies will scale production and push down prices. If it’s up to the individual to buy eco-friendly, then eco-friendly comes at a premium price. If it’s the default, it’s going to be commodity price.
Regulation without public backing is not possible. You need people to show that it’s possible to live without burning fossil fuels or eating meat. If the government would just ban them there would be riots.
You don’t have to ban them. The strategy I usually see recommended by researchers, is a tax for companies releasing CO2-equivalents into the atmosphere (“carbon tax”) + giving that tax money to consumers.
This increases the price of products proportional to how bad they are for the climate, but on average does not decrease how much money consumers have in their wallets.
It means that people consuming lots of climate-unfriendly products need to pay more or switch to more climate-friendly alternatives. This will lead to some resistance, but on the flipside, people consuming lots of climate-friendly products will be rewarded. This tax is also usually introduced gradually, so companies and consumers can adjust to it.
They do buy each other’s a whole lot though, and they’ve been relying on subsidized, cheap oil to send it overseas to each other, and to the end consumer as well
Except they do to produce other products. Customers can’t be expected to know every step of every supply chain, but the companies already do, they just don’t care.
A company doing something bad every time they make a sale doesn’t make it the purchaser’s fault. The company is performing the bad action and is accountable for that action.
You missed “Climate change is real and caused by humans but it’s the responsibility of individuals to fix it.”
“It’s not the company’s fault that you didn’t recycle. Grow up!”
Why should our profits go down to save the world?
Or just “Climate change is real, but it is to late to do anything about it”.
Soon in theaters “climate change is real, caused by humans, but it’s too late now and there’s nothing we can do about it anymore”
Thank you BP
Well, I mean, companies don’t buy their own products.
Blaming it on the individual is just a strategy to delay regulation. Yes, it is lots of individuals, who buy the climate-killing products. But regulating the company does nothing else than prevent those individuals from buying the climate-killing products.
In particular, this is also in the interest of all individuals to solve via regulation, because it creates a new baseline, where companies will scale production and push down prices. If it’s up to the individual to buy eco-friendly, then eco-friendly comes at a premium price. If it’s the default, it’s going to be commodity price.
Regulation without public backing is not possible. You need people to show that it’s possible to live without burning fossil fuels or eating meat. If the government would just ban them there would be riots.
You don’t have to ban them. The strategy I usually see recommended by researchers, is a tax for companies releasing CO2-equivalents into the atmosphere (“carbon tax”) + giving that tax money to consumers.
This increases the price of products proportional to how bad they are for the climate, but on average does not decrease how much money consumers have in their wallets.
It means that people consuming lots of climate-unfriendly products need to pay more or switch to more climate-friendly alternatives. This will lead to some resistance, but on the flipside, people consuming lots of climate-friendly products will be rewarded. This tax is also usually introduced gradually, so companies and consumers can adjust to it.
They do buy each other’s a whole lot though, and they’ve been relying on subsidized, cheap oil to send it overseas to each other, and to the end consumer as well
Except they do to produce other products. Customers can’t be expected to know every step of every supply chain, but the companies already do, they just don’t care.
A company doing something bad every time they make a sale doesn’t make it the purchaser’s fault. The company is performing the bad action and is accountable for that action.
I think you mean should be accountable for that action. Clearly they are not held accountable in any meaningful sense.
Burning the fuel is the problem, and the consumer does it. The companies paid politicians to force us into it.