Plastic recycling* doesn't exist**

Your personal carbon footprint* doesn't exist**

Carbon offsets* don't exist**

Carbon capture* doesn't exist**

Green growth* doesn't exist**

__________
* At the scale necessary to matter in the slightest

** Is and always was an intentional deception perpetrated by industry and those complicit with them to avoid any meaningful change or regulation

If your plan includes the words "but if everyone would just—"

You don't have a plan

Everyone has never "just—" in the history of time

They won't "just—" this time either

We can't "individual responsibility" our way out of a systemic problem

Think about the vanishingly small number of powerful people who actually can make meaningful change and are positioned to do so

They exist

Now imagine if they had the same level of concern

As all the people who will die screaming in their cars on the highway trying to escape the next small Canadian city that just bursts into flames due to an oil industry externality

Corporations invested in carbon offsets that were ‘likely junk’, analysis says

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/30/corporate-carbon-offsets-credits

Corporations invested in carbon offsets that were ‘likely junk’, analysis says

Analysis of the carbon offset projects used by top corporations including Delta, Gucci and ExxonMobil raises concerns around their emission cuts claims

The Guardian
@researchfairy If everyone would just take *one* bite out of their nearest rich...
@log @researchfairy maybe that’s more palatable, not devouring on the rich, just a little snaccy
@psistarpsiii @researchfairy A little hors de nanti. Nosh o'dosh. Canapé the hard way. Noisette of the jet set. Dim sum of rent-collecting bum. Tapas of the big boss.
@researchfairy
It's like basing a safety plan on signs without considering physical barriers.
@researchfairy A useful trick I learned: mentally replace "just" with "with great difficulty". It's usually more accurate because people say "I'll just..." or "why don't you just..." when they haven't thought through the costs.
@researchfairy in managing workload for my development team, the word "just" is a trigger word. Anyone who utters it -- usually people wanting us to solve their thorny business problems -- is made to repeat what they said and examine their assumptions about what should be easy. We try not to shame people for it, though. It's human. "Please" may be a magic word that unlocks things you want, but "just" is a magic word solidly indicating that you wont get what you want because you don't understand what getting it costs.

@pozorvlak This is what I always think of in connection with Communism. "Okay, but what if all political and economic power were centralized in the state, and then the people in government *didn't* abuse that power to enrich themselves and oppress their enemies and maintain their power permanently?"

Very much an "I think you need to be more explicit in Step Two" situation.

@researchfairy yes and your community's carbon footprint does exist so collective action is necessary!!
@t54r4n1 @researchfairy what do you consider a "community"?
@me your neighborhood? your town? your friend group, if virtual, too!
@researchfairy Last one isn't true. Some countries have disconnected GDP growth from carbon emissions:
@researchfairy recycling is better than not recycling but it's by far the least important of the three R's: Reduce, reuse, recycle. We can't reduce and reuse in most cases because we're forced to consume and consume, to commute instead of just living closer to our activities, to use single use plastics instead of being able to bring glass bottles and jars back, etc, etc. If we try hard individually, we're only making things hard for ourselves. Change needs to be systemic.
Recycling was a lie — a big lie — to sell more plastic, industry experts say | CBC Documentaries

Less than 10 per cent of the plastics we’ve used have been recycled. A new documentary reveals why

CBC
@researchfairy I don't disagree, it's a scam, but it's not "just" a scam. I won't stop recycling because the little it does is at least something. I focus on reducing and reusing but again, I can only do so much when there's plastic everywhere. I'm throwing water out of a sinking ship with a tiny bucket with full knowledge that what we actually need is plugging the hole. Until we figure out how, I won't stop using my little bucket, because it's not a big effort in the great scheme of things.
@starsider @researchfairy Recycling of glass and metals is absolutely a thing. Plastic not really.

@uint8_t @researchfairy I'll keep the habit because it's zero effort and because at least about 5% of it will be recycled. The important part is buying less plastic, although there's plenty of stuff without alternative wrappings. In my country a solution like Germany's will be implemented, where plastic bottles will be returnable to the store for money. However I very rarely buy stuff in plastic bottles.

Ideally we should use reusable glass jars for everything, it would be much better than recycling.

@researchfairy Well, I recycle my food scabs into #compost. With the compost I feed the microbes in my soil, which stores carbon in the humus layer and then I grow green fruit and veggies in that very soil to harvest my food. And with the scrabs of that food I make compost again and so on.

Okay, it's not to the scale this planet needs. But it's a start. 😕

@researchfairy I disagree with personal carbon footprint „not existing“

There’s definitely a difference in doing a vacation next town and traveling by train vs flying across the globe 3 times a year

Saying that personal choice doesn’t matter because the system is broken (which is indeed broken) sends a wrong message

@uint8_t Oh good

Brb I'll solve climate change by not having a vacation this year thanks for the tip

@uint8_t If you're gonna do a malicious bad faith reading of me

You're gonna get one too

@researchfairy can you please elaborate what do you mean by „personal carbon footprint doesn’t exist“?
@uint8_t @researchfairy
By the same logic, the electoral system doesn't exist
@researchfairy but what if I care about other things than CO2 emissions? Pollution and noise from cars and aeroplanes harm the people who live near busy routes. Discarded plastic harms wildlife and pollutes both land and water. Intensive farming harms animals and the environment. Even if it doesn't "solve" global warming, it's still desirable to drive and fly less, use less plastic, eat less meat and animal products. Even if we're all doomed on a scale of decades, kindness still matters
@individeweal All of those concerns are also better addressed as systemic problems rather than through the lens of individual action, which was the point of my post