Should the focus be on individual actions or holding corporations accountable for their environmental impact?

100 energy corporations have been responsible for 71% of waste emissions since human-induced climate change was monitored.¹

That’s just 100 companies in the energy sector. All other corporations and all other individuals account for 29%. This is how firmly tilted the emissions are in the direction of the corporate sector. Once we include the transportation industry, the manufacturing industry, even just the packaging industry the balance is ridiculously tilted.

I don’t care how carefully you turn off unused lights, or how little you use your dryer (I don’t even own one!) you’re not going to meaningfully impact climate change at an individual level. It is corporate misdirection that even asks this question: “What can I do?” We have been on the receiving end of a dark marketing campaign sponsored by the corporate world to try to accept blame for what they are doing.

That being said we do bear some blame and have some things we can do. That energy is being used by people, either directly (dryers) or indirectly (paying for cheap shit to be transported around the world). There are things we can do about this, but it has to be collective (something North Americans in particular are absolute shit at). We start buying locally-produced things, even if they cost a bit more. We start buying things that can be serviced and repaired instead of this disposable consumer culture that has been marketed at us. We hold on to things for longer. Keep your phones and computers for at least five years, ideally ten. And if that means you can’t play the latest game? Tell the game makers to stop the disposable computer culture they’ve fostered (along with every other software company!).

Basically be ready to do without the useless junk in our lives and foster an attitude of buying quality for the long term. And maybe instead of playing the latest video game we can learn to read again. Or play games that involve social interaction: board games, role-playing games, etc. (That will have other social benefits to boot!)

Should governments prioritize investment in renewable energy over fossil fuels, even if it means higher short-term costs?

Yes. And it should tax the shit out of fossil fuels.

But that would be unpopular and would not be feasible in a purported democracy. Democracy, unfortunately, cannot do anything over the long term. No plan that takes more than one electoral cycle to show a benefit can ever happen.

Is it more effective to implement strict climate change laws or to rely on voluntary measures and market-driven solutions?

“Market-driven” is how we got into this mess in the first place. I don’t trust “the market” to find a solution to my breakfast, not to mention an actual problem that requires specialist knowledge and a lack of sociopathy. “Market-driven solutions” are better read as “sociopathic solutions”, fostering the worst behaviours of human beings and, indeed lauding them. The market is not where we need to go for solutions to this. (Evidence: Apartheid Manchild and his idiotic “we’ll just go to Mars!” or Zuckerberg and many other techbrodudes making massive protected compounds instead of actually helping.)

Government is the right organization to rein in the sociopaths of business and clamp down with harsh restrictions. The market would rather have a trillion dollars more before the Earth burns.

Should countries be obligated to accept climate refugees displaced by environmental changes?

No. But they should accept them and countries who don’t should be ostracized and punished in trade and other areas of influence. They can have their choices, but they can face consequences for those choices.

Is geoengineering a viable solution to combat climate change, or does it pose too many risks?

No.

Even in something as relatively simple as, say, computers the experts can’t make things that are reliable and will work. And that’s when the stakes are “OMG MY GAME JUST CRASHED WHEN I WAS ABOUT TO KILL THE BOSS!”

You want those same people doing things when the stakes are “OOPSIE WE JUST FLOODED THE WORLD WITH A 4-METRE SEA LEVEL RISE!”?

Geoengineering is something people toss up when they don’t want to make environmental choices in their own lives and want to, in effect, throw it into God’s hands (where “God” is a stand-in for, yes, the supernatural, but also “Science”—the capitalized version—technology, corporations, government, etc.)

Also, as a side note, any effective geoengineering project is going to have to have (by definition!) a global impact. Now let me ask you this: what would the USA’s reaction be if China started putting sun shades in orbit? (Hint: When a natural pandemic came from China, Americans freaked the fuck out and demanded a fucking WAR over it!) And I guarantee you that any American project doing that would get a huge stink-eye from China. (And the rest of the world. Never underestimate just how little the USA is trusted these days!) And that’s just starting such a project. What do you think would happen when (not if) an error is made that kills people? If, say, one of the thousands (millions?) of launches it would take to build a sun shade at L1 fails and falls on New York (assuming the China unilateral scenario)? Does the history of the USA suggest to you a measured response with understanding?

So geoengineering is a non-starter without 100% world buy-in. And what are the odds of that?

Should climate change education be mandatory in schools worldwide?

Just ecology education. Climate change falls out of that naturally but you get a better, wider systemic picture.

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¹ https://www.nrdc.org/bio/josh-axelrod/corporate-honesty-and-climate-change-time-own-and-act