Shifting responsibility to consumers minimises the role of energy industry and policymakers, University of Sydney research suggests
Electricity generation is responsible for close to half of Australia’s emissions, based on 2021 International Energy Agency estimates, with transport and industry also major emitters.
In the context of the energy market, Van Laer said, storytelling should emphasise the role of companies and governments alongside individuals.
“At the moment, it’s not presented that way,” he said.
“It’s like ‘you, consumer, you can do this on your own and then we [companies] will fall in line.”
Thing is these corporations don’t emit in a vacuum, they emit to fill demand for their products, demand that comes from people.
If people stop traveling all over the world and ordering shit to be delivered the next day they won’t keep the planes flying for no reason, but that’s something that’s 100% in regular people’s hands. Boeing can use more efficient engines, it’s still not sustainable to use them, but they won’t stop using them if there’s demand.
This is just blaming consumers again. Which doesn’t work, as we keep saying. There’s no way to disentangle yourself from globalism, so everything you buy is going to massively contribute to carbon emissions. The only solution to a systemic problem has to be a fix to the system, not victim blaming.
No, it’s not about blame. That’s playground logic.
It’s about action. It’s about what we can do. What we can do is both vote, do direct action, and be political consumers.
Drag ranked those three in terms of efficiency in effort to change. Voting is the easiest. Being a political consumer is the hardest. But it is possible to do all three.
The fossil companies want activists to waste our effort by doing 3 without doing 1 or 2. Do 1 first, then 2. But if you have willpower left over after 1 and 2, then stop giving money to megacorps.
Didn’t know it was mandatory for me to travel to Punta Cana twice a year, I haven’t done my mandatory air travel in… 33 years! Oh shit! What about the majority of the world’s population that never took a plane, what are they gonna do? 😱