[delazeur]

You're straw-manning here. A lot of rhetoric about pollution implicitly or explicitly paints a picture of evil corporations polluting for fun and profit, but any successful scheme to reduce pollution has to acknowledge that corporations are just one part (even if they are a very large part) of a broader human system. We can't move forward by simply pinning everything on corporations; that's a good strategy for making ourselves feel righteous but not a good strategy for effecting actual change.

[sqeaky]

I don't think it is a straw-man to point at a real problem and demand answers. A straw-man argument is creating something that doesn't exist then attacking that. He didn't call them evil, you are accusing him of doing that (You are closer to constructing a straw-man than he is).

These companies really do pollute, really are the largest American CO@ emitters and as Americans we have a right to answers and solutions.

[delazeur]

> I don't think it is a straw-man to point at a real problem and demand answers. A straw-man argument is creating something that doesn't exist then attacking that.

"You are shifting the blame" is a straw man because the GP didn't do that. Rather, it pointed out a nuance in the issue that the previous comment didn't acknowledge.

(And a nit: a straw man attacks an argument that was not made, not a thing that doesn't exist.)

> He didn't call them evil, you are accusing him of doing that (You are closer to constructing a straw-man than he is).

Read my comment again. I said "a lot of rhetoric does X," which is vastly different from "you are doing X."

[justforFranz]

Throwing the responsibility onto individuals is DUMB because it decentralizes responsibility. Responsibility requires accountability in order to work. And as much as we'd all love to implement the anti-scale properties of "the long tail", the FACT of the matter is that efficient & effective management of the problem of pollution DEMANDS that it be centered and focused on the companies that produce it.

[delazeur]

Throwing the responsibility onto individuals is DUMB because it decentralizes responsibility.

Good thing I'm not doing that, then.

[throwawaymanbot]

Corporations pay lobbyists to weaken or remove laws that hold them to task for pollution. That is they chose to do it. (for many reasons)

Its not me or you thats changing law to pollute on behalf of corporations or companies. Its lawyers working for corporations.

So how is the commentator "Straw-manning"??