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by jefflombardjr 1737 days ago
“ When it comes to climate change everyone here knows how to fix it: stop eating cows, use solar batteries, build you own windmill, grow your own food, jog... and other simple things.”

I couldn’t disagree more. This is one of the biggest failures of the modern environmental movement. The individualization of environmental guilt. See https://medium.com/@mitpress/individualization-plant-a-tree-...

We need systemic change. Not pressing the eco button on your solar powered dishwasher.

1 comments

That was a sarcasm. Updated to make it clear
It's still not very clear.
Fundamental attribution error. I got used to people around me considering these measures a joke(which they are if we take into account the size of the problem ).
The problem, I think, is that it's a mix of things that are obviously silly (your own windmill) with things that aren't bad ideas (reducing meat consumption) and stuff that's just irrelevant (jogging). That makes it unclear what kind of sarcasm you're going for.

Even if your friends all know that these are pointless, the whole reason you're posting is that other people do believe them. So you know that there are people reading it who won't agree, especially since some are sillier than others. It's confusing.

Not that I disagree with your argument; see my longer response below. Just giving the usual lecture about sarcasm on the interwebz.

> The problem, I think, is that it's a mix of things that are obviously silly (your own windmill) with things that aren't bad ideas (reducing meat consumption) and stuff that's just irrelevant (jogging). That makes it unclear what kind of sarcasm you're going for.

Yeah, i guess you're right. I don't talk to people everyday and that's my excuse :) Though, individual reduction of meat consumption, while being a good idea for your health, can influence the problem at hand only if everyone suddenly will stop eating it. And i don't think that this will happen - the majority's lifestyle and resources are too different from the resources available for the majority of people who already care about climate change. It's good for your health, but as tool to influence climate change? - nah, to me it sounds like sorting trash while knowing that the countries which produce a thousand times more trash just throw it into the ocean.