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by mrtksn 1591 days ago
You can always vote for the politicians that are willing to go after the gas leaks, you can choose to buy from companies that are sourcing from leak-free gas pipes or use renewable energy sources etc.

Just because you don't have direct access to the pipelines so you can close the leaks with your bare hands doesn't mean that you have no power over it. None of us have any control beyond 2 meters of our existence because that's how far away we can reach with our hands but because we live in a society the things we say or choices we make have impact everywhere on the globe.

That's also why we can eat things that are further away than a few meters from us and the leak in question is from the machinery that facilitates all that.

1 comments

> You can always vote for the politicians that are willing to go after the gas leaks, you can choose to buy from companies that are sourcing from leak-free gas pipes or use renewable energy sources etc.

None of these things are true for me. I'm not allowed to vote where I live and even if I could, the US election system doesn't offer a practical voice that reflects this (the broken voting method is arguably is the biggest problem the US needs to solve). I also only have a doctor gas company. So my alternative would be to switch my furnace, water heater and stove to electric. That's actually on my wishlist, but now we are talking significant money. People who live in apartments or even condos likely at best have control over the stove.

Edit: to be clear, I'm not saying that individuals shouldn't take responsibility. In fact I've moved to a largely vegan diet both due to carbon emissions and animal cruelty concerns. I feel guilty every day and wonder if my positive contributions outweigh the damage that my existence does to our environment and the harm and pain climate change will ultimately cause for other people as well as coastal cities behind uninhabitable, we see unrest over climate refugees, famines, etc.