this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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What is the collective but a collection of individuals? What, therefore, is collective action, but a collection of individuals choosing to take responsibility and do what they can?
Imagine politicians and CEOs decided tomorrow to make meat production sustainable and ethical. The cost of meat would skyrocket (yes, even if we removed all corporate profit). The very next day all those individuals that aren't responsible, according to your logic, would be in the street protesting.
Nothing of what you said changes that pollution is a systemic problem and the wealthiest people have disproportionate control over systems.
We could all recycle everything and be perfect little eco-angels on an individual basis and the world would still burn unless we change how industry makes things and how much stuff industry makes.
You are correct, if it happened like you describe, people could potentially protest against it, out of personal interest. I doubt sincerely that it is even possible to change things at the pace you've described though, and it seems like a contrived situation.
Recycling is far from eco friendly or a closed loop system as you imply. It may slightly reduce the carbon footprint of consumption but it requires a great deal of energy to do so. From a GHG perspective, in many cases it is only slightly better it than manufacturing from virgin materials.
Those pop cans and cardboard boxes don't walk themself back to manufacturing plants and turn back into consumables products with no additional environmental costs. It takes a great deal of energy to get them back into your hands. And that comes at a huge energy cost regardless.
You read what I said completely backwards.
I was not advocating for recycling being the solution, I was saying recycle is not and can never be good enough of a solution. Idk why you misunderstood what I was saying.
Recycling is not the solution to climate change