rulemission

That's so very sad, especially because Shell just does it for fun. If, at the very least, there would be some kind of product we could reduce demand for to stop Shell from being so bad. But alas, we can only blame them and never challange our own behaviour - since you know, no one single person ever made any difference at all.

But corporation bad no?^/s
- I mean — despite our own collective apathy, and want for oil-based products — the answer is still unironically yes
Maybe we could stop them from lobbying so hard against alternatives to try and kill the development or adoption of them? Maybe we could stop them from bribing lawmakers to support subsidies for themselves while denying subsidies for alternatives?
Or wait, here's a good one, maybe we could stop them from spending billions of dollars on ad campaigns and BS propaganda that downplays their contribution while pushing a message that the real problem is all those awful individuals like us who are really the ones who should be sacrificing rather than the poor, misunderstood, multi-billion dollar international conglomerates?
Great, instead of Shell, just buy BP, or Exxon.. Oh wait.. they're up to exactly the same shit, and are all together deliberately holding us captive and keeping any realistic alternative from being accessible to the masses because they know it will replace them..
First remove head from ass, then form opinion..
- Great suggestion, I can help you pull! After your head is free, maybe consider life style changes like, you know, using your legs instead of a car. Or a bike. I'm not saying that everyone can do that and certainly not on every trip, but I'm definitely saying that a lot of people drive their cars around without needing to. Not to mention the amount of people driving around in cars that are way too large and way too heavy.
  Oh, but wait, those are obviously unrealistic alternatives and even if they weren't, Shell executives would come over personally and break your legs. How could I forget - silly me.

That’s a bit like saying “you think individuals consume a lot of food? Look at restaurants!”

Yeah it's a shitty parsing of it, because my mind went there too.
But if the restaurant was using 1 entire cow to make 1 single 1/2lb burger, that's on the restaurant to do better.
There's a lot of that happening that corporations need to focus on.
- The emissions attributed to Shell are the emissions of their customers. People love to play dumb to make a point.
- True. Plus the whole backstory of car companies buying and destroying what little public transit there was in this country to force us into cars.
- Sure, but perhaps people could stop eating at that restaurant?
  Because how some people currently are acting is that they continue to support these corporations, unwilling to switch to alternatives.

But 58 million Americans emit as much as shell

- Look the important thing is always that it's someone else's fault and if I were to change my ways it wouldn't make a difference anyway so let's just all keep doing what we're doing.
- Agreed, especially western countries that have their CO2 targets, then barely make them and shout at countries like China for having big emissions. Yeah no shit, if you outsource all your manufacturing to China then you don't have any emissions at home, because the factory isn't there, it's in China. Same thing with health and safety regulations, child labor etc. Look at us being all high and mighty, no children working here (except the US, we don't talk about that), we have proper health and safety regulations. Boo China why are you like this? Oh right, we made you this way.
  And why did all the factories move to China? Capitalism...
- Also a lot of that carbon produced by Shell is the same carbon counted as emitted by the people, right? Or does the Shell number just include whatever they release while producing the gas and then it being burnt is only counted towards the people?
That just means we have to get rid of 58 million Americans to balance it out!
- Are you taking volunteers
- Ooo they're tryin!
  /Meseeks
- We're gaining upwards of 15 million Americans just in Biden s first term. Thanks Obama!

Ah, the old "this solution isn't 100% effective, thus I shall ignore it".

Shell is creating products you are buying. We can regulate them harder, but you can ALSO just not buy their product. We can do multiple things that contribute, you just don't want to, because it's slightly inconvenient for you.

I'm not buying any Shell products. Yet they destroy my life and world.
- It's basically impossible not to buy Shell products. Even if you don't buy from Shell directly, chances are there are products of Shell in the products you buy. And even if that isn't the case, chances are the factory the product is made uses a lot of Shell products and so do all the factories that made the components and so do the shipping companies that shipped all the stuff around the world.
  Shell is freaking huge, they are everywhere and one of the biggest companies in the world. They don't just make gasoline, they have so many products and have their claws in a lot of industries.
Your personal action affects only your own carbon footprint, and if you somehow eliminate it entirely, you alone can reduce carbon emissions by 16 tonnes per year.
However, by funding climate research, educating the public, and most importantly: contacting your lawmakers, you can affect the footprints of many thousands or potentially millions of people. If you do even 0.001% of the work required for getting a law passed that cuts Shell's emissions by only 1%, you will have reduced the global carbon footprint by approximately 90 tonnes per year (58000000 * 16 * .01 * .00001 = 92.8). That's more than 5 times as effective a use of your time, assuming you were able to do each with an equivalent amount of effort.
Vote with your wallet, yes, but NEVER underestimate the power of campaigning for change. A person's actions carry further when they affect the actions of others.
- Your personal action affects only your own carbon footprint
  That's not true. If I take the bus, I increase ridership and resources for buses, which in aggregate can lead to improvements to the bus route, which can convince others to ride. the people at your local city government can have a much easier time justifying an increase to public transit spending if they can show high or increasing transit ridership. Depending on your individual circumstances one may provide better impact to effort than another but taking a bus is as much political action as voting.
Great, instead of Shell, just buy BP, or Exxon.. Oh wait.. they're up to exactly the same shit, and are all together deliberately holding us captive and keeping any realistic alternative from being accessible to the masses because they know it will replace them..
First remove head from ass, then form opinion..
- I'm very sorry you see absolutely no alternatives to driving a car, but I think it's a bit unfair to claim my head is up my ass because of your lack creativity.
This post is a call to action. You should take it as a call to action.
You should be going to marches.
You should be rallying and participating in your local politics.
You should be supporting groups fighting for better public transit, stricter regulations and the budget to enforce it, and right to repair.
You should be voting with environmental Policy in mind.
You can do personal changes too, and encouraging others to do the same. but the vast majority of humans will not change until it's easy and gratifying or they're forced to. It will take exponentially more work getting a meaningful number of people to listen to you're propaganda. Its much more efficient to target the infrastructure around them to incentivize the change.
- But that's the point. You can do both. You could do anything, just don't shrug and go "it's only corporations".

Remember everyone, corporations aren't at fault for climate change, it's YOUR fault for living in a country that requires driving a car where everything is made of plastic and powered by coal! Shame!!!

/s, fuck off with the blatant propaganda that is your "carbon footprint". You should support more sustainable stuff when you can, literally nobody is claiming otherwise (besides oil and car companies). But your carbon footprint is a molecule of water in the pacific ocean. Plus oil and car companies have been specifically trying to make other options less accessible. Fuck off if you think that climate change is caused by people and not corporations

You know shell along with a handful of other companies actively block any other option for us, and hold us captive to their exploitation, right? 🙄
- Yeah I'm sure shell and co really forced the sale of 750k F-series trucks last year, right?
No they don't. They don't understand that industry emits carbon because we consume their products.

Daily reminder that carbon footprint is a myth created by big oil

Not a myth. Most of your actions in this world are generating carbon.
More accuratly, it was a PR campaign to shift blame from big oil.
- PR campaign to shift blame from big oil
  They aren't drilling for the fun of it. They do it because you pay them to do it.
- Well, "generation" of carbon usually requires fusion of He atoms in a star.

The only thing is that there are 9 billion people per shell

The only other thing is that the entire 9 billion wouldn’t all be emitting the same amount as each other.
And honestly more practical to deal with 1 rather than 9b
- but the problem is that we need to do both. we're not blameless, and throwing our hands up and doing nothing because they won't either is incredibly not helpful.
  just like when voting, individual action may feel pointless and hard, but it's still necessary. we can still do things and make choices, but everyone is just giving up now because of this feeling...
  of course corporations are polluting more, but so are we, and we can still force change through consumer action. just like conservatives are dumb for bitching about companies "catering to the left" when it's actually just the same things they always have and always will do: cater to the average. if more of us would stop and think "huh, this product uses less packaging, maybe that should be a factor in my purchasing decision."these companies would start using less packaging. but no, most people just open something over packaged, and either don't notice, or shake their heads for a moment and comment on the plastic waste before buying the same thing again next time...
  we can't be defeated by the inaction of others. if we do, then even their action won't be meaningful if/when it comes. it's going to take more than just one side...

addendum: this is not an excuse to do nothing on a personal level. you are just as bad as the corporations if you act carelessly like you can’t help change anything. go vegan

Do we have the proper infrastructure to make sure everyone can take on a vegan diet?
- At once? No. But via advocacy and trying to claw people to the side of veganism, even partially, over time industry adjusts.
- absolutely, plants and vegetables have been around since the dawn of time, and once we stop funneling those plants through animals so they can grow fat and get slaughtered, we can just eat the plants directly from the source :) like @Cowbee said (no idea how to tag people on lemmy, sorry), however, getting everyone on board is a process
  the only reason why animal meat is so rich in b12-vitamins is because it is artificially pumped with it. nutritionally the exact same as taking a supplement tablet, except the supplement tablet doesn't go through a gas chamber before they sell it to us
  edit: here's a handy site that answers the most frequent arguments against veganism: https://yourveganfallacyis.com/en - i also recommend Ed Winters ("earthling ed" on youtube), i'm currently reading through the first of his two recent books on veganism

Joke's on you: I plan to live at least 58 million years.

You better become vegan then.

Jfc, it's distressing to see how many people buy in to the personal responsibility propaganda and are actively not only licking the boot that's on all our necks, but doing the corporations' dirty work for them, gleefully, ignoring the entire picture (the deliberate spending of many trillions, and holding governments in their pockets to keep us dependant on oil and having no viable alternative) except the tiny little fragment they're comfortable confronting - other individuals. It's both gross and concerning.

It is not a matter of responsibility, it is a matter of action. Being less consumerist on a grand scale would be a kick in the balls for most of these big corporations which rely on our consumption habits. They exist because we consume. %90 of the stuff Amazon sells is unlikely essential goods, yet we buy them. We eat much more meat than we should and then we get angry at deforestation. Blame them all you want, most wont exist without our over-consumption habits.
- You're herding cats at that point, though. The vast majority of people will not change their ways because:
  A: its exponentially harder for them to do so. Not driving in the majority of the US is flatout not viable for work and groceries, changing your diet is fucking difficult period, etc. Unless they've got a damned good reason that isn't some cosmic cataclysm they don't even fully get how it'll affect them, they're not going to change.
  B: Companies are actively pumping out propaganda and lobbying to fuck over anyone attempting to change the status quo. When shown two different pieces of information, people will usually choose the one that causes less cognitive dissonance, and being told you're killing the planet by filling up your gas tank causes alot of that, so alot of people just buy into the big oil propaganda.
  We need to tackle these issues locally - getting entire towns and cities to actually cooperate with climate-friendly policies ; Then States; Then Countries - if we want to make any actual meaningful headway.

Legit question, because I never really see a breakdown of these numbers. I always hear about corporations emitting n number cO2, but it's never really the whole story (I don't think) But, is this from developing their product, or is is it the development of said product plus the use of that product? Like in Shells' case, is it them making gas (I know they do more, but for the sake of argument...) and the use of their gas in vehicles across the world? Or is the use of the gas calculated into the individual person's number?

I'm not trying to start anyrhing, I am genuinely trying to understand.

This is my big criticism of these claims, because it really seems like the latter.
Yeah, it’s a disgusting mess. Yeah corporations are given far too much privilege. But if Shell weren’t around, there’d still be demand for oil that would be met by someone else.
The problem there isn’t Shell…not directly, at least (they’re certainly guilty of a lot, including lobbying to protect their position)…the problem is the oil. Redirecting to “the corporations” just ignores that.
You could say the same about the meat producers and the people who are clear cutting the rainforests and planting alfalfa in the deserts of Arizona to feed cows in the Middle East. Some seriously fucked chain of events must’ve happened to make that the logical and profitable choice yet, here we are.
But don’t use plastic straws.

This is a false dichotomy, the way you shutdown O&G is through political action, making personal choices to limit your personal carbon output is a political action. It directly hurts O&G and directly helps the alternatives.

Making a personal choice helps drive political will which changes how people make personal decisions which drives political will. Arguing about which step to bootstrap the process seems pointless. If it's easier for you to show up at Tuesday at 11am to city council meetings and yell for more bus routes do that. If it's easier to increase your commute 20minutes and drive up ridership to give ammo to the council people, do that. If it's easier to drop a big sum of money to lobby the government do that. Just do whatever you can that helps.

We are all drops of rain in an ocean, but without the rain the ocean would run dry.

- I think this is the same carbon emissions : just split differently. Shell consumers are the very same citizens. Also 16tons is huge, even compared to other developed countries in Europe for example (almost twice as much !)
- No they didn't. They clearly stated that we need to take political action which is the only way to force the companies to align with our goals. Policies that drastic need a lot of backup in the society that legitimises these policies, which is what they meant by "we are all raindrops"

idk if ill make it that long, but ill try i guess

Just gotta start emitting more. Maybe take up smoking??

I mean I am going to play devils advocate but I wonder if they also include stuff like how much carbon emission does your online and non-local shopping habits are causing indirectly? Or your meat consumption? Or your airplane travels? Fuck big companies yes but also we have to change our consumerist mentality as humanity too.

Your argument boils down to suffer more because someone else is doing proportionately more damage to the point where your personal contribution is entirely negligible and we don't know how to fix that.
- still negligible if all the most consumerist countries populations are combined?

This comparison makes no sense at all. But true, tax the rich, and imprison people profiting on the lifes of others

An average U.K. citizen emits 5 tonnes. Get in gear Americans!!

Car culture mixed with far less wind energy will do that

I am not supporting shell here, just asking a question.

If I am correct in assuming that shell produces 928 million tons (58,000,000 * 16) that means if the average American reduced their CO2 output from 16 down to ~13.3 then that would offset the total output of shell?

Is that amount of reduction even possible for the average American without giving up too much?

Obviously every company should do everything they can do lower emissions, but per person changes can have effect too. The problem is the vast majority of the 340 million Americans simply don’t care.

Forbid whatever shell is selling. Only except might be is if it saves life and there is no good alternative. Wait - did I just solve climate change?

- Can't kill a megacorp like that this easily, they have ample time to invest their ill-gotten earnings elsewhere even in the most optimistic scenario. Most energy companies are branching out into renewables nowadays.

- Are you still seeing my comment? It was supposed to be deleted. Boost bug I guess.
I do my part every morning.