Some things are easier to change than others - and the really hard things often don’t require money, but a change in people!
Edit: Sorry for the shitty OP, I should have known better than to post in a hurry.
It reads as if the population is primarily responsible for combating the climate crisis, while industry and government are off the hook because money has little effect.
What I actually meant to express was that technological adjustments that only cost money are easier to implement than changes to people’s habits. Perhaps this is a naive idea because it assumes that there is the political will to make these investments and that the industry is forced to cooperate accordingly. Addressing the climate crisis requires many changes, and economic profitability must be secondary. But achieving this is perhaps one of the most difficult adjustments society requires.
This is the CRACK ADDICT model
The dealer is constantly selling crack without shame and impunity.
Users keep buying and taking the crack.
Everyone blames the user for not quiting crack.
In case anyone is wondering about my metaphor, industry has lots of power and they produce a lot of pollution in order to give us the junk we think we want to buy. They have all the ability to take on more efficient and environmentally safer solutions but they don’t because it will affect their profits. So they shift the responsibility to us and tell us that we need to stop buying this stuff and they’ll stop making them. Unfortunately we’re hooked on this stuff and they know it.
They’re blaming the junkies for making them sell the stuff that is destroying everyone.
There’s some truth in that but the last graph option is very easy to implement individually. Switching to a plant-based diet is easy, fun and healthy. It can also be cheaper.
It’s a bit harder for society to change when unhealthy food options are constantly being marketed, promoted, pushed and managed by those who sell this stuff.
It’s still the same crack addict analogy … we keep saying that the addict should change but we never talk about the crack dealer that is allowed to maintain their drug house, seller network, distribution network, payoff to corrupt cops / politicians.
You are right, we are capable of changing … I make the change myself and eat far less meat products than I did when I was younger and do a higher uptake of vegetables and meat alternatives … but it’s hard when money is short, it’s hard to find good food products and hard to find reliable food products. Eating healthier is more cost efficient but what many people fail to recognize is that it is time intensive because you have to make, prepare, store, organize and manage all the food yourself.
The counter argument I often run into with people on this debate is that it is far easier to buy a cheap $2 hamburger and a $1 soft drink than it is to spend an hour or more preparing healthy food, storing, sorting, managing it all day. It isn’t a terrible amount of work … but it is work compared to just walking up to a counter, handing over money and being given a hamburger in five minutes.
This is an indirect way of saying that your time is more valuable than that of the workers in the restaurant and food processing facility.
Similarly, the professional private childcare (babysitter) can mean some professional couple deciding that their time is more important than that of the babysitter who, as you can imagine, doesn’t get a babysitter.
Transcending the ‘imperial mode of living’ – Canadian Dimension