91–100 of 285 posts
ngl, their marketing teams are brilliant. yes, they are destroying the planet, but they certainly succeeded in driving the language/narrative.
Language is way more powerful than people realize. Changing the language seems to literally change how we think.
ngl, their marketing teams are brilliant. yes, they are destroying the planet, but they certainly succeeded in driving the language/narrative.
Language is way more powerful than people realize. Changing the language seems to literally change how we think.
> "Say you have a certain amount of time and money with which to make change – call it x, since that is what we mathematicians call things. The trick is to increase that x by multiplication, not addition. The trick is to take that 5 percent of people who really care and make them count for far more than 5 percent. And the trick to that is democracy." > That is, private individual actions don’t increase at a rate suff…
> If an idea is only supported by 5% of the population, we generally do NOT want that 5% of the population driving the legislative agenda. It depends. The other 95% of the population might be agnostic or unaware of the idea, or the other 95% of the population might be opposed to the idea. If Congress were to pass a law mandating funding for WWVB radio until 2050, for example, would even 5% of the population have an o…
"Do you want the radio signal that allows clocks to sync to keep running? Here is a list of devices you might know and use that rely on them: ..."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps we would already apply environmental legislation to CO2 as a pollutant such that carbon intensive industries and products would be more expensive and low carbon products/industry more competitive giving consumers more choice.
Who do you mean by "we"...because some countries don't give a shit about the impact they are having on the world and still pollute the air and water worse than EU and US countries 50 years ago (China, India, etc).
Of course, the environment doesn’t care about who has the most per capita emissions, just “cares” about the total emissions, but in terms of measuring efficiency of “how much CO2 needed to support the lifestyle of each person” it seems they currently have a better rate. Like, if you replaced a random subset of China with the population of the US, with another copy of the US, the total emissions would [edit:on average] be increased.
Therefore, I think in order to get them to decrease their rate (which is important to do due to their large population/ their large total emissions), it may be useful to lower our own rate in order to have a convincing position.
ngl, their marketing teams are brilliant. yes, they are destroying the planet, but they certainly succeeded in driving the language/narrative.
Language is way more powerful than people realize. Changing the language seems to literally change how we think.
Can't find my CD, but there are samples and one says: "The right words, said Stalin, are worth a thousand regimen"
EDIT: Found it:
Genuine question to all the anti "Big Oil" commenters here: what's your alternative? Let's imagine an alternate history where oil companies hadn't fought against climate change science. What does that alternate universe look like? We have known for years that climate change is real, and yet the vast majority of people simply won't actually change their consumption when push comes to shove. This is the largest, most s…
If you have a short-term-great, but long-term-dying business (which is all business), it's really hard to make the decision to invest in alternatives that - if successful - will invalidate your current business. You are basically investing against yourself. On the other hand if you don't do it, someone else will. This is the innovators dilemma.
Genuine question to all the anti "Big Oil" commenters here: what's your alternative? Let's imagine an alternate history where oil companies hadn't fought against climate change science. What does that alternate universe look like? We have known for years that climate change is real, and yet the vast majority of people simply won't actually change their consumption when push comes to shove. This is the largest, most s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Easy snark on the headline contribute nothing positive to this site. Explain what fault you find in the Guardian premise and I will listen. For e.g., the sister comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28315019 perhaps share your view?
I upvoted the snark because I think in this case it's warranted. I see this article as part of a broader messaging shift to pin the blame for global warming on the N companies that pollute the most, which I don't think is productive. As an example of how absurd it gets, someone in my local nextdoor group posted something along the lines of “why should I reduce how much I drive when X% of emissions come from N compani…
I can’t buy Big Macs and then blame McDonalds for farming the cattle.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
the tragedy is that we'd probably be carbon neutral if it wasn't for activists who lobbied against nuclear energy decades ago because it wasn't "environmentally friendly"
It was inextricably linked with nuclear weapons; Greenpeace got their start protesting against atom bomb tests in the Pacific, and later against the dumping of radioactive waste in the sea. The pollutants are uniquely permanent, and not enough effort was made to not just contaminate the world. Perhaps the nuclear industry needs to examine why their marketing failed where the oil industry succeeded.
Sometimes society ends up in a situation where we need things that are not sustainable, like oil or coal. Producing those unsustainable products to meet the demands of society does not make the producers solely responsible for any side effects. What is immoral is trying to artificially delay the transition to more sustainable alternatives or to socialize the costs of doing business.
Oil companies have repeatedly run well funded PR campaigns with the explicit goal of discrediting arguments that more sustainable energy technology was necessary despite knowing them to be false. Similarly, they have lobbied hard to ensure that when the impacts of oil to the environment are larger than expected, society picks up the tab. This lets them be more reckless with our communal environmental resources.