• Jumi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I don’t have a car and I’m separating my trash but it doesn’t seem to do anything

    • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      The company I work for uses gigantic barrels of oil to lubricate our AC motors. We’re one company in North America out of thousands. There isn’t anything you can do.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Lubricating oil isn’t quite so bad (extracting and refining is bad, but so too for a lot of minerals).

        Breaking up the hydrocarbons leaking CO2 is a big problem, as is leaking methane.

      • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I like your optimism, but this is a sinking ship… I support not having a car and recicling though

        • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Oh no that was sarcasm.

          You won’t change shit doing those things, you need to go arrest a CEO or something to start making some changes.

          • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Oh good, I was worried there were individual lifestyle changes that would be helpful but inconvenient or expensive for me. Knowing there’s nothing I can do individually makes me feel much better about doing nothing. Thanks, internet stranger!

    • Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m sorry I forget the source, but I once read something from a scientist that in your entire life, if you reuse/recycle/protect the environment,etc for your own single entire life, you will have starved off climate change for 1 whole second. Mind boggling to know your entire existence comes down to that litter of a difference. The point of what I remember reading was not that individuals are the problem, but that corporations and big industries were the worst offenders doing little to help change.

      • Limit@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I mean if every single person on earth did this, it would equate to about 253 years. (8 billion seconds is about 253.68 years) combine that with other efforts could really make a difference. Granted this is a hypothetical number and there are far more factors at play, it’s obviously not as simple as each person doing this = 1 second saved, but just throwing out there that there are a lot of people on earth…

        It is still worth it to recycle, reduce, don’t be wasteful, eat less meat, all those things.

        • mansfield@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The idea that doing little things yourself adds up to much bigger and more cumulative impacts is lost on most people. Instead they tend to fixate on the idea that if no one else is (visibly-to-them) making sacrifices, and my own personal effort is so small, why should I bother?

    • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      You’ve taken some right steps, but there’s still s long way to go. Various industries, companies and individuals do what makes economic sense to them. Governments decide what makes sense and what doesn’t, but you can influence that by voting.

      For example, many industries have used coal and gas, because it made economic sense at the time. Now that emissions trading is in place, using polluting energy sources is less and less appealing. The same sort of shift should take place in other areas as well, and politics is the way to get there. Climate change isn’t a technological problem as much as it’s a political one.

    • VeganPizza69 Ⓥ@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The trash bit is better solved by not buying stuff in the first place (reduce).

      Personal emissions exist, but are small. They add up when multiplied by millions or billions.

    • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      It’s my fault, I forgot to turn off the tap while brushing my teeth yesterday.

      Sorry everyone.