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4 points

Saudi Aramco accounted for more than 4 percent of global emissions, Gazprom clocked over 3 percent and Coal India accounted for roughly 3 percent.

Total global emissions in 2020, including land-use change, were approximately 40 Gt. This means that Australian emissions are approximately 1.2% of global emissions

There are 26 million people in Australia. That 1.2% is obviously all Australian emissions, but let’s exaggerate and say that’s purely from individuals. That the footprint of all Australian citizens combined was 1.2% of global emissions.

If literally all Australians then brought their personal carbon footprint to 0, it would be a reduction of less than 1/3rd of Saudi Aramco’s emissions alone.

From 2016 to 2022, 80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions were produced by just 57 companies.

But I’m supposed to believe that I, with my ~ 1/26 million of a percent footprint, have an affect. You’ll have to try a lot harder to convince me of that.

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1 point

Your vote is also 1 in 26 million. Do you believe that has an effect?

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1 point
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I think you misread. I don’t account for 1 in 26 million of emissions. I count for 1% divided by 26 million of emissions. 1 26 millionth of a percent.

This would be like if there was some kind of global election, and ALL Australian votes added together were worth 1.2% of the total vote.

That means my personal vote/emissions in this scenario would be 0.000000046%

And then there were 57 corporations whose interests were largely aligned that accounted for 80% that also got to vote.

Imagine a school/college/workplace had votes that everyone could participate in to make changes to it. But altogether, the student/employee votes could account for at most 20% of the vote, and teacher/management accounted for 80% of the vote.

Would you believe your vote has an affect in such an election?

(and this isn’t even continuing the analogy to the point that there are like 200 classes/departments and yours accounts for like 1-4% assuming you’re in one of the larger ones, and there are 26 million or more people in your department, meanwhile there are 57 teachers/managers that mostly agree with each other in protecting what they want/their interests)

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2 points

Why do you think BP produces emissions? They may be evil, but it’s not out of malice, it’s for profit. People, like the 26 million residents of Australia, pay BP to give them more fossil fuels.

A top-down response, where governments just outlaw all extraction and burning of fossil fuels, would be a lovely, quick solution to the climate crisis. By all means, try and make that happen, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

One thing you can do today to make an impact is to adjust your lifestyle to give less money to the fossil fuel industry. An individual carbon footprint is small compared with a company, just like the money they give to BP is relatively small, when compared with their total profits. But when you add up all the customers, their money adds up to the revenue of the industry, and their carbon footprints add up to the footprints of the relevant companies.

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1 point

Tell me you’re a fossil fuel shill without telling me you’re a fossil fuel shill

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1 point

We’re actually to the point where wanting people to consume fewer fossil fuels makes me a fossil fuel shill.

Wow.

The absolute state of rhetoric today.

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