THEN WHAT FUCKING WILL CHANGE ANYTHING
Because this is the only thing that gets people like you to even talk about this.
edit: I want to be clear that I don’t care if it’s rude or uncivil to talk to people about this like this, I will do it again and again and again and I support efforts to be annoying about it, because at this point it’s all we have left to maybe, potentially, get enough people angry enough that someone, somewhere does something. Anything
You’re all making your frowny faces and saying “This is counter-productive” and you’re simply not getting it.
If through some magical means we were to learn that nuking Manhattan would somehow lower global temperatures, then we would need to do that, just up and vaporize 1.6 million people. It would STILL be the ethically superior action to take if it magically worked. Because in the next century billions of people may die.
If we learned that filling the Grand Canyon with concrete would get companies to stop producing carbon waste and get people to accept inconveniences like electric cars and paper straws without whinging like a wounded toddler, then yes, line up those cement mixers.
When it comes to the trolly problem, you’re all not even looking at the right tracks if you’re so upset about incivility or annoyances when it comes to climate activism. If anyone is left to do it, one day they will erect statues of these kids throwing soup at paintings and coloring rocks.
You need to learn to become compelling if you want to be heard. Annoying people will get you ignored, and likely discredited.
Also, you know nothing about me.
Not clicking, not looking, this isn’t even about you, this is bigger than you. Every individual needs to get a lot better about getting their head out of their own ass.
You wrote “people like you” referring to me. Consider this lesson one in becoming compelling: know your audience.
This is such a clarifying post.
It’s not about being useful, it’s about feeling useful. It’s about the impotent frustration of feeling you’re not having an impact being channeled through a media stunt whether or not it in fact changes anything, or even if it makes things worse.
That is what’s going on here, I think. Strategic thinking about this is slow and involves a long road and political concessions and compromises and getting involved hands-on with very out-of-sight things for a long time. This takes a second and it makes it to the news, so it feels like something got done, even if it wasn’t the case.
And that’s 21st century activism in a nutshell, basically.
I know this is nitpicking but… I’d say the biggest issue with electric car now is the pricing. What do you think poor people should do?
We should ride bicycles and public transit, and the government should be investing in rail and walkability for us
If you make a tax-deductible donation to your local transit authority (check your state if it’s deductible) then the government is basically paying more for mass transportation than they had budgeted. Our taxes are one of our most powerful tools in the US for deciding what gets funded and nobody uses that tool. Likely because it’s hard enough to stay fed than donate sums of cash to already-functioning institutions, but imagine if enough people just did this a little.
