Exactly. If you eat bananas that arrive in a port on a ship, that ship spewed out a lot of CO2. If everybody changed their habits and ate something locally grown instead, those emissions would not happen (but other emissions might happen instead). Every CO2 emission by a profit-driven company is going to be the result of a person buying one of their products.
We live in a society, and the amount of difference one person can make is pretty small. Often all of the options available to us are bad. But, this meme is worse.
The ridiculous aspect of this meme is that it shifts the blame onto companies, and allows people to pretend that their lifestyles and choices deserve none of the blame, and instead it’s just some evil companies that are ruining the world. The unfortunate fact is that in this modern society, if you’re living like a typical European or North American, even if you think of yourself as an environmentalist, your lifestyle probably results in a ton of CO2 emissions.
How much do you think it will change, if people really do the minimum consumption within their possibilities?
And how much will it change, including people’s habits, if you make laws that force companies to consider their co2 output as a problem?
answer
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About maybe at max 20 - 30% probably much less.
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Probably about 60 - 90%.
The key is to do both because they are principally coupled and nothing happens as long as consumers and corporations just point at each other and use it as an excuse to keep on going like before.
Of course you are right that the focus should lie at changing CO2 output at the producer side because the influence is much more focused there. N my opinion it is also dangerous arguing that the companies only supply what the consumers want because that statement is based on the consumption and is biased too much by what the companies offer and at which price. Consumers usually socioeconomically do not have the choice to buy a product at 1.5 times the price, even if they would prefer it for environmental reasons while these companies have immense profits and can and must afford to reduce and finally stop emissions.
