Confronted with the likelihood that we cannot achieve climate goals, confront socioeconomic inequality, and ultimately build a better world without significant personal sacrifice: How much are you personally capable and willing to lose? I mean this in the most earnest way possible. Acknowledging the likely possibility of working for an unethical organization while simultaneously supporting family who rely on you financially. Do you believe the amount we can and will bear aligns with the amount we must bear?
The first major issue is “How do I know it will work? How do I know the sacrifice won’t be in vain?”
Even if I just up commit suicide, cutting my carbon emissions to zero, private planes will still fly, we’ll still ship plastic trinkets across the pacific, still destroy habitat, etc.
Its defeatist, but unless we get the rich on board, shit sucks.
Well, I’ve heard people say that rich people are pretty delicious, so that could be an alternate plan…
I would sacrifice my left arm if I thought it would prevent a climate catastrophe. But it won’t. Literally nothing I can give will improve any of the problems you listed.
What should I be willing to sacrifice? Hamburgers? My personal car? Money? My kid’s college fund? Give me an outcome, and I’ll tell you if it’s worth it.
If you already knew the outcome, it wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice would it. Sometimes we need to do something because it’s the right thing to do, not because it guarantees success.
I mean, yes, it would be? If I can solve world hunger by sacrificing my left arm to the elder gods or some shit, I’m still losing my left arm. It’s still a sacrifice.
You mention ‘solve world hunger’, implying you know that’s the outcome already. That’s an easier choice then, isn’t it. The point I’m making is that doing something because it’s the right thing to do regardless of whether you know it’s going to work is what makes it a bigger sacrifice. The person I was replying to was also implying they would only consider sacrificing something if they knew the outcome first. If we all did that we’d never achieve anything.
It would because it would still be a choice. One would have to make it or choose not to. Yes it makes the sacrifice smaller but it’s a valid point. I also share that concern.
It wouldn’t need to be guaranteed but right now many scarifices are basically insignificant
Insignificant in the wider picture, maybe. But as you imply we have little to no control over that. All we can influence is our own actions, and hope that will be enough. The problem with the defeatist attitude that so often surrounds any discourse regarding, for example, climate change is that by declaring success impossible before you even try, all you do is guarantee failure.
All one need do is chose what changes one wishes to make and then make them to the best of one’s abilities. That’s it. If you can look yourself in the eye and say ‘I did all I could. I did my best’ then you have succeeded. Will it achieve everything we want it to? Maybe not, but it’ll achieve 100% more than not trying. Ultimately we all have a responsibility to do what we can. So I argue we should all try and do just that and be content that we did our best, because I will not except defeat. How about you?
I’d argue that effort is better spent fighting for broader change. Ideally you’d do both but one is more significant than the other imo
I have no interest in being a modern day martyr. Both of us could end our lives right now and it would be the most eco friendly action possible, but it would wouldn’t even begin to move the needle. Insignificant is not even close to describing it. So I won’t severely impact my lifestyle just so that I can feel good about it. I will and have make compromises and reductions to help with this, up to a certain point and I have and will continue to push for broader changes that will affect groups of people even if I’m included in those groups because there the proposition is different.
Imagine you live with a couple of roommates and they completely trash the place every single night. We’re talking like shitting in the middle of the living room, trash everywhere etc etc I won’t contribute to that mess at that scale but I won’t lose sleep if I left the my dishes undone overnight.
Then it sounds like you’ve made your choices, and you should be satisfied with them. That’s a good thing. Those compromises and reductions have moved the needle. A little, maybe, but it’s still doing something. Good for you. 👍.
Killing a billionaire would reduce carbon emissions more than anything else I could personally do, so let’s start there and see how it goes. We can talk about me giving things up when those efforts won’t be undone by some asshole flying to Chamonix for the weekend or whatever those fucks are doing.
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I think people are willing to sacrifice more than even they would expect, but no one wants to be the only one sacrificing, especially if it puts them at a disadvantage compared to others. But collectively, if people sacrificed together, it could even become a point of pride. It’s why countries develop strong solidarity in times of war.
i want to see jeff bezos living with a median wage. then we can talk.
Less and less as time goes on. Spent far too much of my youth sacrificing hoping a difference would be made only for it to leave me in a materially much worse situation. I should have just stayed in the major that would have gotten me a high paying job making weapons for the military and harming the environment rather than going into a science more designed to help people. If I were going to judge by personal outcomes and no other measure, that was the worst mistake of my life. I wish I could have been happy being part of the problem, because being part of the solution hasn’t helped myself or even materially advanced the solution.
Damn, I feel this comment so much.
It’s always crazy to come into threads like these and see people say “I would murder as many elites as possible” without batting an eye, and in the same comment say “I could never give up hamburgers.” It’s some kind of insane self-soothing to throw all of the responsibility for a global issue onto a few scapegoats. It also shows that people have no intention of doing fuck all about climate change beyond typing up snarky comments on the internet.
People can misquote all kinds of studies they half remember to pretend that they have no responsibility for making changes, but that doesn’t make it true. Just as one example, first world countries’ per-capita rate of meat consumption alone is enough to push the world over our 1.5C warming target. But because it’s an inconvenience to make any changes to my life, I’m going to pretend I would personally kill scores of people rather than make a new recipe for dinner. We’re fucked
first world countries’ per-capita rate of meat consumption alone is enough to push the world over our 1.5C warming target
Gee, I wonder who lives there
i love corn(?)-based meat patties, but i haven’t really seen any meat replacements like the impossible burger anywhere for sale where i live. people just don’t want to never taste meat again, a replacement would work fine. probably.
My husband and I don’t have kids, and we’ve severely cut back (not fully cut out yet), but really cut back on our meat consumption. I also avoid buying plastic whenever possible, and buy things like toilet paper/paper towels/regular linens made from recycled materials. Actually, if I have the option to buy anything made from recycled materials I’ll typically opt for that. That’s about it right now.
Only tangentially related to your question, but I’m also in a Master degree program for Public Administration so when I retire from the military I can roll right into law school. My goal is to become a Public Defender, which, I know, is fucking hard work with a lot of burn out for little pay, but I do have confidence that I can be an extra pair of hands for an overburdened industry. Everyone in the US is entitled to competent representation, and I’ve no interest in representing those who can afford their own lawyers.
And it burns me up that the rich can often get away with paying simple fines while the poor who can’t afford it go to jail and become essentially legalized slave labor. Fuck that. Anyone I can help save from losing their livelihood, home, family, car, etc, is a big fucking W in my book.
Thank you for sharing. Good luck with studies and career ambitions!
Nothing, I’m only making a better world if I can make my own life better at the same time. I do live an extreme frugal existence and avoid working for any unethical organization, but it’s not a sacrifice.
What we can “bear” is the wrong question for a couple reasons:
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Consumer luxuries don’t actually make for a better life.
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Altruistic scheming isn’t anyone’s actual motivation for doing things.
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“sacrifice” is irrational bargaining; reality doesn’t care whether you’ve made yourself enough of a martyr, and people who want to be martyrs don’t care if what they’re sacrificing actually makes much of a difference.
An effective solution will involve changes we can be happy about and a lifestyle that is actually better than what we have now. Commutes and lives spent stressing over money are a shit trade for what people get from it anyway, it won’t be hard to do better with less.
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I’ll sacrifice enough of my time to help build the guillotines we’ll need to deal with the root cause of these problems.
In case it’s not apparent already none of these problems are things that can be solved by personal sacrifices of average individual citizens. We need sweeping government and economic reforms if we’re going to do anything except kick the can down the road for another generation or three while the wealthy continue to loot the planet for their own benefit. If anyone needs to make sacrifices right now it’s the 0.01% sitting on top of enough money and influence to solve all of these problems.
I’ll sacrifice enough of my time to help build the guillotines we’ll need to deal with the root cause of these problems.
Billions of guillotines??
I do not want to know your dreams at night…
I would actually sacrifice everything I have, up to and including my life.
It wouldn’t do a damn thing, but if it would, you wouldn’t even have to ask.
I think there’s a fundamental problem with the question that goes to the heart of the climate crisis and which makes a significant contribution to why I think we will not solve it.
There’s two versions of this question. The first is the one you asked - how much are individuals and families willing to give up in order to make the climate problem go away (whatever that means at this point). The second is “If you knew with 100% accuracy that by you going vegan (or ditching your car or installing solar or composting…), that the climate crisis would definitely be solved, would you do it?
Let’s pretend that I don’t want to go vegan. I eat Big Macs every night. Porterhouse steaks every weekend. I drive an F-350 to the ice cream store down the block. All of that. Let’s say I love those things. If I personally give them up, it will make no difference if we don’t reorganize the entire global economy. You might convince me to vote for politicians who would pass laws to make that happen, but you’d have a harder time selling me on sacrificing something I see as a core benefit for zero gain. It’s the difference between “How much would you give to get a homeless person off the streets and a new start” and “How much would you give a homeless person if you knew they were just going to set the cash on fire” if you see where I’m going with that.
We are humans. We are cooperators. That’s how we got where we are. Unfortunately there’s also other dynamics in play as well. I honestly have no idea how far back we’d need to rewind the tape in order to have a chance at a better outcome. I do think any progress we can make is good. This just feels like a boulder rolling towards your house kind of thing where all you can do is watch.
Honest answer, I cut my meat consumption to a few splurge meals a year. I have been working from home so I drive very little (granted I didn’t opt for WFH just for carbon emission reduction). I compost, and recycle EVERYTHING I can. that means cleaning out every recyclable container and make sure to note what my county recycles vs. throws away. I buy the vast majority of my stuff second hand, I’m always looking for something that’s slightly broken so I can fix it for a steal. I don’t plan on having children so that’s a plus, and I also vote for progressives that are fighting for tougher climate control standards.
All-in-all it’s not a whole lot, but I’m just one of millions of struggling americans just trying to get their basic needs met while navigating this complex, shitty oligarchy I inherited from my parents.
Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace. I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion, I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!
Every day I look at the shit happening around us and I find myself getting closer and closer to Luthen Rael’s state of mind.
And here’s the relevant clip, for those who haven’t seen it.
I would not miss red meat if it became unavailable tomorrow
