36 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
This article is oddly silent on the main focus of climate activists (at least in my experience, which is having stopped working a year ago to focus on the issue), which is not personal consumption choices, but rather trying to change the destructive and unsustainable nature of the system we are part of.
The article focuses on our role as consumers, whereas the moral obligation involves our role as citizens.
There is an overwhelming consensus among climate activists I work with that a focus on personal consumption choices (of the type this article criticizes, but also of the type this article exemplifies) is a distraction, since the personal consumption choices we have are tightly circumscribed by the system we are a part of.
I believe we all have a moral obligation to try to change the system to minimize suffering, through civil disobedience, civic participation or otherwise.
I also don’t eat meat, fly, buy new products, etc, but those are mostly for my own personal mental balance and well-being.
Comment by DrRidleyCooper at 25/01/2020 at 17:01 UTC
8 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Well said. Thanks for sharing that insight and actually reading the piece. It really was about helping the consumer navigate their way in this day and age!
Comment by J-town-population-me at 25/01/2020 at 17:52 UTC
0 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I’ll bite and make an honest critique of your point.
By removing the moral agency of individuals in their consumer choices but putting it on their roles as voters you fail to account for the relative freedom of their consumer choices within the existing system. Nobody forces climate change activists to buy Chinese goods, for example, though China is of the the world’s greatest polluters. The money given to companies that buy these goods supports these practices and China is largely immune to the activism of CCAs so the only way to change that system is through the consumer choices that support China’s economy. You seem to be absolving people of their complacency or collaboration with industrial polluters as long as they vote the way you think they need to vote.