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Originally Posted by Itse
It's also a complete fantasy that voting with your wallet could tackle something like carbon emissions.
For that to work, you'd need basically everyone to change their spending habits, keep updating their knowledge level on carbon emissions to be aware of what are the low emission choices, and you need everyone to keep doing this every day for the rest of their lives.
Or you could get 51% of the people to vote for major changes for a few years, and then you could have a government that puts in regulations which takes care of the same without everybody needing to constantly self-police their own spending habits.
What you suggest is so hard I call it a fantasy. Never going to happen.
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I think we just disagree on which path is 'easier' and/or 'more likely'. Both of our proposals involve two steps:
1. Individuals changing their behaviour
2. The 'Big Guys' responding in kind - for me it's the market, for you it's the government (actually I might say you have three steps, because you want the government to move the market)
The answer is probably a combination of both.
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What I'm suggesting is a much, much easier way of getting more done, faster and with much less effort needed from most people. It's much easier to get someone to vote for something than it is to get them to watch what they buy forever and ever. I know I would much rather have someone put in some regulation that would free me to buy what I want without having to think about my carbon footprint all the damned time, simply because of personal convenience.
The only thing "voting wíth your wallet" does affect is general opinion, which is important in eventually getting the votes in.
That's why everyone who cares needs to do it. It does not actually affect carbon emissions in a measurable way, but it does play it's part in the attempt of trying to get a majority of voters and politicians behind this thing for at least a while, until they get distracted by something like terrorism or refugees or American Idol.
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Changing voting behaviour is not particularly fast or easy, as you seem to somewhat acknowledge. But even if we achieve that (like we maybe kind of sort of did in 2015), the next step requires the government to follow through, and follow through in a not stupid way.
"Did they vote us in for climate change? Or electoral reform? Or legal weed? Hmmm, well now that I actually look at the numbers, it might not be as easy as I thought. Plus, I've had lots of great meetings with really powerful and influential people recently who seem really smart and make a lot of compelling points. I wouldn't be here without their support...and like I said, they wouldn't be rich and influential if they weren't smart. So...legal weed it is!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
We already know how "voting with our wallets" goes. We've tried that approach for decades now. This is the result of that process. We've been hoping for the magic hand of markets to fix this for as long as I've lived. It's just not going to happen.
People can be collectively awesome in short focused spurts with a clearly defined goal.
But on a daily, individual level we're lazy and selfish and mostly preoccupied with being entertained and employed and getting laid every now and then.
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Have we though? Costco is still running cheek to jowl every hour it is open, filled primarily with boomers buying more stuff than they could ever use.
Then again, we've at least convinced them to recycle most of their packaging now (even though it's a fools errand) and compost the 20 tomatoes they didn't eat from their 60 pack. 'Green' products have exploded (again, largely an environmental mirage) and there has been a resurgence of local marketplaces selling local goods.
Boomers are still the most influential voting-blocks and wallet-blocks. I don't have much faith in changing their voting behaviour (or the subsequent follow through then required), but I feel we are at least making a bit of progress in them reconsidering their purchase of a 10 lb bag of apples from New Zealand (though I acknowledge the progress is still too slow).
The silver lining I see to my approach is the reciprocal benefits of making these changes. Instead of a 90 minute+ round trip to Costco every 10 days (including the "epic" gas savings from idling in line for 10 mins at the gas bar) you go to your nearest grocer every 5 days. Maybe sometimes you even walk! Before long, you realize that you don't
need that big deep freeze in your basement to hold an extra 6 loaves of bread and frozen pizzas you bought in 2008 (but were never visible because you kept buying new ones when they were on sale at Costco). $5 per month saved. Buying fresh and local starts to feel good, and you start to feel good. Yada yada yada, eventually you see that the financial differences are minimal (just as likely to save as to spend more) and that many of the lifestyle changes were actually beneficial in the long run.
Ultimately, I'm arguing that consumers can generate very real carrots for the market to exploit to mutual benefit. I see your approach as requiring the government to mandate artificial sticks and artificial carrots that actually make sense and work to the benefit of all...doesn't sound particularly fast nor easy to me.
Sadly, we're both living in fantasy-land. But ~50/50 of both approaches is probably the best bet...