• HeyListenWatchOut@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yeah the “over-consumption” bit rubs me a bit wrong as it generally provides “neutral framing” for an otherwise EXCLUSIVELY greedy massive capitalist-driven issue. Families aren’t “overconsuming” drinking water or taking too long a shower, nor are our toilets not being a low-volume flushing devices the primary cause of our issues.

    Instead things like like Nestle claiming aquifers for themselves, companies fracking using all available ground water in their proprietary chemical mixes and then dumping the waste water into surface pools that not only are deadly, flammable, and completely impossible to separate from water except via high-energy-cost processes like distillation… but that also slowly seep down into the ground water for places that then become permanent wastelands where clean water is no longer available in the ground.

    The framing here is always like the fucking paper straws :

    • “Littering is something we all have to combat” attempts to distract from the fact that the overwhelming majority of pollution comes from a handful of multi-billion dollar companies who dump garbage everywhere with little to no consequences.
    • “Americans drive big cars too much.” Mother-fucker, we don’t have bullet trains or even safe bridges in this country. The problem is that our government is bought and paid for by private industries that basically write the legislation that controls how public transit never becomes viable. Me driving a 2005 vehicle that happens to the be the old SUV I could afford from a friend doesn’t make me someone anyone should spend any energy blaming. The fact that I can’t afford a new car while countries like Norway pass massive subsidies for buying a new electric car isn’t even the thing people should be angry about. It’s that countries like Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Japan, and China all have massive multi-billion-dollar high-speed trains operated by well-paid, well-trained, adequately staffed teams of subsidized workers who make cars seem stupid by comparison.

    How about you stop saying “overconsumption” and instead tell the truth and say "a handful of massive multi-conglomerate companies are completely decimating all clean drinking water sources and their CEOs should be put in prison, have their personal and companies’ assets liquidated and re-declared public goods.”