Climate Change

[SYZ]

"Although the power of consumers is strong, it pales in comparison to that of international corporations and only governments have the power to keep these interests in check.  Usually, we regard governments as having a duty to protect citizens. So why is it that we allow them to skirt these responsibilities just because it is more convenient to encourage individual action? Asking individuals to bear the burden of global warming shifts the responsibilities from those who are meant to protect to those who are meant to be protected. We need to hold governments to their responsibilities first and foremost.  A recent report found that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1988. Incredibly, a mere 25 corporations and state-owned entities were responsible for more than half of global industrial emissions in that same period."

I agree in total with this report.  It's the same here in Australia, even at council (local government) level.
For example, the onus is on the consumer almost totally to recycle plastics, paper, bottles and cans, electronic
devices, light globes, car batteries etc, but with very little or no commensurate support from our councils.

For example, most Australian companies couldn't give a stuff about the unnecessary plastics they force onto
the consumer, with much of it entering into our waterways and oceans.  And of course the production of plastics
is centred on hydrocarbons extracted from oil.

Scientists writing in the journal PLOS One said recently that plastics emit the greenhouse gases methane and
ethylene when they're exposed to sunlight and degrade. The researchers carried out tests on such common plastic
products as water bottles, shopping bags and food containers.

Plastic drinking straws are the latest target of activists, who say they're used only once and discarded because
most can't be recycled.  When I was a kid (hehe) drinking straws were made out of waxed paper, until fucking
McDonald's introduced plastic straws in 1971.