I'm all for less car. However, when I think of all the shit me family normally buys every week on a supermarket on the other side of town… it already can sometimes be complicated getting it all up the stairs (and you better believe I am NOT gonna go for round two). I can't imagine how difficult it'd be… nay, IMPOSSIBLE, to carry all that shit on foot or bike across town

Granted, back when I had a job and lived alone, going by the supermarket on the way back home was easy. Did it on a daily basis, and never needed too much. Stack shit on my backpack and get going

Other than that, yeah, I walk around a lot. Don't drive much. I imagine, though, travelling could be difficult depending on destination. I can get places with public transport, but I don't know if a back and forth to the beach, for instance, could be easily done (though I've never checked)

This is, in my opinion, a high burden placed on an individual to to always research how every company they interacts with operates.

Unfortunately, as a consumer many ecological decisions are forced on me because corporations aren't regulated properly. Blaming the consumer to make better choices is asking someone to become intimately familiar with something that they shouldn't be concerned about, and to stay up to date since corporations change their business practices frequently.

This is something ultimately that needs to end up on governments to regulate businesses, and trying to shift the blame to consumers is quite frankly unfair. And even worse, it's ineffective and disheartening to them. People can make better choices for themselves and their local environment. But don't saddle Bob and Sally with saving the planet. It's an untenable ask.

It's not simply changing a behavior of an individual, it's a dramatic shift to their lifestyle. Not in choosing the more ecological option, but asking them to remain interested and vigilant on every decision they make. Picking what fish to buy at the supermarket shouldn't involve figuring out who caught the fish, googling the company, researching what their fishing practices are, and then figuring out if that is a sustainable practice. It's not simple or quick, and most people just really want to figure out what everyone in their family will all eat for dinner that night. We can't expect someone to do a half hour or more of research for every purchase.

This is why government needs to regulate these industries for us. They have the time and knowledge to assess all of that and the power to enforce companies adhere to those practices. We need to help educate people that regulating a business is not the same as regulating their choices or their behavior as an individual. That these sorts of regulations and legislation simply do not, and will not, ever apply to them so that they will encourage their legislators to push for regulation.

The no wash people aren’t doing it for conservation, there is no performative nature there about being green. The title is what OP editorialized about an article about fashion designers and isn’t the real title. One even specifically says he guesses that could be a benefit as well but it’s not the goal. They really do just think it looks cool… I’m definitely on the side of rewearing clothes until they need to be washed, but this is literally attacking people who want to do good in whatever small way by comparing them to fashion designers who do not even reflect on the conservation issue.

If you can’t convince the average citizen to care about conservation, you will never be able to convince the average citizen to hold billionaires accountable for their destruction. Demoralizing people on their efforts to reduce pollution, etc does just as much harm as convincing them that plastic recycling makes it all better. Me saving a thimble of water may only save a thimble of water, but by doing so I have actively worked towards a better future as opposed to passing it off. Its the same as the ‘your vote doesn’t matter’ people. Do not discourage those who want to help.

Hot take but capitalism is not deliberately wasteful. No seriously, there's no point in deliberately wasting time or money expending a resource that you have no use for. Now, does that mean capitalism is efficient with resources? No not really, at least not from a conservation perspective. But any company that consumes resources does so in order to provide goods or services to someone. And a large portion of those resources are to provide goods and services to consumers like you and me. Worried about water consumption? Here are the biggest water withdrawal sources in the US:

-thermoelectric power: directly tied to electricity consumption, about half of which is residential

-irrigation: different types of food use massively different amounts of water.

-public supply: goes without saying

Those 3 things are more than 90% of us water demand. If people could cut their power bills by 30%, stop eating meat and conserve water personally by say 50%, US freshwater withdrawals would easily go down by more than a third, if not more. And that's with zero change in behaviors from billionaires or corporations (apart from producing less in general in response to reduced demand).

My point is that about 2/3 of water usage in the US is to provide food, electricity and water to the 99%. We have agency and our actions are not insignificant.

We also need individual action to vote for politicians who create legislation to stop billionaires from fucking our planet.