Yes, the US has abysmal public transport (at least in houston, tx in my case) compared to even third world countries like Egypt. It’s downright embarrassing.

I live in Germany and while not perfect, I’m glad we have such a thing.

The problem is when a 10 minute car drive takes an hour with public transportation

Ok. If you don’t? There’s still countless aspects of your life that you interact through the economy to fulfill that have the potential for change and improvement.

Still buy new clothes from Old Navy or JCPenney? Maybe think about going to your nearest GoodWill or local thrift shop(s) (and on a regular basis) to see what gems pass by now and again. College towns right after the end of the semester are ripe for this, and I would wager that you have a college town somewhat closer to you than any kind of public transit. Not saying that you have to do this for your entire wardrobe, but choosing used over new means that resources are avoided in making that new garment, such as all of the fuels needed to move resources to and from each factory along the value chain, all of the solid waste destined for landfill or incineration from the scraps of cutting-and-sewing that new garment, all of the water pollution associated with dyeing or printing your new garment, or the potential human rights violations that could pop up throughout the value chain. A lot of these can be mitigated by buying more sustainable brands that seek to minimize these things, but a cheaper alternative is to buy used too.

Still have an air conditioner? Maybe think about hooking up a smart thermostat or equivalent and enrolling in peak-load demand response initiatives so that your AC or furnace works a little less hard in exchange for the entire grid not having to provide as much power (the alternative is blackouts or brownouts where everyone turns their AC on blast but kills the grid so no one has power anymore). Doing this means that demand curves by customers don’t reach as high of historical peaks, which allows utilities to avoid using peak response assets like Combined Cycle Combustion Plants that use natural gas to operate. You in turn create a greener grid, that’s also better for the climate. And if having a warmer house isn’t enough for you, there are other ways of mitigating this, like setting up phase-changers directly to your bedroom so that it stays cool, unlike the rest of the house, or buying ice vests that you can wear on your person, or going to a public facility like a library or mall and centralizing cooling loads to there instead of decentralized cooling loads via everyone’s homes.

How old are your assets like cars, AC units, furnaces, fridges, etc.? Perhaps if it doesn’t break the bank, look into purchasing models that are more efficient, as in those cars that have better mileage and/or that are hybrids and can be plugged in to a normal outlet to charge, or fridges and AC units that use coolants better and that have better insulation to keep things cooler for longer. These choices don’t necessarily have to be accompanied by the insane bits of technology and information that bigger companies want to shove down our throats with these newer, smarter devices.

Does your local grocery store carry organic goods as opposed to conventional ones? I know that ALDI near me carry those, and I’ve had to shop there for years thanks to the low prices they offer. If you minimize your costs while still going organic, maybe consider shifting your diet away from red meat and pork towards other options like chicken, fish, or straight up whole food, plant-based ingredients like vegetables, fruit, legumes, grains, nuts, seeds, mushrooms, etc. Or, if you’ve gone that far, have you considered seeking out local farmer’s markets near you that often offer these goods both organically (or “organically” since the official label is so expensive), in season, AND locally. A good resource for finding farmer’s markets near you is https://www.localharvest.org/.

Getting back to the public transit problem you bring up:

Is there public transit near you? Do you know for sure? Most major cities like Houston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and even the smaller ones like Cleveland, Oklahoma City, Las Vegas, etc. do have some version of public transit, whether that’s via subway, rail, tram, or bus, so perhaps there are more options near you thank you might think. And do you use these when you have the opportunity to? All of these services are offered via companies that use metrics like ridership and rider time to gauge how they might want to invest in these services into the future. If you start engaging with more and more public transit when you can, every human adds up on their balance sheets and can impact what happens with public transit in the future. I know that in my area, the public transit corp running our interurban train is constructing a new service line South, when it traditionally only extended East & West, which will capture an even larger portion of the market and make the service even more financially lucrative over time, leading to even more expansion and coverage. But I do agree with you on the lack of other interurban solutions like Amtrak. That service is downright terrible, and we as a country (assuming you live in the US) need to start demanding better service, as well as less of a grip on the railway network in this country by the railroad tycoons.

There are changes that can be made all around us that involve the economy and a corporation on the other side. All of the above examples I listed do. There are two sides to the economy, that economists tell us: Supply and Demand. Just because we can’t control supply outside of efforts like political action doesn’t mean we can’t control demand too. Little changes that every common person makes over time one way or another add up and show up on these corporations’ balance sheets.

Hope is not lost. Stay focused on sustainability and making what changes you can make in your life right now and into the future, including political action. All of this adds up.

It’s largely a problem of government that is exacerbated by the influence of the businesses themselves. It’s the governments job to enact policy change that force business to address these issues and develop more sustainable production process and product offerings, but since the government has essentially been bought out by those same businesses, nothing happens at all.

We can’t decouple business from government without policy changes that would place limitations on such influence, and we cannot enact those policies because of the influence from businesses. I don’t see a solution unless people wise up and elect a lot of people in the same election cycle not beholden to these groups, but I don’t know how that can be accomplished.

Exactly. Saudi Aramco is wrecking the environment because (among others) Dow Chemical keeps buying their oil. Dow Chemical keeps buying their oil because Sterilite keeps buying the plastic that Dow makes. Sterilite keeps buying Dow’s plastic because people keep buying Sterilite bins to store all their junk. Ultimately if there wasn’t a person consuming things at the end of the chain, the oil wouldn’t be removed from the ground in the first place.

Ultimately it all comes down to people’s lifestyles. When you buy something that’s made of plastic or transported on a container ship, you’re giving these companies money they use to wreck the environment. If instead of kiwi fruit, you buy melons from an Amish farmer who brought them to market using a horse-drawn carriage, that lifestyle choice has an impact on the environment.

Having said that, it’s true that companies use lobbying to twist laws in their favour, and use sales and marketing to drive demand for their products. It’s hard to know whether a product you’re buying is damaging to the environment because the companies that damage the environment don’t want you to know and will oppose any law that makes it clearer. It’s hard to choose to purchase a less environmentally destructive item if you don’t know it exists.

But, it’s just ridiculous bullshit to pretend that nefarious companies are out there burning coal just for fun, while cackling evilly. Everything companies do is in service to making money, and virtually the only way they make money is to sell things that people want to buy.

Yeah where I live, there’s a bus every 2 hours that needs ~30 minutes to get to where I work. If I took that, I’d have to walk an additional 15 minutes to my actual workplace and I’d still be an hour too early.
And after work, I’d have to again walk 15 minutes to the bus stop and wait another 30 minutes for the bus home.

So between leaving my house and coming back home, there’d be ~11.5 hours. When I use my car, that’s ~9.5 hours.

Bro the big oil corporations spent decades at the beginning of the 20th century creating and forcing the demand and dependency on oil. Watch “How Big Oil Conquered the World” from James Corbett.

It’s not like WE chose this to be the way things are. The people who control industry, and marketing, and media and THE GOVERNMENT, all MADE us and it all this way.

From what I understand, a lot of corporations have power over the options consumers have, the market isnt as free as this argument implies. For example, coal and fossil fuel lobbies do a lot to prevent sustainable alternatives from being adopted.

The US doesnt rely on oil and coal because thats what consumers want, or because its necessarily the cheapest, its because the people that run those corporations have the means to subvert democracy. They are not cartoon villains, but they are absolutely villains.

What you are saying is true for plastic straws and airlines, but I would guess it doesnt really apply to many of these 100 corporations

If it’s that bad, then let’s make a law that fixes the problem.

You can take this and just welp, plastic spoon is cheaper and all my concurrent are doing it so fuck it.

We want a greener industry? Make the fucking law reflect that otherwise, fuck off.

You’re absolutely right. They aren’t cartoon villains. They’re just rational agents acting according to very real incentives.

But where do these incentives come from? They depend on how we choose to organize our economy, what guiding principles our society follows in how to distribute resources, and harvest them from the environment.

They come from our economic system. Our economic system is capitalism. And one of the many, many problems with capitalism — it can’t fucking slow down. In the eternal chase for greater and greater quarterly profits, there is no room for questions such as “is this growth sustainable?” or “I know there’s demand for this, but should we really be doing it?”.

Pointing fingers and blaming people is, indeed, a waste of energy. Instead, it may be better to ask: “How do we incentivise people to change their behaviour? What about our system needs to change? And how quickly can we dismantle the oil companies?”

At some point in the past 20-30 years I started recycling. My town had just installed these new separate trash bins, I was just tryna “do my part” and be able to say I didn’t contribute to the shit environment we will have in the future. Nowadays, I neither recycle, nor feel guilty about it. The illusion that I was doing anything productive with my time fell apart the time I saw the garbage guys pick up all the trash containers and dump them in the same truck. I asked them “hey, does the trash site have some way to sort the garbage?” thinking that maybe I was missing something. They said “nah” and moved on.

Nowadays I still watch the same trucks pick up the same trash cans in the exact same fucking way. In the meantime I’ve learned the company belongs to someone close to the mayor, so there’s not even a chance this kinda shit will be reprimanded, ever.

You can build the best fucking bridge you want, if there’s a corporation on the other side of the river, you’ll find yourself swimming anyway.

So no, buddy. Blaming corpos for the results of their actions isn’t just “the new climate denial”. Some of us have been cynical for a while now, and this is just another area where we don’t trust some shithead politician’s empty slogans.

Also, there’s no need to discredit all parties that disagree with you by aligning them with an obviously insane crowd, is there? Especially since that shit goes both ways - your post is also the type of post that a corporate shill would write. Should I label you as a corpo whitewasher, just cause your opinion is different than mine?

Most voters support climate change policy. The problem is the select few that block everything (mainly due to corporate lobbying).

Corporations, NIMBYs, and redtape are actively blocking common sense climate change related initiatives like public transit and high speed rail networks.

This is more of a case of our leaders not listening to those they represent

nah, sorry, we’re on Reddit, so capitalism is to blame for everything and we individuals cannot do sh1t.

I mean, how stupid do you have to be to shift the blame for pollution from cars on car manufacturers and oil companies. But, no, no. It’s corporations polluting and I as an individual cannot do anything about it.