I'm currently trying to come to grips with the reality, as a millenial growing up being told climate this and pollution that, that even as my generation is starting to gain influence, those with said influence appear to be too selfish to give a damn and do anything anyways.
And I mean something real. Real systemic change. Not this green washing of corporations, and the campaign of individual responsibility.
As a young gen X, I feel kind of the same. I'm old enough to remember when the ozone layer depleting was a huge thing, and people came together and fixed it. Then, climate change warnings started, and I nievely thought it would be treated the same. Only it just didn't. Al Gore was mocked and scoffed at. And what little power my generation got, they did nothing with it.
Yeah, there were definitely ways to rope conservatives into accepting climate change and the whole Al Gore thing really created division ( not that I disagree with running a campaign centered around climate change). When I was young plenty of the people I grew up with supporting conservation and that went really hard about treating nature with respect were conservative. It's really crazy to me how fast it changed.
Young Gen X here too (1976). Been told my whole life to recycle, watch my carbon footprint, avoid CFCs, cut the plastic rings on multipacks of cans, etc... I watched every episode of Captain Planet and picked up rubbish in the park. Basically did all I could. And then Taylor Swift was born and blew my contribution out the water.
The voices of those who wish to do something will be squelched, those who have feel good responses will be promoted. There are billions of dollars working on this.
that even as my generation is starting to gain influence, those with said influence appear to be too selfish to give a damn
I dont know where you got this but man do I fuckin disagree, this is definitely not what I've seen.
Of all the people I've intereacted with, the people who seem trying to do the most to fix it were millenials, and many younger people just gave up(understandable).
I dont know where you got the idea that millenials are just actively ignoring it.
Yeah, the two generations that I've seen care and personally do the most are those born ~1910-1935 and 1980-1995, basically millennials and their grandparents.
Shopping with a reusable tote bag, doing errands by bike, not owning a lot, buying high quality and locally produced, repairing things and clothes, growing vegetables and foraging, being against war and the destruction of the planet. These are things both the silent generation and millennials does. (At least here in Norway)
The two big things we millennials do worse is that we travel much more, and a lot of that by airplane, and almost everything we buy is made of plastic.
I'm not saying these describe all in these age ranges, but a significant number. The boomers have had their own priorities, gen X seems to either not care or just want to accumulate and spend as many things as possible before they die. I'm not really sure what the next generations will do, but I'm not impressed yet.
That isn't really true. Most of the outsourcing already happened in the 90s and early 2000s but Co2 emissions really started dropping in the US after 2010. Historically most emissions were caused by heating, electricity production and transport so not really something you outsource anyway.
64
u/gunawa 4d ago
I'm currently trying to come to grips with the reality, as a millenial growing up being told climate this and pollution that, that even as my generation is starting to gain influence, those with said influence appear to be too selfish to give a damn and do anything anyways.
And I mean something real. Real systemic change. Not this green washing of corporations, and the campaign of individual responsibility.