What will help alleviate global warming more, petitioning the government to change or voting with your dollars

Question

It often seems when trying to institute change within the government it is a one step forward two steps back process. Besides we have only a few votes very 2 to 4 years.

But our monies have many times that voting power. It is unfortunate but when it comes to human motivation money really stimulates action. This being the case should we not wisely analyze each purchase for not only its environmental impact, but labor practices, political regimes it may support, local economy it could support, corporate practices including animal experimentation?

The list really could go on and on but if there is one thing I have realized money makes a huge difference in influencing the world. It can be used to place the world in bondage or it can be used to free it via even a small portion of the population banding together and making wise consumer decisions.

Answer 1

Governments are worthless when it comes to accomplishing anything useful, but in the case of global warming neither approach will work because there is no known way to reduce the sun's output.

Answer 2

Maybe you could move to France.

Answer 3

I believe that individual purchases will help alleviate the problem which will spur the government, you know, like the tail wagging the dog.  Case in point: when I first moved to my area there was only one store in an hour radius where I could buy environmentally friendly products and this was ten years ago.  I visited it as often as I could afford but between the gas and prices for the items, it was hard.  Now, ten years later there are several stores available and now most of the chain stores have a health food aisle and organic products throughout.  Supply and demand baby...

Answer 4

http://www.libralmedia.com

Answer 5

Seeing how the Earth is moving toward a global economy, I agree with you that consumers can have a significant impact by just making wise purchases.  Relying on elected officials to bring about change would be fruitless since they are mostly commodities themselves, bought and paid for.

Answer 6

I agree that the government will never really accomplish much of any good- they should forget about global warming (since it's just a myth/scare tactic anyway, and has been happening for thousands of years) and focus on reforming our HORRIBLE health care system!  For such an "enlightened" and "rich" country, we have the worst possible health care system that only takes care of people with money enough to afford it.

Answer 7

Neither can alter the sun, so neither will help (though I'll always side with the free market over socialism).

Answer 8

I think we need to do both, as well as a healthy dose of direct action. When it comes to protecting the environment and fighting for social justice, you've to be using as many tactics as you are able to.

Answer 9

Most western governments are already taking action on global warming, not due to any real threat but to cater to business interests. There is a lot of money to be made from trading carbon credits and subsidies to gain, such as from ethanol.

If you're really worried about global warming my arguments won't persuade you but it's really not the end of the world. The best thing to do is to not eat beef since cows emit a lot of methane which is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2, between 25 and 72 times as bad depending on the time frame. Rice is also bad, rice fields emit both methane and nitrous oxide and the latter is 300 times as bad as CO2. If you stop eating both of those that would make a much bigger impact than any carbon reductions you make and they are relatively painless. Once the market for those foods decline they will produce less of each and those greenhouse gases will decline.

You can't rely on government to do the right thing, that's not it's job really. It's there to secure borders, provide for defense against attack and guarantee it's citizens certain rights. Anything more than this leads to problems and asking an organization that cannot be trusted to balance it's own books or be honest about things like nuclear testing to look after your health care is very foolish.

If you want to shop based on political and other concerns, good luck since so much is now made in China which isn't known for it's humanitarianism or fair labor practices, not to mention safety inspections and emissions policies. This is especially true in the US because not only do we import so much of our goods from them, we borrow money to pay for current programs. If they stop supporting our national debt by buying t-bills then the economy will really hit the skids.