The world feeds the climate crisis with public money: Fossil fuel subsidies amounted to $7 trillion in 2022

boem@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 728 points –
The world feeds the climate crisis with public money: Fossil fuel subsidies amounted to $7 trillion in 2022
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How long would it take us to be carbon neutral if we took all that and put it in green energy?

Not an economist. My guess, 2 -4 years. Cut subsidies to oil, methane, natural gas. Incentivize and subsidize renewables. The market reacts quickly.

That’s the thing. Governments and corporations tell us that we need to give up our luxuries. That we need to recycle. That we need to do this and do that when what we do is a piss in the ocean compared to what they do while they spend our fucking money to do it.

I can reduce, reuse, recycle til the cows come home but it doesn’t fucking matter when all my options to buy products come in containers that harm the planet.

Pisses me off to no end.

I watched some video some time ago where they put that in perspective: If I stopped causing any climate negative emissions now and for the rest of my life, it would amount to like 1 second emitted by the top 100 companies (not 100% sure about the numbers exactly, but it's basically the same order of magnitude).

I'm not saying that we should stop caring about it at all, but it's much much more important to try and steer politics into the right direction, than it is to change personally. Still, do all you can personally, but imo it's fine to "cheat" here and there.

Very true, I put my effort towards trying to reducing my waste rather than gas electric and water. One thing I do think people should change is reducing how much meat they consume though, specifically beef. That produces a lot of bad environmental effects like deforestation and runoff.

It would require mineral extraction at a scale larger than any in human history to build that many batteries, solar panels, windmills, etc.

Considering the scale of the project a decade would be very optimistic.

If you want to pay for the new stove, furnace, water heater, and the electric upgrades I'd need for that, please do. I picked gas over electric because I didn't have the wiring necessary to get electric. If it was cost effective to go with electric, I would.

That's the idea. 7 trillion dollars per year is a lot of money and that stuff is where some of it would go.

This is exactly the reasoning that big corporations have

What about MEEEEEE?!?