I just got a CO2 meter and checked the levels in my house and went down a rabbit hole trying to address the issue. Apparently it would take 249 areca palms to offset the carbon RESPIRATION of one adult.

So okay 249 trees just for me to breathe, not to mention the rest of the bad things we all do.

So how can this math ever balance? 249 trees just to break even seems like an impossible number. Then all the flights I have been on, miles driven, etc.

I feel like that’s… Way too many trees. Is it hopeless or am I missing something?

  • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    As others have pointed out, individuals are not the problem nor are they the solution. How we produce energy and manufacture goods are the issue. The corporations producing energy and manufacturing goods don’t want to change to sustainable alternatives because it will cost them money. So they’ve invented the idea of a carbon footprint to make it seem like it’s your desire for electricity that is the problem and not how they generate it.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You’re part of it if you use electricity or consume anything you didn’t grow in your own garden.

        Everyone likes to say “it’s the oil and gas companies” but like, no shit, we burn oil and gas, and billions of people die if we just suddenly stop.

        Corporations aren’t giggling madmen burning gas for fun. They’re shipping things across oceans and powering cars and buildings, they’re making shit you buy.

        Every single person contributes to climate change and it is by changing spending and investment habits (which is ongoing and has been for a while) that we overcome climate change.

        • quadropiss@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m the victim of it. I can’t save the planet by not using electricity, by not drinking water, or by not going to the grocery store. The only viable hypothetical way of me saving our planet is becoming a mercenary which is, you know, GOD DAMN STUPID. I would GLADLY be more ecologically responsible if I could afford it AND if the opportunity was presented to be(because OBVIOUSLY that option is not always available even), and you know that prices for basic needs are NEVER EVER EVER regulated by consumers because the demand for these things never goes down no matter the price because ITS A BASIC NEED.

          You also know that corporations are maximizing their efforts to get maximum profit, which means they neglect safety of their employees and THE ENTIRE PLANET. Oil ends up in the rivers, seas, oceans ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME. Are you trying to tell me that I’m to blame? Don’t you realize that for me, by your logic, to not responsible for it I’d need to quite literally just kill myself? Are you telling me I should be thankful for it? You are batshit crazy

          P.s. fyi the rich does burn the oil for fun, when they decide there’s “too much of it”. Don’t remember the negative oil price a few years ago? There’s not just one instance of it. You know what they don’t do? Push themselves to be as ecological as possible. They’re too busy experiencing record profits that are unproportional relative to yearly us dollar inflation.

          Get. Lost.

    • rab@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      If we were actually net zero, humans would still reproduce until we aren’t anymore.

      Overpopulation is an unsolvable problem.