When I've pointed out to people that if they really want to be green then they should stop driving their car, I got a response along the lines of "the top ten producers of CO2 are all private companies. It's not about changing public behaviours, it's about regulating corporate behaviours".
I never buy this, because corporate behaviours are driven by the market, which is driven by public behaviours. If we all stopped driving cars, the oil companies are going to stop processing so much oil.
But I do understand that changing that much public behaviour is difficult (and made more difficult by this attitude/argument). So regulating the oil companies and making fuel so expensive that people can't drive their cars appears to be the only way to do this.
Except that if fuel prices go up, people point out that they can't afford to drive for necessary trips. And the transport infrastructure is all based around lots of private cars. So the government has to keep fuel prices low enough to make cars usable for poor people. Which means no-one gives up their cars and the oil companies carry on processing this much oil.
So I don't really understand how we're going to solve this and not cook ourselves.
I never buy this, because corporate behaviours are driven by the market, which is driven by public behaviours. If we all stopped driving cars, the oil companies are going to stop processing so much oil.
But I do understand that changing that much public behaviour is difficult (and made more difficult by this attitude/argument). So regulating the oil companies and making fuel so expensive that people can't drive their cars appears to be the only way to do this.
Except that if fuel prices go up, people point out that they can't afford to drive for necessary trips. And the transport infrastructure is all based around lots of private cars. So the government has to keep fuel prices low enough to make cars usable for poor people. Which means no-one gives up their cars and the oil companies carry on processing this much oil.
So I don't really understand how we're going to solve this and not cook ourselves.