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I hope a lot of people have made at least some changes in their lifestyle by now.
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I understand that companies are doing the greatest damage to the environment, but its always:
“People should try to live…”
“Yeah, bUt cEoS AnD cOmpAnIeS”
It feels like people are just pointing fingers at each other and no one is doing shit.
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But something like 2/3 of that 8 billion is not even partaking in the global economy and have basically zero impact to the climate.
Yeah people should do what they are in control of whilst advocating for the big companies to do stuff. Don’t just sit around and wait.
Exactly
Guerilla gardening fruit trees.
Surprisingly, also: gorillas gardening.
Don’t forget gardening gorillas!
“The primates are really coming along well this year, darling. Too bad about the petunias, though”
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Fine I’ll bite, what does eating more meat do for the environment?
Greta! ✊
Go vegan
Having less children, car free and plane free have more impact.
Killing other people’s children is even more environmentally friendly!
Drop the gofundme!
Killing yourself as well!
This whole “have one fewer child” thing is totally bonkers, because even on the face of it, it really only makes sense for people in Western nations with their current lifestyles. It’s also an average over all the people in that country, meaning it’s heavily spoiled by rich kids. Essentially, 1. you can’t know beforehand how your child will live and 2. emissions don’t scale linearly with the number of people (again, look at the difference between countries). And then there’s the anti-humane undertone of it.
The average environmental impact of even poor people in rich nations is many times higher than even rich people in poor nations.
a) Having fewer kids is extremely environmentally friendly, in any nation, and especially the West. Each child produces around 60x the CO2 offset by one person going vegan for life. This is just CO2. Consider the countless other ways an individual pollutes the environment during the course of their lives.
b) Migration from poor nations to rich nations is extremely damaging to the environment. Consumption matches Western patterns almost immediately.
The average environmental impact of even poor people in rich nations is many times higher than even rich people in poor nations.
It’s often around 1t CO2e for a poor person in developing country vs. 5-10t CO2e for a poor person in an industrialized country.
However, rich people in Western countries tend to be in the 100s or 1000s of tons of CO2e/p/y which is extremely far off from being sustainable.
But I want to emphasize that this is just the current state. How your child lives in 20 or 30 years, you don’t know. It may use much fewer resources or much more. I am cautiously optimistic that they will use fewer resources than we do. The question is more whether it will be enough.
a) Having fewer kids is extremely environmentally friendly, in any nation, and especially the West
1t CO2e/person/year is roughly sustainable within the current ecosystem. Thus, many people in poor countries are at or near climate neutrality already. If people live sustainably already, then no, there is no inherent need to reduce population or necessarily have fewer children.
That’s not to say there may not be other benefits to having fewer children.
Each child produces around 60x the CO2 offset by one person going vegan for life.
Again, this is true only in the current situation and in Western countries.
b) Migration from poor nations to rich nations is extremely damaging to the environment. Consumption matches Western patterns almost immediately.
Blaming CO2e emissions on migrants is a bit disingenuous. But if it helps you make the case to yourself that Western countries should do more to give people in developing nations safer lives so they don’t have to flee, I guess I’ll take it.
Having fewer kids is extremely environmentally friendly
this is some malthusian eugenicist bullshit.
Humans cause pollution so fewer humans = less pollution. It’s not that complicated.
Fuck ecofascism. The problem is not how many we are. We are well within the planet’s carrying capacity. The problem is how the richest among us live.
Almost every modern human uses non-renewable resources and produces greenhouse gases either directly or indirectly. At the current rates it is unsustainable. It is the exponential growth of industry, technology, and human population that has caused the dramatic shift in climate change.
The top 10% earning Americans (>$178,000/year) created 40% of the nation’s pollution according to a recent study. And that factored in the industries they worked in. That still means that the majority of climate change is caused by the activity of normal people.
doubling down on this is fucking gross
Advocating for overpopulation is fucking gross. The planet is already experiencing another mass extinction event.
Malthusian yes, eugenicist no.
you can’t do any malthusian advocacy that isn’t necessarily eugenicist
you can’t implement any malthusian policy that isn’t necessarily eugenicist.
People may make it eugenicist but the policy can not be. For exemple if the country gives money for the first child but not the second, you reduce the intentions to have more than one. Then maybe people will kill their baby because they want a blond girl but this is their fault.
We can acknowledge reality without being histrionic. I’m not calling for an end to humanity. I’m simply explaining that human life is wasteful and inefficient. I think we should accept that, rather than pretending otherwise. Tinkering around the edges isn’t going to change the trend.
this is just ecofascism
misogyny is another classic hallmark of fascism.
Migration from poor nations to rich nations is extremely damaging to the environment.
sounds like xenophobia.
honestly, your whole post reads like eviro-fascism.
Reality isn’t “fascism.” If you can’t end bear to hear facts without screeching about fascism, consider that you might need to work in your mental resiliency. I didn’t argue to end migration from poor to rich nations. I’m simply explaining it’s catastrophic for the environment. Pick your poison. What do you care about more? The environment, or your belief in open borders?
I didn’t argue to end migration from poor to rich nations. I’m simply explaining it’s catastrophic for the environment. Pick your poison. What do you care about more? The environment, or your belief in open borders?
this is ecofascism. I can’t believe your instance or this community tolerates it.
And we have to choose only one?
edit: Also, I have avoid one fewer child for more than 2 decade !
And avoided transatlantic plane travel too!
No, but some seem more impactful and easier to get socially accepted, so we should probably focus on those.
I don’t think that we should focus on something specific, for sure you will not convince everyone to go vegan, but it’s the same to go car free
Some people might find it easier to to vegan and stop plain that not owning a car, and other opposite, I think that at this point everything is good to take
Focus on doing what you can, not on thinking what to focus on.
Or just you know, all of the above :)
Going car free isn’t an option for most Americans, unfortunately.
But most don’t need a stupid 9-Seater or Ford F-150/450 for their daily commute. (Yes I know there are some use cases where these are practically, but let’s be honest, most people never use that capability or just a few times in the lifetime of the vehicle
I agree.
I’ve been in favor of requiring licenses for anything past a light truck (figure older ford rangers as a light truck), so that only people with demonstrable needs for said vehicles would pursue them, otherwise they would need to go through the trouble for nothing. Same would go for large SUVs, as they’re often built on the same platforms anyway.
I just drive a Corolla and own an older Crown Victoria as a backup car for my family/“nice car”. There’s been times where owning a truck would certainly have been useful, but I just rented something from uhaul.
And even for people who use their cars twice a day to go to work, their car spends 95% of their lives parked, individual cars are such a waste. I hope self-driving actually happens one day so the % of use of cars can drastically increase, and their number drastically decrease.
It works if you have a good infrastructure for public transportation. I live quite far away from the nearest public transportation and if I wanted to use apps like Uber, my local equivalent has eliminated penalties for drivers accepting and then rejecting an order if it doesn’t pay enough so I’ve given up trying to use apps like Uber.
So the only option is to get a car or just be stuck unable to do anything.
It’s funny, I was just at the car dealership yesterday getting my car repaired and I talked to a guy on the showroom floor who was buying a new vehicle. The dealer had the new Nissan electric car on display that I was checking out, and the guy said " Don’t buy that it’s electric! "
I asked him why, because I think electric cars are great. He was a bigger man, about 5’10 tall and 350 lb. He said that he can’t fit in anything smaller than a full size pickup truck because they are “too small for me.”. Which of course is silly, because I’ve seen plenty of fat people fit in smaller cars. In fact, I had a friend who weighed almost as much as he did who was able to fit into my 1986 Honda Civic hatchback.
So there you go ladies and gentlemen, Americans believe they’re too fat to fit in anything but a gigantic pickup truck with a 7,000 lb GVWR.
The average trip length in America is something like 2 mi in distance. That’s a distance that you could walk, and you can bike that in less than 5 minutes. So Americans really can meet a lot of their daily travel needs to the store and short errands by means other than a car.
The biggest problem in America is twofold: infrastructure and behavioral patterns.
One can easily be vegan while doing all of those, I am :)
Unfortunately being a vegan, for me, would require far more trips to the grocery store do to the low shelf life of produce.
How do you get around that?
You don’t have to replace your calories from animal products with produce, foods like beans exist. Also some produce like onions and potatoes have long shelf life.
Another victim of not having stores close to housing I take it, I feel for you.
There’s lots of plant based stuff with a long shelf life like TVP, beans, rice, grains, pasta, lentils and so on.
Frozen veggies are great and still nutritious and you can freeze loads of stuff like tofu, seitan and all the various meat alternatives.
Your point is valid, but the fact is none of those are enough on their own. Even if we get rid of all emissions except for the cattle industry, wed still shoot way past the 1.5° mark. So not going at least vegetarian was never an option.
Catal is the worst as far as animal emissions. Sticking with chicken or fish if you want your animal protein is the way to go.
Or Tofu 👍👍
Or nuts and other beans.
If it has to be animals, yes.
The environmentally beneficial effects of plant based diets or a vegan lifestyle are not reduced to harmful GHG emissions alone but encompass a wide range of advantages. To name some:
- Reduced agricultural land use (the vast majority of land is used to grow cattle feed). This can also reduce deforestation (especially interesting in the Amazon region), increase ground water and soil quality. Avoids soil erosion. It also perserves eco systems on land and helps to mitigate species extinction.
- Water usage. It takes about 1000x to produce meat than to produce an equivalent amount of, e.g., wheat.
- Reduction of overfishing and thereby protecting and stabilizing oceanic eco system.
- Reduction of the huge amount of water and air pollution caused by the animal industry.
Same thing can be said for all the carbon reduction measures, producing less leads to consuming less of everything, especially technology products.
In general sure, producing less and consuming less leads to less impacts. But there are quite the differences in what and how we consume it with regard to their impacts. For example, we don’t need agricultural space for mining cobalt to build batteries which power electric cars.
Let me guess, to reduce murder rates we should also have less children! After all, they might turn out to be murderers.
Any person remotely willing to not have children in order to protect the climate was not a big problem for the climate anyway.
Any person who doesn’t care slightest about the climate, and would never look at the debate we’re having, is a much bigger problem.
I’m absolutely not giving a fuck about someone’s opinion of how many kids I want, it’s bad enough the labour’s wage isn’t decent enough for big families these days without being guilted over having the children.
I’ve only gone vegan after two things happened:
- FFF strikes made environmentalism “a thing”
- Easy vegan alternatives have been easily accessible and cater to my carnivorous eating habits
There are likely other factors as well. Point is: it’s never just one thing, and therefore every little thing helps.
Is it more expensive? (Consideringthe same nutrients intake fat, protein, etc)
Not with those replacements, yes if you make original vegan recipes with beans and stuff like that
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I’ll eat you.
I’ll go vegan once the oil companies have stopped killing our planet just for their numbers to go up and pinning it all on us living too extravagantly.
First fuck the rich, then change the rest.
You don’t have to go vegan all the way to make a big positive impact for greenhouse gas emissions. If you manage to reduce the consumption of animal products this already helps a lot!
You could also just eat the rich, that would help a lot more actually. Since people typically aren’t considered animals that’d even be vegan
Since people typically aren’t considered animals that’d even be vegan
Only deniers of biology consider humans anything other than animals. This rather medieval idea is part of our issue.
How much creepier would a cannibal be if they were vegan though?
Why do you want to continue your destructive habits just because others are also destructive?
I think I can eat meat a couple times a week without it weighing on my conscience, look at the numbers. I won’t change the world if I fuck up my diet and hapiness.
If the world changes and that would actually have an impact, then I’d do it despite the difficulty.
Its always someone elses responsibility isnt it. I wont stop beating my wife and kids as long as there are murderers out there.
Oh fuck off, I’m already doing whatever else I can for the environment, I can enjoy this while I can.
The most important thing we can do is get out and protest, not whine to one another because someone eats some meat or uses a straw now and then.
You dont want to be vegan and are using big polluters as an excuse. I dont blame you for not being vegan, but Im gonna call you out on your bs.
You dont want to be vegan and are using big polluters as an excuse.
they are the authority on their own motivations. you can’t tell them what their motivations are.
You are right. I could have added ‘They way you are acting you are showing that…’ at the beginning, but I wont do that every time Im assuming something. It should be obvious Im not readingtheir mind.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Almost a third of Swiss people changed their daily habits as a result of Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future climate strikes, new research has found.
Now, a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) has examined the wider impact of these strikes on people’s environmental choices.
To examine the wider impact of the school climate strikes, EPFL researchers surveyed Swiss residents in the wake of the protests in October and November 2019.
“Our findings showed that people have become more aware of how their behaviour affects the environment and that significant shifts are under way at an individual level,” says Livia Fritz, a researcher and the study’s lead author.
Changes in transport habits included looking for alternatives to driving to work, such as walking or cycling, and avoiding flying by choosing holiday destinations closer to home.
Survey participants also reported seeking out local, organic produce, eating more vegetarian meals, and making a bigger effort to reduce plastic waste following the climate protests.
The original article contains 421 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Changes in transport habits included looking for alternatives to driving to work, such as walking or cycling, and avoiding flying by choosing holiday destinations closer to home.
Survey participants also reported seeking out local, organic produce, eating more vegetarian meals, and making a bigger effort to reduce plastic waste following the climate protests.
Positively surprised to see effective measures, like avoid flying and meat.
IIRC Switzerland also has quite an exemplary carbon pricing scheme. I’m totally unaware how much flights and meat are encompassed. The general point I’m trying to make: It’s probably hard to say wether people changed their habits due to FFF, or due to policy changes. Of course, FFF likely influenced policy changes.
Either way, thanks for the uplifting news :)
Now I’m waiting for the more serious news how Swiss companies have changed their business practices ;)
Switzerland also has quite an exemplary carbon pricing scheme
No we don’t
Care to elaborate? I like the dividend part about the tax and dividend scheme.
If it were exemplary, our greenhouse gas emissions would go down like Prigozhin’s aeroplane. They don’t. Just like every other country we’re pretending to do something about the climate crisis but it’s too little, too late.
If you mean we’re better at it than say the US or other major powers then yes, but that’s not because we’re doing well, it’s because we’re doing less catastrophically terrible than them.
Ah yes, I’m totally with you. Maybe I was too enthusiastic in my wording.
I meant I like the tax & dividend implementation, with the attempt to make the tax progressive, so it does not burden the poor, but the rich.
Like all other carbon pricing schemes, the amount is way too low to have an effect quick and strong enough, that’s true.
There are no policies really affecting the choice to fly or eat meat.
The exemption from fuel taxes is a policy affecting air travel. Also, policies affecting competing modes of transportation.
Similarly, meat isn’t priced according to it’s true cost, which can be seen as a subsidy.
From my point of view, everything (including the two) should be included in carbon pricing, to prevent a distorted market.
Yeah I agree, what I meant is that as a Swiss citizen there are really no policies driving you towards producing less carbon. Or if there are you do not really notice them in your day to day life. So I am pretty sure the people did this on their own accord.
Look, any progress being made about environmental awareness is great, HOWEVER; this bullshit concept of offloading the responsibility of climate change strictly to the consumer is never going to fix the problem.
The people responsible for the largest amount of climate change are the insatiably wealthy that give absolutely no fucks about how much their mega corp ruins the planet.
I don’t know how the rest of the world feels, but here in the U.S., it’s basically impossible to buy anything that doesn’t come packaged in single use plastics, and half our population has been brainwashed to believe climate change is not even a concerning issue.
The companies that profit from blowing everything up should be responsible for cleaning everything up. I do my best to reduce, reuse and recycle, but my city doesn’t even recycle plastic bags because it clogs the machines, and everything comes in damn plastic bags. Putting solar on your house now comes with a high possibility of having your insurance policy canceled, etc, it’s literally one barrier after another, and my carbon footprint is pretty damn low.
Sorry for my rant, it is just very frustrating.
True, and single-use plastic wrappers are indeed a scourge.
But one thing is often omitted when ranting about “companies that profit from blowing everything up”: They often produce stuff that we a) don’t need and b) buy. Nobody needs new phones / computers every year, but they get produced. Almost nobody needs pickup trucks and SUVs, but the suburbs are full of the things. Nobody needs “fast fashion”, but here we go.
It’s true that international manufacturing companies cause a majority of CO2 pollution, but they produce stuff for everyone. If people bought less useless stuff, we’d be better off.
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I do my best to conserve, I have a 10 year old car I keep up and try not to purchase frivolous items, but everything is from hygiene products to food comes in single use plastics…
Things start to make a lot more sense when you realize plastic is a patroleum biproduct. Just think about the insane amount of power the oil and gas industry have. They get billions of dollars a year in subsidies, as basically blackmail to not raise gas prices, plus you know the blatant bribery.
No doubt that is a large part of it!
Yea, i’m sure Greta would be angry with this headline’s framing
This is great. Now we only have to get the governments to regulate global companies that spent millions on propaganda that climate change isn’t real.
Today they told in the radio news that FFF had an impact on “only” 25 % of Germans. IMHO that’s a lot.
That’s a Gretachievement!
I saw what you did here, that’s greta
The study is Open Access. If someone else wants to read it, just click the doi link:
Fritz, L., Hansmann, R., Dalimier, B. et al. Perceived impacts of the Fridays for Future climate movement on environmental concern and behaviour in Switzerland. Sustain Sci 18, 2219–2244 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-023-01348-7
I think this kind of activism is much more effective than the Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to roads and preventing ambulances from getting to hospitals.
Support for the climate movement has halved in two years in Germany because of these idiots.
While 68 percent of those surveyed in 2021 said they fundamentally supported the climate movement, the figure in the current publication has halved to 34 percent. What is striking is that support has declined significantly in all social groups, even in more progressive milieus that were otherwise more open to the movement.
When asked specifically about the “Last Generation” road blockades, 85 percent of those surveyed said they had no understanding of this form of protest.
Moderate change is insufficient. We need to reduce CO2 by 10% per year if we want to keep the 1.5° goal. We need a wide spectrum of civil protest.
Look at the history of womens’ voting rights. Or the anti vietnam war movement, or the no nukes movement.
Edit: The workers’ movements for 48 and 40 hour weeks were also militant, violent protests. Obedience is not everything in a democracy.
Moderate change might be insufficient, but you are confusing the size of the change with the extremity of the process. The evidence seems to show that some forms of more extreme protest _reduce _ the prospects of change
That’s why I said we need a wide spectrum of movements.
A wide, moderate base for people to use their passive democratic rights is the base for more radical people actively demanding change. As I said: look at the historical examples. Without the radical parts of the larger movements nothing would have changed.
Look at … the no nukes movement.
The campaign against the use of nuclear energy? Were they successful?
Big movements on developed countries won’t change how developing countries will treat the climate going forward. Do you really believe on the numbers reported by China for example? Do you think that poor countries where millions of people starve care about not burning hydrocarbons? CO2 production is a game of scales and the little we can contribute is just that, little, very little in fact if compared to what big industries do around the world.
If we invest to develop the technology for e.g. clean energy then we can easily export it. If solar becomes dirt cheap and easy to install and maintain then it would be perfect for Africa where it’s mostly sunny. Solar would be cheaper and easier than burning hydrocarbons.
People don’t seem to get that
- CO2 emissions are decoupled from GDP, and that
- developing countries might not walk the same path to prosperity as the industrialized countries did.
there is no absolute, global decoupling happening. it is a lie used to propagate dreams of green growth.
So it’s best to be a bad example? Why wouldn’t people then say “If very rich nations can’t even do it, then poorer nation surely can’t”, and suddenly nobody is doing anything?
Also: If you’re a developing country, why would you try to buy technology from 50 or 100 years ago? Why wouldn’t you buy low-cost technology of 2023, e. g. solar power? I don’t see the rock-solid connection that you are assuming.
Also: are you saying “developing countries might, in the future, emit lots of CO2” is an excuse for the current worst polluters to just continue? Would you accept it if I’m a serial robber and used the excuse “I expect a large number of poor people will commit a lot more robberies very soon”?
wow, chill bruh! I didn’t say I thought is wrong for those that can do it, do it. I criticised the apparent need for “revolution” over governments on developed countries. if you/me live in a developed country we are already doing better and will continue to do better, no doubt. Just don’t flatter yourself thinking that we must do this at any cost because other, poorer countries aren’t and won’t be for a very long time…
If the rich countries who can easily afford being green won’t do it, why should the poor countries who cannot?
So I guess we just die? What is your solution? All people of the world have to change what they CAN change. For me that is myself, my region and my country.
Support may have halved, but I can think of several possible reasons.
Maybe people decided it’s a lost cause, we’re on the sinking ship, and why not enjoy it while it lasts.
Maybe people realized that they would actually have to take moderate cuts, instead of just talking, doing little, and continuing as always (electing conservatives and neoliberals).
Maybe people fell for “Bild-Zeitung”'s campaigns (“a fraction of heating systems need to be changed out, with government financial assistance, by the year 2044” being portrayed as basically “the Green minister wants to forbid you from heating your home, starting next year”).
Maybe support wasn’t that sincere if it collapses that easily.
Maybe the last 3 years are not that different from the last 30 years. The rhetoric “please please think of how your children will live” in the last 30 years has impressed about 1 in 5 persons, but not more. 4 out of 5 just don’t care.
Maybe the surveys only got support because they presented the issue as “you won’t have to do or pay anything or have any inconvenience”.
Etc.
A few years ago, FFF were dangerous, lazy idiots blind to reality who just want to skip school and who scare people unnecessarily.
FFF today is often portrayed as moderate and reasonable.
Why the change? Does FFF now seem acceptable because they are relatively quiet and marginalized and clearly no threat to the status quo?
Suppose theoretically, FFF held the same large, constant demonstrations as they did a few years ago. Suppose they looked like they could actually influence politics. Wouldn’t they again be seen as suspicious and impossible to support for decent reasonable people?
Extinction Rebellion doesn’t glue themselves to the road. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
They have e. g. put banners on public art works in the city, being very careful that they attach them in a non-damaging, easily reversible way. (They were called dangerous and radical for that.)
Support for the climate movement has halved in two years in Germany because of these idiots.
People who changed their minds on the topic of needed actions against climate change because of this, never were real allies to begin with! These people would have jumped ship anyway the first time they would be requried to do the slightest change to their way of life. The impact climate change has on all of our lifes already and will continue to do so even more, hasn’t changed on bit simply because LG pissed off some people. So people who changed their minds certainly don’t understand how deep in shit we’re already in. These either need to be truely convinced or dragged with us while they kick and scream through laws!
It’s very easy to say your in favor of doing “something” when nothing is being done and nothing is required of you. Fuck these people and it’s good that we see how far we still are from actually getting the population on our side.
We do not even know from this poll, if people changed their mind about needed actions against climate change at all. We just know, that they dislike the Last Generation.
I disagree. I’m an ally, I’ve mainly gone vegetarian, cycle a bike most days and have solar panels on my roof. But when Extinction Rebellion glues themselves to my train , or splashes paint across a painting in an art gallery that pisses me off.
If a pollster had asked me the day after ‘do you support the movement’, I wouldn’t have been giving a clear ‘absolutely yes’ answer.
When exactly has XR splashed paint across art works? Across meaningless glass in front of art works - yes. But when was it art works? (Also: was that XR? I can’t remember exactly, but I very much doubt it.)
Who on Earth glued themselves to trains? That’s even more absurd of you to say.
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-50839406 - Extinction Rebellion activists guilty over train glue protest
- https://news.artnet.com/art-world/here-is-every-artwork-attacked-by-climate-activists-this-year-from-the-mona-lisa-to-girl-with-a-pearl-earring-2200804
The question in the poll wasn’t about ER but the climate movement in general. To no longer support the general movement because of a radical part of it when the need for it is obvious, is rather short sighted to say the least!
Especially if people are pissed off more about ER than the actual companies and people in charge who have dug us into this shit hole in the first place.
What I am saying is that when one part of the climate change movement steals the headlines, they become the climate change movement in the public’s eyes - and this may bias survey answers.
You’re being reasonable. You can’t do that here. You seem to be a good person, you do your part, you’re productive, you are social in real life, you breathe outdoors but don’t dare to criticise “the movement” otherwise the self-elected majority will silence you because you’re wrong.
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Supporting the climate movement and adapting environmental friendly habits are two different kind of shoes. That poll says nothing on how the Last Generation impacted stuff like voting decisions.
Proof that Europe is not too bright.
How so?
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