Sunday, 4 October 2020
quote [ Kyle Devine, in his recent book, “Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music,” thoroughly dismantles that seductive illusion. Like everything we do on the Internet, streaming and downloading music requires a steady surge of energy. Devine writes, “The environmental cost of music is now greater than at any time during recorded music’s previous eras.”
[…] In environmental terms, however, the CD turned out to be somewhat less deleterious. ] My footprint brings all the boys to the yard. Full in extended.
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mechavolt said @ 7:41pm GMT on 4th Oct
[Score:4 Underrated]
Hey consumers! Even though we've thoroughly rigged the system to hijack aggregate behavior, we're going to blame you for the consequences! Please ignore us destroying the world by focusing on the miniscule things you do that have almost zero impact.
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snowfox said @ 5:39am GMT on 5th Oct
Now I can't remember if it was here or somewhere else I read that heavily polluting, large corporations were the ones who pushed the idea of the individual carbon footprint.
I think all of this should be regulated into the price of consumer items. Everything that items actually costs society from its manufacture, to its disposal, to its consequences should be represented in its price. I'd call it True Cost. Companies can either subsidize their products or pass the expense onto consumers and hope they still buy the item. I would also want it to be easy to look up the cost breakdown. |
captainstubing said @ 8:53am GMT on 5th Oct
A simple carbon tax would be a start.
But I agree - we could certainly do much more in these areas. Much more. Even a bit more would be a worthwhile step. |
steele said @ 11:25am GMT on 5th Oct
[Score:1 Underrated]
A carbon tax was an option back in maybe the 60's?
1. A carbon tax now would be passed directly to the consumer. 2. Adding a tax to products which people can't live without isn't going to lower consumption a dramatic amount. It's just going to lead to unrest like the Yellow Vest movement. 3. This is a problem of infrastructure. It was produced by organizations building their monopoly (undermining trollies, public transport, light rails. Encouraging endless consumption, etc.) and it's been maintained by those same methods and organizations. Capitalist solutions are just letting our wheels spin out as we skid to our end. As the pope was recently kind enough to point out, the pandemic and other emergencies have demonstrated that capitalism is incapable of solving the problems it creates and enables. You wanna stop climate change you have to stand up the system. It's sad because this whole bit where everyone was working from home/quarantined was the perfect opportunity to implement a UBI and begin the process of winding down the machine, but again the Kochtopus and their ilk astroturfed everything back to a deadly status quo. Paul Mason's Post-Capitalism had a decent lay out of how society could transition to a post-scarcity carbon neutral state in a peaceful manner, but we're pretty much past that point now. Especially in the US. |
snowfox said @ 10:10pm GMT on 5th Oct
I was thinking of putting drunk driving costs into alcohol, quitting programs into cigarettes, and the expense of pressure washing the sidewalk into chewing gum. A major city spends a few million a year cleaning gum off sidewalks.
People have no idea what the real cost to society is for most things they consume. |
Paracetamol said @ 7:18am GMT on 6th Oct
Not sure if tightly linking products and their resulting costs is really the best way.
But you're right: in the end, it's important to enable reflection on consumption. |
snowfox said @ 5:35am GMT on 5th Oct
I still buy CDs so I can rip them at the quality I want and they can't be removed from my library because a license ran out or the seller made a mistake.
You can get index card alphabet tabs, they're just the right height for your album collection. I want to get a record player for all the old vinyl my dad has lying around but there are so many options now I don't know which one to get. Open to suggestions! |
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:37pm GMT on 5th Oct
I used to buy and rip cds, but I have all the old albums I want and I no longer care about new albums.
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