General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why do people drive SUVs? [View all]primavera
(5,191 posts)So you drive less than many people do, good, that's nice. If you were to drive those fewer miles in a vehicle that got better gas mileage and produced fewer emissions, you could be doing even better, leaving an even smaller carbon footprint. I'm not trying to suggest that you personally are some egregious offender, but I don't understand your logic. You seem to be ready to lay 100% of the blame for pollution and adverse environmental impact at the feet of irresponsible companies. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely at the front of the lynch mob looking for BP's head on a spike. But if ordinary consumers didn't behave as they did, and as you apparently feel comfortable justifying, BP wouldn't be out there drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf in the first place. Consumer behavior may not be the proximate cause of oil spills, but it is still a cause in fact, i.e., a "but for" cause. It sometimes seems like champions of free choice are terribly eager to assert their rights to make their own individual choices, but if/when those choices produce adverse repercussions, they have no desire to accept responsibility for them. To be sure, SUV drivers are not solely responsible for all of our excessive energy consumption and resultant environmental problems - every man, woman, and child living on planet earth and consuming energy bears their own infinitesimally small portion of responsibility for those problems that affect not only themselves, but everyone else with whom they share the planet. For that reason, I think all of us have some duty to each other to do our best to minimize, as much as our circumstances allow us to, that adverse impact. How much each person can do is obviously up to each person to decide for themselves and, if you need a gas guzzler for your business or to get around in adverse weather or over crappy roads or whatever, that's great. What I don't understand is why people claim that their freedom of choice absolves them altogether from any responsibility for even trying to minimize the adverse effects of their choices.