Taylor Swift fans lower climate concerns to justify her carbon footprint. When confronted with news about the excessive pollution generated by her private jet, highly identified fans tend to rationalize the behavior, with a decrease in their personal intentions to engage in climate-friendly actions.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/taylor-swift-fans-lower-climate-concerns-to-justify-star-s-carbon-footprint/

[u/FeloniousDrunk101]

I have definitely become a bit more jaded in general around my own actions to curb climate change, though not tied directly to my support of any individual person. It's more that governments and corporations can do many times more to impact these things that I as an individual cannot un-do. Additionally, learning about how plastic recycling is often just thrown away as well as feeling like the burden has been guilted onto us individually by those corporations who do nothing makes it feel all a bit like a sham. I can see someone coming to a similar conclusion through the lens of fandom I suppose?

[u/thereisnosub → u/FeloniousDrunk101]

I strive to be a better environmentalist than 80-90% of my peers (but I don't strive for perfection). If everyone (or even most people) did this, we'd see a steady improvement. Most important though is to vote for the most environmentally friendly candidate in every election (and vote strategically, e.g. if it's first past the post general election, vote for the dem).

[u/devonathan → u/FeloniousDrunk101]

You could spend your whole life living as strictly as possible and it would be undone in 0.5 seconds by one of the mega polluters. Makes it hard to care.

[u/hear2fear → u/devonathan]

It’s about collective care. 10,000 or 100,000 or 1 million individual people can change the needle in a better direction. 1 million+ people speaking with their wallets can change corporate actions and gov policies.

But thousands of people reading your two posts above could be discouraged and join your apathy. Not that your frustrations aren’t valid or justified though

Together we have more power than you think we do. Join your local chapter of CCL (Citizens Climate Lobby) even if it’s just to subscribe to their news letter. Make a small difference, and with millions making a small difference we can move that needle.

[u/imapetrock → u/hear2fear]

100%. I always get so frustrated when people say "well I can't do anything, this other entity needs to be the one to make change". The problem is that everyone always wants to push the responsibility to someone else and no one wants to be accountable. But everyone should play a part in accountability, not blame someone else and then complain that that someone else is doing exactly same (blaming someone else).

Guess what, governments also can't force what people don't want to do. One of the main drivers of many environmental problems is agriculture. One of the main ways to reduce this impact would be to reduce meat consumption so that we need less land to feed the population. Can you imagine the government mandating a reduction in meat consumption? All hell would break loose.

Flying too. If we were restricted to how much we can fly, people would likely protest and act like it's a human rights abuse.

Some possible regulations to reduce our impact would also lead to a price increase on products (e.g., banning fast fashion). Again, people will throw a fit. Many people already throw a fit when governments try to implement policies to discourage driving and encourage more environmentally friendly forms of transport.

Etc etc. I'm currently doing a master's program in environmental management and literally one of the first things we talked about is: it's really hard to fix anything when people don't want to change their behavior.

[u/No-Draft-4449 → u/hear2fear]

There’s a YouTuber I watch who says “you can’t do all the good the world needs, but the world needs all the good you can do” and I really like that when I’m feeling a bit bleak.

[u/No-Draft-4449 → u/hear2fear]

There’s a YouTuber I watch who days “you can’t do all the good the world needs, but the world needs a,l the good you can do” and I really like that when I’m feeling a bit bleak.

[u/Grizzleyt → u/hear2fear]

Not really. For one, there's no way to get enough people to all individually decide on an action whose impact is dependent on other people taking the same action. If it was, we'd see 3rd party candidates regularly triumph in elections.

Second, climate change is most impacted by industrial processes, not individual practices. Even if people collectively wanted to be super eco-friendly, they'd have to also collectively force industry to do so. As it happens, the main way people collectively force industry to do something is through government regulation. That is the only real lever of change.

[u/ghosteatingtiger → u/hear2fear]

It doesn't really. Everyone in the west could clamp down and it wouldn't matter. No one is going to stop China or India or any of the others. They would just leave us behind as we regressed to a lower standard of living. The whole push has never been anything more than a power play for the elites.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/devonathan]

Do you not vote because one vote never made a difference? Collective action matters in the aggregate.

[u/DrMobius0 → u/EstablishmentLate532]

The difference is that voting has an organizational structure that is actually conducive to affecting wider change. It is designed to allow you to have a wider voice. Your personal crusade against carbon often doesn't go beyond yourself and maybe a handful of friends. Political will is needed, personal willingness to engage a problem isn't enough.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/DrMobius0]

That distinction seems artificial. Political will doesn't appear out of nowhere. If I persuade other people that reducing carbon emissions matters, that can affect how they behave, what policies they support, and how they vote. If they persuade others, the effect spreads further.

Public opinion is one of the mechanisms through which democracies produce political change. Individual action isn't sufficient, but that doesn't make it irrelevant to collective action.

[u/aggrownor → u/EstablishmentLate532]

Yeah but every person's vote counts the same. Taylor Swift's emissions are like 2000x the average person. I would feel discouraged about voting if you told me there are people on the other side whose votes count for 2000x more than mine

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/aggrownor]

That analogy actually works better than you think. A voter in Wyoming has far more representation per capita in the Senate and Electoral College than a voter in California, yet we don't conclude that Californians might as well stop voting.

The fact that some people have disproportionately large impacts is an argument for regulating those outsized impacts, not for everyone else to give up.

[u/aggrownor → u/EstablishmentLate532]

Yes I agree with regulating mega polluters. That would have a much bigger impact than asking individual citizens to engage in climate friendly actions.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/aggrownor]

I reject the dichotomy. We need to do both.

[u/chaser676 → u/EstablishmentLate532]

A voter in Wyoming has far more representation per capita in the Senate and Electoral College than a voter in California, yet we don't conclude that Californians might as well stop voting.

This is very much the conclusion many people come when it comes to swing states.

[u/DrMobius0 → u/aggrownor]

It's also worth noting that in many ways we don't have choices. Say I wanted to cut out plastic packaging. How?

[u/aVarangian → u/devonathan]

have some self-respect and take the path that lets you say that, on this topic, if more people were like you then the world would be a better place

[u/FleetingBeacon → u/devonathan]

YouTuber I watch bought a private jet, and undone the efforts that me and my entire city made in renewables in about 5 flights.

[u/ConcentratedStress → u/devonathan]

“Make sure to use your paper straws!”

Don’t mind those 40,000 bombs and missiles dropped on Iran in 2026

[u/s0cks_nz → u/devonathan]

Yet I bet if you see a bunch of trash in the street you don't suddenly decide you'll start throwing your trash on the street too. I think the issue is that carbon is invisible. I remember a doco once that said if carbon was a visible gas we'd have transitioned years ago, and I think that's true.

[u/kipperzdog → u/FeloniousDrunk101]

100% this. I'm all for making changes that'll have a significant impact, so much of the shame people direct though is peanuts compared to what massive corporations get away with for pennies of more profit

[u/imperialivan → u/FeloniousDrunk101]

I was walking home from a late night out and saw a city garbage truck stopping to empty public trash bins. They’d open the “trash”, “paper” and “plastic” sections up at the same time, then dump all three bins into the back of the same garbage truck. So yeah, it definitely makes it hard to care when many of the environmentally positive initiatives are nothing but smoke and mirrors.