Although I don’t doubt that a dramatic reorganization of the Western diet is necessary; due to the twin evils of mass industrial agriculture, such as pollution and rampant abuse of animals. I do have contention with the people who preach to ordinary folks how they need to make enormous changes in their personal lives (changes that are often costly), yet downplay or turn a blind eye to the real cause of global pollution - the super rich and multinational corporations that exploit the environment with no regard for the consequences, all for the sake of profit. It’s the global 1% that contribute overwhelmingly to global pollution; the world’s poorest 50% barest make a tiny dent.
I think this is a very bad argument. Most sources of pollution can't be neatly divided into "perpetrated by the 1%" and "not perpetrated by the 1%". Are you going to tell me that only the global 1% uses commercial air travel (or any type of air travel for that matter), or that only the global 1% uses products industrially derived from petroleum? The fact is that much of modern Western society (and increasingly more of the global economy) relies on consumerism which is run on cheap electricity, cheap transit, and cheap manufactured products that are energy intensive to develop -- it's
not a problem of that only the 1% use or benefit from. You can make the argument that the 1% own means of production and derive the most profit from industrial energy use but you can't make the argument that the other 99% aren't culpable in any meaningful way, and that meaningful lifestyle changes wouldn't be constructive.
Viewing climate change and environmental degradation through a class lens can be very informative. This is not good example of that.
