It may be a simplified view, but I see it as part of a statement that changing power structure to be able to regulate these industries is more important than individual actions. That is, the status quo has these corporations running free controlling the govt, but only curbing the pollution at the point of production is what will bring non-negligable change.

So, if changing your individual actions takes your time away from building left power than that’s not worth your time. Of course, do what you can if it is doable within your capability.

i won’t speak to what collective effort in bringing manufacturing to heel looks like, but i personally think it’s important for individuals to just generally not be wasteful, as much as their own personal power allows.

as individuals, we all exist along the line of having some power. people with less power are less culpable. they can’t avoid wasting energy due to inefficiencies created by capitalism (their landlord, building codes, zoning, etc). they can only eat what they can afford and have time for. they need to survive. they are helping others survive. you get the idea. most of humanity under capitalism has very little power or control over their resource usage, unless they are willing to have some primitive, unpleasant existence. i think that is a sort of trap as well.

for a lot of us westoids and ameroids, we might use a lot more resources to survive that our cousins around the world, but our power to conserve is still structurally very limited. but among those that have some power… like the ability to relocate, own a home, choose an employer/career, walk to work, make decisions for a group, make recommendations to a group, create organizational policy, etc, we have a responsibility to use that power to conserve resources and mitigate/adapt to climate change. of course, all that in isolation isn’t enough. collective action to go after and shut down very powerful bad faith actors and organizations is crucial. but that doesn’t absolve individuals with some individual power from pushing for conservation and just transitions.

we’re not going to get there from “green capitalism” or green-branded conspicuous consumption. collective action against capitalism is the real fight, but for those on the left with a little bit of juice have a responsibility to push where they can and make sure we are targeting other decision makers and not shaming broke people for not getting an electric audi or whatever.

These companies are incredibly wasteful and are opposed to the necessary changes to at minimum achieve net zero. This is because of the basic mechanisms of capital, i.e. they’d get less profit. And also because there’s no cost - or much lower cost to them as companies - to be wasteful. Same reason they throw away food while people go hungry, at every step in the supply chain, multiplied tenfold because of how much redundancy capitalism has in production.

So, my first point is that there’s plenty of room for changes and that they don’t require us having less consumer goods.

My second point is about power and control. These arguments are brought up in the contexts of individual action, government regulation, revolution, etc. The fact that so much waste is upstream of “consumer choices” (which is already an anemic tool) means we can’t fix this through “demand” or “the market” left to its own devices. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie makes sure this is the case: don’t fuck with our short-term profits, they say (and are forced to say by the economic system). Pointing the finger at companies is the first step towards an ecosocialist position by undercutting the “individual choices” argument and placing focus on production and those who control it.