It doesn't help that most people's Ecological awareness is such a complete total joke that even for those who believe themselves as ecologically-minded ends at the point were they're faced with, say, walking to take their kids to a school less than 1km away instead of going by car

This tracks. Whenever I visit Portuguese relatives I'm always surprised by how quickly they default to the car. Once, it was literally to just take us to a train station that we could see with our eyes from where we were staying.

Weren't a bunch of politicians caught in a scandal there recently about deals with fossil fuel companies?

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's one of those things that "everybody does it" so only those who have lived elsewhere were the car culture is different tend to notice it.

As for politicians, just 2 days ago the Prime Minister resigned because he's offically a suspect in some shenennigans involving "green hydrogen" (plus licensing for lithium mines and a massive data center project) which also caught somebody he has described as his "best friend" in the past, a senior member of the PM's office (who is an ex-junior minister that lost his post in a smaller scandal involving an energy company a few years ago) and another minister.

Things haven't been this entertaining over here in ages.