You can do both. Campaign for political change and change your personal behaviour. I've done radical changes to my life at least last few years to reduce my pollution/co2 footprint and if more people think like this it _will_ help.
So saying that there is nothing that can be done on the individual level is quite dangerous as I personally think over time this will have the biggest effect as more and more people realise that is what has to be done.
Then you need the politicians to kick remaining ignorant part of the population into action.
On the other hand, if a small percentage of concerned citizens do everything they personally can without changing the political climate, nothing will change.
In Ontario (Canada) we elected a conservative government who is running advertisements against the Federal Carbon Tax saying:
> “Ontario has a better way: holding the biggest polluters accountable; reducing trash; and keeping our lakes clean. A carbon tax isn’t the only way to fight climate change.”
My government thinks reducing trash and lake runoff is fighting climate change. Everything I've personally done; switching to public transit, flying less and buying my electricity from a green supplier has been swamped by this huge step backward at the political level.
The politicians definitely have to be on board in the end but when you say your efforts are swamped, remember that it is not just you, there are millions of us changing our behaviour and trying to reduce the carbon footprint.
Together we actually make a difference. Personally I also try to encourage friends and family in a non pushy way to attempt some of the things I do. Many respond positively, especially considering other benefits like eating more healthy and walking more.
Dunno - if you look at the ozone hole business it was fixed by a global action to ban CFCs and the like. An individual stopping using aerosols or what have you wouldn't really have fixed things.
With CO2 emissions we have a lot of individuals trying to make changes and again it's not really fixing things - CO2 levels keep going up. It's a bit trickier than the ozone thing though.
Banning CFCs etc did not require people to fundamentally change their lifestyles.
Reducing carbon emissions does so and due to that it requires knowledge and action from the individual I think as a politician trying to change people who do not want to change is doomed.
It is a lot trickier than the ozone issue and I think it requires action on all levels from the individual to the UN.
I agree the CO2 tax is a big part of the solution. The real cost of externalities has to be priced into consumer goods. One just has to hope everyone is on board and nobody becomes the Cayman Islands of CO2. Hopefully such a system will eventually be extended to other forms of externalities.
The price change will hopefully also accelerate R&D into alternatives which will also be a big part.
Boycotts have never toppled an industry as far as I'm aware. In this case the beef or aviation industries could be targeted. They have only succeeded in small changes and when customers have very similar alternatives they can use.
You don't have to aim to topple the industry, just pressure them to make changes, with the implied threat of a boycott.
I'll admit that approach works better with a simpler less wide ranging issue. Examples off the top of my head, in the UK I don't believe you can buy non fair trade bananas from any of the major supermarkets, and most eggs now seem to be free range.
Yes, most eggs. I just checked and 44% are intensively farmed(not free range). Generally most use in processed food and catering will be of a lesser quality standard. Funnily enough the environmental impact is usually less for intensively farmed food.
"Funnily enough the environmental impact is usually less for intensively farmed food"
What are you comparing here? Could a mega farm invest in slightly more efficient processes than a mere 'very large farm'? Possibly. But by that time you've already got all the issues of grubbing up hedgerows, mono cropping, reliance on artificial fertilizers, soil erosion, etc.
A small organic subsistence farmer isn't going to have anywhere near the same impact. Now you may not be able to feed the world using that model, but I don't think its fair to say that the environmental impact is worse compared to intensive agriculture.
It would be good to have a system in place to reward measurable action on the individual level.
One example might be to institute a "carbon savings account" which individuals add to when they add solar panels, buy more efficient vehicles and appliances, reduce their heating bills... whatever's measureable. Mandatory restrictions on carbon-intensive activity (there's no way around that anyway) would enable spending these rewards.
> It would be good to have a system in place to reward measurable action on the individual level.
Wouldn't a Carbon Tax do exactly that? At least it would bring your individual financial interests in line with with society's climate interests. It would mean that doing whatever costs you the least money is likewise best for your carbon footprint (which you would no longer have to think about in order to optimize).
>I've done radical changes to my life at least last few years to reduce my pollution/co2 footprint and if more people think like this it _will_ help.
Ah yes, the 1%, living in their mansions and driving Teslas to their summer homes, telling the rest of the world that they need to "make radical changes". Good luck with that.
I'm far from being in the 1%, however the things I've done personally so far is
* Use public transportation to work (bus/train)
* Drastically reduced meat consumption from every day to
once a week. I still eat fish about twice a week.
* Converted part of my garden (my house is 150 square meters so I wouldn't exactly call it a mansion) to a vegetable garden.
* Make sure the food I do buy is produced locally, it is clearly marked in the stores. I buy honey and eggs from the farm right next door.
* When I do go to the store I walk instead of driving.
* I bought but have not yet received an electric car. Yes it's a tesla but I have a normal job and with the way taxes are structured here it's a very common car on the road along with other electrics like leafs, e-trons, kias, e golfs etc.
* Not travelling too far for vacations, avoiding air travel as much as possible. Recently I've mostly use air due to work, but there too I often drive/take the train 8-10 hours instead of taking the plane.
There is plenty more to do, but for me personally I can't just sit idle and you have to start somewhere.
And last I did not tell anyone to radically change their lives, I said I did so myself. But the more people that do it the better.
Again, most people on the planet are just scraping by.
They don't have time to garden.
They can't afford to shop at farmer's markets.
They can't afford most cars, let alone electric vehicles.
I assume your intentions are good, but climate change won't be remotely close to solved by such measures, and when people say, "I bought a Tesla so I could drive it to my summer home and do my part for the planet!" it probably causes more resentment from the 99% than anything else.
I am wondering if you see any possibility to avoid work related air travel as well? I understand that certain jobs require flying but I also see, at least at my own company, that a lot of those flights are not really necessary and could easily be avoided. Would you mind to elaborate?
There are some ways to reduce air travel imho (and probably other ways to do so).
* Video conferencing
* Car/train/bus transportation if the hours used is acceptable. A good way to do this is a "night train" with a sleeping compartment.
* The big one: electric planes.
However it is a though one. Sometimes you just have to travel far to meet someone face to face and unfortunately the only way to achieve this in a reasonable way today is by hydrocarbon burning air travel.
You can do both. Campaign for political change and change your personal behaviour. I've done radical changes to my life at least last few years to reduce my pollution/co2 footprint and if more people think like this it _will_ help.
So saying that there is nothing that can be done on the individual level is quite dangerous as I personally think over time this will have the biggest effect as more and more people realise that is what has to be done.
Then you need the politicians to kick remaining ignorant part of the population into action.