> Can there be anything more destructive to society??
Yeah. Just about every modern industry. Even aggregated across all people, personal creation of "pollution" is all but insignificant compared top industry.
"The evidence, unfortunately, comes in the form of the worst pandemic to hit humanity in a century. We were confined. We were quarantined, and in many places still are. Forced by an insidious parasite, many of us dramatically slashed our individual carbon footprints by not driving to work and flying on planes. Yet, critically, the true number global warming cares about — the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide saturating the atmosphere — won’t be impacted much by an unprecedented drop in carbon emissions in 2020 (a drop the International Energy Agency estimates at nearly eight percent compared to 2019). This means bounties of carbon from civilization’s cars, power plants, and industries will still be added (like a bank deposit) to a swelling atmospheric bank account of carbon dioxide. But 2020’s deposit will just be slightly less than last year’s. In fact, the levels of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere peaked at an all-time high in May — because we’re still making big carbon deposits."
I found that quote really hard to parse, but I think what it’s saying is the derivative of CO2 concentration in the air did become negative. Not sure what that has to do with individual contributions to emissions vs industries. I’m not sure the distinction even makes sense, since industries are composed of individuals (any individual emission can also be allocated to one or more industries, and any industrial emission can be allocated to one or more individuals).
Well, yes, because people continued to purchase things that were made in ways that had a fossil fuel footprint–be it meat or clothing or consumer electronics. The issue with the fossil fuel footprint is not "big companies shouldn't guilt you into reducing your carbon emissions", it should be "carbon footprints are not holistic enough to capture the full supply chain of how your choices emit carbon" and "large carbon emitters that are not meaningfully affected by the market should be taxed so that their externalities become apparent".
Save your breath for useful activism such as electric cars, cycling and renewables. Shaming people for having a good time is pointless and counterproductive.
I think you make a good point, just no need for the hyperbole. We should all be thinking through the downsides of our ideas not just the "hey wouldn't it be neat..." part.
