Also, I think there's optimism in people talking about how living a happier, more social life can also be one that happens to be lower in carbon intensity. I currently live in a very car-dependent detached house on an island (so reliant on planes to go anywhere) and am viewing flats now in a place where I can live car-free and go places via train.
And on top of all that, every time I have lived in a place where I could walk, bike, or take public transit, I was happier, healthier, and saw my friends _much_ more. But people have been sold a lie that living near their friends and being able to take a train or bus places is a "downgrade".
There’s stuff people can do. Eat less/no meat. Buy an EV. Etc. But then commentators will refute that with all sorts of stuff “one person can’t make any sizable impact,” “EVs are powered from the grid which isn’t carbon neutral”, “EV tires spread particulate emissions.” Etc.
Thing is, denialism and stopping progress makes people looking for solutions also more extreme.
So who knows. Maybe part of the answer is partially ignoring or severely discounting certain Internet discourse.
Edit-so the early replies to my comment highlight my point.
On thinking further, people do need to talk. But the internet is clearly a noisy channel that props up voices that might not even exist outside of a special interest funding them (through bots and well funded campaigns). And people doing futile (because of bigger, larger problems an individual can’t directly stop) personal efforts might act as a pressure release. So what if they can’t turn off a big container ship or stop a wasteful airliner there’s at least doing what they can do. Especially if it’s relatively peacefully and part of normal process. Better than destroying a piece of art in the name of “awareness.”
Edit2-Unless radicalism from the other side is what commentators against individual emissions choices want? Push down thise concerned about climate change so that they do something radical, point to it, and suggest people should just continue business as usual.
I don’t think that people shouldn’t make individual decisions, but I think their individual decisions should be made in much broader contexts that individual lifestyle adjustments have limited impact. (Eg. Any veganism on one persons part would be wiped away by a non-necessary plane ride.)
It is important to also make broader policy changes, like regulating wasteful plastic packaging in the pipeline (not just at the retail, but storing manufacturing/processing materials).
EV's are a half-assed patch and meant to be a drop-in replacement for ICE's until we can do something better, but sadly they've mostly been an excuse for even bigger, faster, heavier, more dangerous vehicles.
I just want to ride my bike and take the train for most of my daily needs, maybe using an hourly car hire for the other trips.
> I just want to ride my bike and take the train for most of my daily needs, maybe using an hourly car hire for the other trips.
If that's what you want, cool,
you almost certainly can find a life situation where it's possible. It's people who want to forcibly make everyone live that way that are the problem.
"you almost certainly can find a life situation where it's possible"
The opposite, really. Car-dependence is the default and being able to live well without a car, especially as a family, is very challenging. Sadly we've forcibly made everyone live that way (imagine that!) except for the few who can afford well designed places.
Yeah to re-make public spaces across the cities and towns in that image would require probably a 10s to 100s of trillions in infrastructure spending. Enough to make my personal dream of an aqueduct in to the southwest from the Pacific and associated desalination projects (and mineral separation) a pittance.
An individual cannot make a sizable impact compared to the insurmountable damage corporate greed has already caused. Not to mention the proposed “solutions” only cause further ecological damage and reinforce corporate interests.
We have billionaires like Bill Gates telling us to eat bugs instead of meat to “save the planet” while he forcibly e-wastes billions of devices with Windows 10’s end-of-life. We have EV manufacturers pushing to mine lithium, which like most mining is incredibly ecologically damaging, while simultaneously making repair (and thus the sustainability of their cars) nearly impossible. Petroleum products produced en masse and discarded into literal trash islands in the oceans. The destruction of wildlife habitats such as the rainforests. Hell, entire cities in China are nearly uninhabitable due to mass pollution from corporations moving production there.
While we are all to blame, some are more to blame than others. And no, going “carbon neutral” doesn’t mean anything when you’re still actively dumping waste products onto the Earth.
Also, I think there's optimism in people talking about how living a happier, more social life can also be one that happens to be lower in carbon intensity. I currently live in a very car-dependent detached house on an island (so reliant on planes to go anywhere) and am viewing flats now in a place where I can live car-free and go places via train.
And on top of all that, every time I have lived in a place where I could walk, bike, or take public transit, I was happier, healthier, and saw my friends _much_ more. But people have been sold a lie that living near their friends and being able to take a train or bus places is a "downgrade".