[jsdalton]

It’s a nice thought. But imagine there was a giant flood in your neighborhood, and your solution was to grab a spoon from the kitchen and start scooping spoonfuls town the drain.

Maybe your example would inspire your neighbors to reach into their own kitchen drawers for a spoon, and maybe in some happy version of the universe all the spoons would add up to enough and your neighborhood would be saved.

I don’t think this metaphor is as poor as it sounds — if anything a spoonful of water against a neighborhood flood is probably orders of magnitude more significant than your personal contribution to slowing global warming.

So I’ve come to the opposite conclusion as you: this focus on personal efficiency is misguided, and we should spend the vast majority of our efforts on advocating for policy shifts like increased carbon taxes and technological solutions.

[throwaway5752]

I think the better example would be everyone grabbing a sandbag. It's not going to stop the flood, but it can protect some buildings. Your example is bad because you posit everyone making individual changes will make no difference. That is false. Everyone acting together will not solve it, but it will make a dent. Your order of magnitudes are off.