[kfarr]

IMHO the #1 thing you can do is not use a car and help others not use cars, including working to get the infrastructure necessary in urban, suburban and rural contexts to make that possible. That is what I put my energy into on a local level.

[eldaisfish]

We really need to stop placing the burden on the individual. You and I not using cars or minimising our use may help but cars are a necessity of life for many. This is true in urban and rural contexts alike.

What we should be doing is getting governments to band together and penalise industrial-scale polluters. It would do more good to take shipping and trucking electric than for you to rely on public transit and for me to drive one fewer kilometre.

[realce]

> We really need to stop placing the burden on the individual.

That's the person who incentivized the polluters to pollute in the first place. The individual had no standards except an expanding "quality of life" and they were given just what they demanded: consumption without regard for consequence. This attitude perpetuates it.

You vote with your dollars. Our current corporate players are who we paid them to be.

[spaced-out]

The average person is focused on problems in their own life and doesn't have time to keep track of every dollar they spend and what it supports.

When a hole was developing in the ozone layer advocates spent years trying to get people to stop buying the chemicals that were responsible, to no avail. Same with the issue of lead in gasoline and white phosphorous in matches. The solution in all those cases was to simply pass laws to stop a handful of companies from producing those products rather than try to raise awareness in millions of people.

[kfarr]

> What we should be doing is getting governments to band together and penalise industrial-scale polluters.

I agree with this as well. We should do all of the above.

[thehappypm]

This doesn’t really work in a democracy. Look how high gas prices have turned so many Americans against Biden, and that isn’t because of some anti-climate-change policy. Try to fight climate change at the ballot box, next election you lose all your seats as more people want $2 gas than care about the environment.

[nickff]

Industrial-scale polluters are often catering to consumer-level demand. Clamping down on industry may be easier, but it will restrict the consumer (either via reduced selection or increased prices). Individual-level voluntary action has the benefits of being more flexible and less tyrannical.

[eropple]

> Individual-level voluntary action has the benefits of being more flexible and less tyrannical.

It also doesn't work, while serving as a political shield to protect industrial-scale polluters. But it allows you to deliver with hauteur, so it passes generally without comment and things continue to get worse.

[SuoDuanDao]

I would argue though, that if politics really is downstream from culture, that there needs to first be a robust culture that is anticonsumerist. These cultures exist, the FIRE set being the most clear-eyed to my way of thinking. If there is no culture that is willing to unplug from the destructive systems, there's no viable political movement either.

[mcv]

Reducing car use is of course a good idea, but it's not enough, and it feels rather pointless if everybody else, especially corporations, continues to pollute like it doesn't matter. Measures need to have teeth. Pollution needs to be taxed with the amount necessary to reverse it.

[trinovantes]

> cars are a necessity of life

The problem is this mindset. Build better and more sustainable cities instead of the suburban hell that is in most of North America

[eropple]

This comment is unhelpful and ineffective, for if it were so easy, it would be done already. People have to live with the decisions that their grandparents' generation made because the inertia of it puts it firmly out of the reach of the individual.

[kfarr]

We do NOT have to live with the decisions of our grandparents. We can change the world.

[eropple]

You get that we're talking about individual "responsibility" versus collective mass impact, yeah?

There aren't enough sufficiently-walking-friendly places to live at affordable enough rates to support most individuals in the United States going "welp, guess I'm not gonna drive". Devolving to individuals erases responsibility at levels where the necessary power actually exists.

[chapium]

Individuals run corporations and collectively we make decisions. Cars are a necessity for some, but many can find alternatives or lobby their local governments to improve alternate forms of transit.

[lotsofpulp]

That would piss off "the individual" because it would result in higher prices and hence lower consumption and hence lower quality of life.

[criddell]

That’s a hard sell. The personal utility one gets from a car is enormous and life changing. The contribution to the climate problem from one car is minuscule (but real).

A better approach might be to add a tax to carbon-based fuels that is used to fund carbon capture.

[lamontcg]

I work from home so I only drive 4k to 5k miles a year and not the 15k or whatever most people put on their vehicles. I also drive a 2003 that I bought used about 10 years ago (which means less depreciation, I can "self-insure" for collision/comprehensive, and I didn't require a factory to pump out all that carbon to build me a new car). Does require giving up the sense of self-identity that you get from chasing after a new vehicle every couple of years, but you can still get that utility out of old vehicles that aren't status symbols.

And one big thing that Americans can all do first is give up the idea that you have to do something perfectly or else you're a total failure at it.

[pengaru]

Not having any kids is both easier and more impactful.

[SuoDuanDao]

That seems like it simply creates an evolutionary pressure against caring about the collective future.

[lamontcg]

I'm happy to pay for other people's kids to get good educations because I don't want to be surrounded by idiots. Just because you don't have kids doesn't mean you're not living in the same society.

[pengaru]

In some fantasy world where enough people act selflessly for this to be a theoretically significant issue, such concerned folks can just donate sperm/eggs. We already have a mature industry for handling that.

Fact is the vast majority of humans reproduce and will continue to do so, no matter how many comments on HN try advocate otherwise.

But I'm an optimist; go childless, we've got headcount more than covered here on Earth! Don't let society make you feel guilty or selfish for not throwing more fuel on this raging inferno of a dumpster fire.