[ehnto]

It won't help. The majority of emissions are industrial and commercial. If you want to look at actions like that I would see them through the lens of local sustainability which is a fantastic goal. Unfortunately a single cargo ship idling in the dock would probably erase the carbon savings of every good willed vegetable purchase.

What you as an individual can actually do is contact your delegates, your ministers, your officials, your industry partners, whoever you have access to, and tell them exactly why it's their problem to solve. You not buying bananas is a good gesture, but a carbon tax that makes out of season bananas unprofitable is where we need to implement the change.

[acdha]

Your first sentence is flat-out wrong for two reasons: the most obvious is that while not sufficient to solve the problem, it clearly does help but the second is the psychological benefits. Telling people things they can do right now don't matter is depressing; getting them in the habit of thinking about ways to reduce their personal impact is part of helping build the social inertia which is needed to get the various people you mentioned in your second paragraph to listen. Someone who feels good and – far more importantly – gets positive feedback towards making a change rather than a cynical “it won't help” is probably going to keep doing things like that (drop beef next!), and probably explore ways to make their commute less expensive too.

One way to think about it which might be helpful is to triage your targets: have a short-term goal which you could do today with no real barriers (e.g. pick a protein other than beef), a mid-term goal which you can do on your own but might take some planning (bike / transit to work or shop, use a clothesline instead of a drier, replace old non-electric appliances in your house with electric ones, buy your electricity from a renewables supplier, etc.), and a long-term goal with more dependencies which you can't do quickly or on your own (get involved in local politics to reduce car usage, hound your elected representatives, etc.).

[ehnto]

I was a bit cynical with the absolutism it is true. I know you aren't wrong on your other points too, believe me. I implement a lot of your suggestions already even. It's just that it will be for nothing if we can't convince our politicians to force the hand of industry to change.

As well, while you and I are doing the right thing, it's likely we are the minority, and for many it's just due to the economics of their situation. We have built a societal appratus that pollutes, it's not fair to put the onus of change on the individuals when they have the least agency of all. Although of course we can do our various parts to help.

My cynacism is probably better seen as exasperation, because it is absolutely mind boggling that we are at the point we are yet the only levers we have are to eat less fruit, or take a bus. Why isn't one of our levers "ban fossil fuel entirely in industries where there are alternatives"? Why is it up to us to correct for profit chasing industrial practices?

[Bancakes]

Telling people to rile up against climate change let's industrialism get away with it. If I'm to downgrade my life, it better be from trickle down ecology rather than frugality.

[landemva]

' replace old non-electric appliances in your house with electric ones '

I have a functional can opener in my kitchen which I crank by hand. The suggestion to replace it with an electric version is stupid virtue signalling.

My toilet runs on water pressure, gravity, and me pressing the lever. Should I get a model with wifi actuated electric flush handle?

I have not had a TV in a couple decades. What TV with wifi and always-on do you recommend to virtue signal?

My car has a cassette tape deck. Should I replace the car for a new model with a built-in 20" dashboard TV to signal that I save the planet?

[acdha]

> I have a functional can opener in my kitchen which I crank by hand. The suggestion to replace it with an electric version is stupid virtue signalling.

Ah, “virtue signaling”, ever the reliable indicator that someone is attempting to converse in good faith.

Take this as an opportunity to learn what a major appliance is and that some of them burn natural gas or use electricity very inefficiently:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_appliance

[landemva]

Really, what TV should I get to save the planet? Are there models with big 'energy efficient' stickers and a few green leaves?

I'm keeping my hand-crank can opener. No need to take this opportunity to research electric can opener appliance energy usage.

[agumonkey]

he probably meant replace fossil/gas with electric

not to replace passive ones

[BLKNSLVR]

Downvote first paragraph, upvote second :)

Those things are still worth doing because en masse it has an effect, and if the single cargo ship is idling in the dock, then that doubles the negative effect, so offsetting counts for... something, at least.

[ehnto]

That's fair, I am a little bashful in this regard sorry.

We are decades beyond the pail at this point is why. There is of course reason to change your own behavior, but we need rock solid actionables from industry to change emissions at the scale we need.

[titzer]

> It won't help.

If I've learned one thing from plugging holes in my insulation, is that leaks are cumulative. A crack here, a hole there, a bad seal there, a gap in the insulation there; it all adds up. CO2 emissions, the primary driver of climate change, is a "leaky" situation. We've got a huge distributed system here. We need to plug holes at every level. We're not one CPU or one core. We can do multiple things at once. If anything, people doing local things are viral, cathartic, and set the tone for change.

Despite my doomerish top comment (I still think we are screwed), but I compost, I recycle, I reduce waste as much as possible, and these effects "won't help". Whatever.

[ehnto]

It's true, "it won't help" is not true I suppose. It will certainly help. But we need much greater scale, and I am cynical toward the motivations of the global community.

We can't even get one of the wealthiest nations in the world, Australia, to stop digging up coal in 2022, when it's citizens are busy installing enough solar to power whole cities. We the people need to wield our power to get the people up top to do the right thing, else it's for nothing.