[cranekam]

> Not everyone deeply cares about their carbon footprint when by far the largest amount of CO2 generated is industrial.

Industry makes stuff that consumers demand, either directly or indirectly. It’s a bit of a meme to suggest that global warming is all down to companies emitting co2 just for lols. Of course, industry is sometime dirty because it’s cheaper, but it’s putting one’s head in the sand to pretend that consumers have no bearing on what companies do.

This is not to say that the blame lays solely with consumers. People are acting rationally — they want to go on holiday and can afford it; what’s stopping them? The issue is one of regulation. If emitting actually had a cost (well, a cost now, to the emitter, rather than to the whole planet at some later date) people would make better decisions.

[dj_mc_merlin]

I did not suggest companies emit CO2 for lols -- it is quite obvious they are responding in an optimized way (for them) to consumer demands, since that is what a company is.

But the onus to change is on the companies, and since they won't change themselves, it falls on the government. However, taxing the emitter will lead to companies passing on the cost to the consumer, which, while lowering the emissions, would end up locking away a large number of luxuries (air travel, different kinds of food like meat, etc.) from lower-middle class people. It is very easy to say "increase taxes!" when you have enough disposable income to be able to afford these luxuries anyway. I personally do not want to go back a hundred years where meat is rare luxury and the farthest one travels is to the nearest country, once a decade.