[legitster]

I think one of the most important things the "message" has gotten wrong is that you personally need to make big sacrifices and suffer: Buy a worse/more expensive car. Stop eating meat. Don't use disposable plates. Stop travelling. This is the stuff that fuels reactionaries.

Really the most impactful stuff is at the margins anyway: Whether your electricity comes from coal or solar. How many rare earths can we mine and recycle? Do you have a lawn or xeriscape?

The story here is not really that Gates has changed his mind (he never got rid of his private jet after all) it's the emphasis that doomscrolling is counterproductive.

[port11]

The personal sacrifice cult was largely put forth by corporations and corporate media insisting on an individual's carbon footprint.

That said, it's somewhat unfair that, say, 1 Australian can have the footprint of 7–8 Indian people. So some changes are good overall, such as eating more vegetables and less carbon intensive meat (which also improves land usage).

I agree with you about other fringe choices, but most people can't control the energy mix of their country. We can advocate for better choices at the high level, which is great news because people have been doing just that.

I do find the positive tone of the climate models a bit worrying: some of the projections still consider permafrost decay to be fatal to most of the human race.