[RobAley]

Actually, when considering things like climate change, these small contributions are important, because they don't sit on their own. Most plans for significant carbon emission reductions that don't significantly change our standard of living rely on aggregating the savings made by many many "micro" reductions in production/consumption like this.

[andrewcooke]

i'm not going to argue here because http://www.withouthotair.com/ makes the point better than i ever could.

see, for example, http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c19/page_11... - Don’t be distracted by the myth that “every little helps.” If everyone does a little, we’ll achieve only a little. We must do a lot. What’s required are big changes in demand and in supply.

and, of course, we may be talking at cross purposes - there is some middle ground where a large-ish number of small-ish things can help. i am not arguing against maths, but i am saying that our natural assessment of what is significant without actually doing the maths is often misled by absolute values, as here.

anyway, if you haven't read that book, i recommend it.

[RobAley]

Perhaps we are talking at cross purposes. I'm not saying "every little helps", more like "ALL little helps". Saving 5% of my ketchup doesn't help me save 5% of my carbon emissions. Saving 5% of the ketchup, 3% of the mayonnaise, 10% of the plastic bags, 7% of the car fuel etc. etc. does help.

I could probably meet my individual targets by simply taking a big action like scrapping my car. But I'm not going to do it (for various reasons), and most people won't either. I'm much more likely to meet them by skimming a small amount of the top of a lot of other things than changing my lifestyle significantly in one or two areas.

Big change is needed, but it can come from a few big things or many little things. I disagree with the sources that you cite only in so far as I think, given the society we live in, the little things route is much more likely to succeed, particular in the consumer arena.

I think we both agree that just a little bit of a little bit isn't going to help.