[danparsonson]

Why does it have to be one or the other? 7+ billion small actions add up; power plants and datacenters are still at least partly about fulfilling consumer demand.

Or to put it another way - which of those things is under our control? If one can do something more, then why not? Because billionaires? The climate doesn't blame anyone, it just exists; being to blame or not, doesn't matter when we're all in the same boat together.

[JoshTriplett]

> power plants and datacenters are still at least partly about fulfilling consumer demand.

Consumer demand doesn't determine whether to build coal vs solar vs nuclear. Public policy does. No new oil/gas/coal plants, period, and start working to shut down the ones we have. Electricity generation is the source of about a third of all CO2 emissions.

Consumer demand doesn't determine whether we do carbon capture, or reforestation. Those require public policy.

[criddell]

It’s a tough sell. The impact of you turning your AC a little bit colder or having a bigger car is almost unmeasurable on a global basis yet the benefits to you personally are probably pretty big.

[sph]

The reality is that what is in our control is very, very little, and we’re squabbling like mad among ourselves because I had a piece of beef for lunch.

I’m the first to recycle, so you’re preaching to the choir. What I’m saying if we could do better than self-flagellating. Or rather, there is nothing our self-flagellation will achieve in the end.

We keep focusing on things that are easy to measure like how much meat does one person eat, rather than the real numbers that are effectively immeasurable. Am I a worse person for eating beef, yet not using LLMs nor driving a car, than a vegan would might do all those things? Only for my conscience to know. In the end, it all amounts to hypocrisy, and squabbling among the plebes, while the rich keep polluting the planet.