There is a sad counterpoint, though, and one I think of often.

There are discretionary purchasers of fossil fuels - people/companies who would buy units of fuel but aren't because it's not cheap enough. All of the actions I named above reduce the demand for fossil fuels (by an infinitesimal amount, but still). Reducing demand reduces the price such that some other user will consume those fuels anyway. In this case it might as well be me, as a self-interested economic actor.

This is the idea behind putting a cap on emissions and selling the right to emit, but so far such schemes are a failure. And as much as I hate to admit it, they really do need to be global in scale - if cap and trade just results in more stuff being manufactured in nations that don't limit emissions, we haven't really fixed anything.

You are right about the problem that efficiency in one place will potentially cause consumption in another. In the literature, this is usually called a 'rebound effect' or Jevons' paradox.

It may be that an emissions / extraction cap could be implemented non-globally so long as a large enough block were willing to participate, and so long as they imposed tariffs on any non-participants to price in the emissions happening on the other side of the border.

All of that sounds reasonable, except "Live in a multi-unit building in a city". Being that close to that many people sounds like hell.

Well, you certainly don't _have_ to. If you desire access to friends, goods, and services without using carbon-intense forms of transport it tends to make things easier. It also means you're not converting wild land to lawns, asphalt, parking, et cetera. Finally, one of the best ways to improve delivery efficiency is to decrease the last-mile distance (probably poorly named) from a distribution point, like a grocery store, to the site of consumption.

Living in a small residence in wild land without the need for automobile-scale infrastructure to support it would address most of the issues I raised above (a small cottage accessible primarily via mountain bike perhaps? I think I'm selling myself on this idea...)

Then again subsistence farming in a manner that doesn't remove wild vegetation, or better yet uses it without drawing too much from the population, is probably even better. It could be a lonely life though.

Or just live in the country and ride your bike to the city a lot.

Yes, if only there weren't so many darn people on this planet, but of course you're entitled to your space. /s

What about it sounds like hell, exactly? We're all different, but I think some of us underestimate our adaptability.