I'm going to repeat this again -- the vast majority of emissions are from industrial processes. Optimising the industrial processes to reduce emissions (as opposed to reduce costs) will result in emissions improvements.
Yes, in theory if the entire planet reduced its meat intake by 50% this would be a massive improvement -- but so would killing 50% of people. If your proposed solution to the problem is not viable from the outset you aren't proposing a solution, you're just deflecting blame.
Also -- contrary to popular belief, personal transport like cars (or commercial planes) are far from the largest emitters.
> Airline companies don't burn kerosene for the hell of it, they burn it because people keep buying plane tickets and keep shipping things by air freight. If we stop buying plane tickets and air freighted goods, they go out of business and so they stop burning kerosene.
Planes are actually more fuel-efficient than cars per-head. And planes are far from the largest polluters in "transportation" -- that would be trucks (especially older trucks that are under-maintained).
> The blame game over climate change is just blatant buck-passing.
You are buck-passing by arguing that it's the sole responsibility of the public to solve this crisis. Not corporations which knew about the effects of climate-change in the 60s and tried to hide it from the public and government. Not governments which are placating their donors by passing (or abolishing) milk-toast regulations to fix the problem.
I do my best to reduce my carbon emissions but that is not going to make any palpable difference.
If we wanted to go to war, then it would be the government's responsibility to organise the war effort. But if we want to stop humanity from going into war due to resource shortage all of a sudden it's about "personal responsibility".
There are already viable alternatives. Buy less stuff, travel less, turn down your heating/AC, eat less meat and dairy. When people say "viable alternatives", they really mean "free lunch" - they want to maintain exactly the same lifestyle as they do now, just without the carbon emissions. That's completely untenable, no matter what technologies emerge over the next few decades. Even with the most optimistic forecasts of the pace of technological development, we'll have to make some radical changes to our lifestyle to prevent a climate disaster.
That's bullshit. See [1], individual consumers are one of the smallest contributors to climate change. The main contributors are industry.
Without consumers, there is no industry. Airline companies don't burn kerosene for the hell of it, they burn it because people keep buying plane tickets and keep shipping things by air freight. If we stop buying plane tickets and air freighted goods, they go out of business and so they stop burning kerosene.
The blame game over climate change is just blatant buck-passing. It's not my fault, it's the big corporations. It's not my fault, it's the government. It's not my fault, it's the people who vote for the other party. As long as there's someone else to point the finger at, you're absolved of responsibility. How many tons of carbon emissions does your lifestyle cause? What can you do right now to reduce that number? We'll only see meaningful change if a lot more people start asking those questions and acting upon the answers rather than waiting for someone else to act.