It's something that most people can look at immediately. You eat every day so what you eat does have a relatively large impact on your personal carbon footprint. It's also something people can do that doesn't have to cost them a cent.
It’s not about saving the rain forest, endangered species, pigs and cows. It’s about power and survival. That other stuff is just feel good moral values that won’t matter if we go extinct.
A technological innovation is the only way to get us out of this mess. Whoever figures it first and establishes control over the method is going to have a significant amount of global power. If you can control the worlds climate you’d basically be the most powerful person in the world. Everyone is at least a little intrigued by the quest for power.
I just am sick of how bad people are at selling the fight against global warming. We need everyone working on it and don’t have the luxury to divide ourselves into good and bad groups.
If you can't help spending all you make, maybe you could start by getting a new job that pays much less than your old one...
That won't save the planet, but it is the way to do your part.
One incorrect purchase or vacation by a vegan washes away a life time of good choices. It's not enough to matter and you'll never get the entire world on board without an inquisition force.
I don't disagree with any of that except that encouraging diets amounts to "Dividing ourselves into good and bad group". It's also not an actual counterargument. I also happen to think economics and technology will be the drivers that push plant-based diets to the majority.
> One incorrect purchase or vacation by a vegan washes away a life time of good choices.
You're either minimizing the impact of diet or vacation like a Captain Planet villain.
Sure but it could also make meat intensive diets have less of a carbon footprint. Once you start preaching that certain lifestyles are better at stopping climate change than others, I feel you're effectively judging which life styles are good or bad for the world. You're right it's jumping to a conclusion that people are making moral judgments on others... but I don't think it's that big a stretch.
I really don't think it makes sense to address climate change at an individual level. Most people have little to no control over how they live their lives. Even if they did, it'd be an enormous ask to have everyone understand their carbon footprint due to supply chain complexity.
Certain lifestyles are better than others. You can argue that it's not effective to discuss individual contributions, but you can't pretend this isn't the case.
>I really don't think it makes sense to address climate change at an individual level. Most people have little to no control over how they live their lives. Even if they did, it'd be an enormous ask to have everyone understand their carbon footprint due to supply chain complexity.
This is _such_ a strange attitude that people apply selectively to issues. Poverty requires systematic solutions, but that doesn't mean we don't have a responsibility to help those in our communities. Diseases require systemic solutions, but that doesn't resolve us from doing what we can individually to prevent the spread of diseases. Violence, crime, education, pollution. Most big problems require big solutions, but that doesn't mean we should ignore individual contributions.