This is a false dichotomy.
Government (and industry) is not a single-threaded organization incapable of doing more than 1 thing at a time.
It's absolutely possible to do BOTH high impact and low impact things at the same time.
Whether or not airlines adopt better emmission standards does not affect whether bigger ticket items get addressed, too.
(Yes, if you're talking about the media or politicians, they of course are much more single-threaded in the sense that they may need to pick their battles, but generalizing that to absolutely everything doesn't make sense)
Edit: Perhaps our difference in viewpoint is that you're looking at it from the perspective of "what can the consumer do" versus "what can government / regulators / industry do". If you're talking about strictly what consumers can do to help, then I agree, reducing personal air travel probably won't make a difference for most people.
It's resources are also not infinite.
Things need to be prioritized and tackled in an intelligent order. The government can handle several initiatives that attack the problem from different angles but it can't do everything. Airplanes, for example, are a small part of the problem and fairly integral to the connected globe.
We could probably make more headway attacking just the power plant issue in 5 different ways than than attacking issues 2-6 simultaneously.
> Yes, if you're talking about the media or politicians, they of course are much more single-threaded in the sense that they may need to pick their battles, but generalizing that to absolutely everything doesn't make sense
This is all going to be done politically. This is a government level problem and there isn't a government office that is apolitical. You can help the most by voting for it. The things you can do as an individual are good but they'll be dwarfed if you win on the political stage.
I don't think it's a false dichotomy at all, because some things just aren't worth the effort. For example, straw bans are pretty worthless, hurt disabled people, and allow people to feel like they've done their part when they haven't.
With respect to airlines, yes sure they can and should improve efficiency and emission standards. However, lobbying dollars and hours that can be mustered by environmentalists are finite and should be directed towards more useful things like power generation to have the greatest per dollar/hour effect on climate change.
In terms of what consumers can do, from a consumer perspective there's not a lot other than perhaps ratcheting down energy consumption. However as citizens they can agitate for better energy policy, which is probably a better use of time than thinking of workarounds for low impact high visibility issues.
We could in short order feasibly end coal power generation if the environmental movement got focused on that. However instead, people busy themselves with concerns about air travel, straws, organic food productions, etc.
Some things just aren’t worth the effort, in terms of outcomes. Additionally, doing useless things gives people moral license, and absolves them of feeling like they need to do more.
If we pay attention to both outcomes and psychology, then it makes sense to focus on big things.