No, it's really not, because individual choice is a relatively small proportion of the damage done by corporate entities and aggregations of people that serve other masters and don't have either the will or the ability to amend their own behavior.

By all means do all those things: I go in that direction myself. But also vote, because there are damages that will not be remedied short of large-scale wielding of power, and voting has some chance of directing the large-scale power that can remedy the institutional bad actors.

I guess I hit a nerve with my comment and it came off a little harsh. I mean those points I said in all sincerity because it’s been 40-50 years and the top-down approach really has not come about in the timeliness required to prevent the worst case scenarios. I don’t actually believe every one of the people of the world will change their standards of living to meet what I said, however... I don’t think this is a similar scenario to banning lead gas or aerosols harmful to ozone. These changes, if implemented by the government, would effect families’ dinner plates, the way they get around, how much and what they can buy and how they throw things away when they’re already used to things the way they are. It would severely limit their ability to travel freely. And we can say that new technologies will arise to take the place of those things that were lost but there will almost certainly be a gap between when we would need to lose access to those things like cheap transport and meat and when the new tech came out (high speed electric planes, lab grown meat, etc.). Basically any way you look at it, the average person NEEDS to have a lower standard of living for the foreseeable future to prevent the worst of climate change. This plan of action is not popular anywhere, so obviously it will never be implemented by any top-down approach.

Again just my thoughts. Didn’t mean to hit a nerve here.

I get downvoted everytime I say this, but if someone wants to make a difference:

1. Don’t eat meat.

2. Don’t get in airplanes.

3. Don’t drive a car.

4. Live in as small a house/apartment as you can.

5. Don’t have kids.

It turns out that when people ask, “But what can I do?” What they really mean is “What can I do that won’t really inconvenience me that much?”

So there are two problems with this.

One is that you're advocating for a hair-shirt, masochistic lifestyle stripped of all joy. I have no objection to you choosing a vow of poverty, and to pass on children, but don't try and sell it as inconvenience, what you're asking for is basically religious orders.

The second problem is, all you've done is reduced demand for those goods you've chosen not to consume. That makes them cheaper, so other people can afford more of them.

Congratulations, you've done... nothing! But you get to feel good (?) about it? Don't get me wrong, being a childless vegan with a bike and a tiny apartment can be a satisfying lifestyle, but doesn't it undermine the feeling of self-righteousness a little bit to know that all you've done is make it so one more suburban family with four kids can have tri-tip for dinner and fly to Cancun on holiday?

What you're proposing is of course good and mostly matches my lifestyle, but it's not a solution. If everybody did everything you say we could probably cut down our CO2 emissions by 70% or so. What do we do about the remaining 30%, except wait until the no-child policy eradicates humanity? We still need to get rid of all fossil fuels. Luckily we already have the technology to do so, and by building that out we can keep most of our lifestyle with far less emissions.

The world doesn't work in this "bottom up" way. It's top down.

What do you think people should do?

The Tragedy of the Commons is a rebuttal to this.

What do you think people should do?

It doesn't matter if someone uses resources responsibly if someone else comes along and then uses up what's left. People defer power to higher levels - government, companies, religion, culture, education, etc. Real change involves people but will have to be driven by one of these if you want entire populations of people to go along.

Climate change is unfortunate since it means getting many countries working together, and some may see a benefit in doing nothing.

As to what people can do? I'm not sure there is an answer. A technological solution would be great but isn't assured, voting is a problem in that you already need a lot of people thinking the same way, and leading a good lifestyle will assuage personal guilt but move the needle very little, so I think it's worthwhile but not a solution. I am not sure it will make a difference as you say when others will step in and consume what you left on the table.

My opinion is that nothing meaningful will happen until we see some obvious signs of distress and even then we'll be lucky if people scramble for a solution. We are starting to see problematic weather patterns, reef bleaching, and other evidence but since the problem is statistical in nature we always get people who say such events are not necessarily an indicator of a problem. Broader scientific literacy in the community to understand the fundamentals involved would take a generation and would have to be led from the top down meaning we get back to the same issue of bringing an entire country on board.

So I don't have an answer, but I don't think someone always needs an answer to point out something isn't working. Regulation would work within a country, but you need to get leadership on board and this is a global problem meaning one country isn't enough. The solution will have to align with selfish interests whether economic or actual survival. My hopes are on cheap green energy and maybe one of the cleaner variants of nuclear but that is more of a faith-based answer than anything. I hope it'll work out but don't know enough to be sure.

I’m not trolling at all. This is how I live.

If you think a big house, a car, kids, flying for vacation, and a steak are what make life worth living, well then enjoy the end of the ride.