I mean, one argument is that removing yourself from the demand side and using a fork that already exists is essentially net zero. Is buying an EV really helping when it displaces a perfectly functional car? Or is it just sustainable theater? I'm sure there's a balance somewhere, but probably not near our current lifestyle in the west. Net zero is a lot harder when you have an economy predicated on the constant churn of consumerism.
Sure, so that works for a fork. And yeah, we can probably do it for all of the forks, so that's scalable.
How about rice? Laundry liquid? Humour me - surely you can think of things we use all of the time that are not possible to make net zero at present?
I mean, I can't even get off the gas in my boiler without putting in a heat pump that uses carbon to produce and maintain and repair. Even that one isn't fixed!
And I'm not equivocating that it's easy. Your heat pump analogy is the perfect example where life-cycle effects should come into play. I think it would be very interesting to see a study of something like comparing a new EV with the impact of maintaining an older ICE car. I suspect a lot of EV purchases are about status veiled in sustainability.
I want energy to be spent on big impact things like healthcare and food and sanitation. But considering ~60-70% of the economy is based on consumerism there's a lot of room to improve
I don't think that 7 billion people can live net zero without us building loads more solar panels, nuclear plants, changing a bunch of industrial processes, etc.
These are things that individuals literally cannot do. Even trivial things like - I can't buy a net zero fork to eat my dinner with. I mean, I'm sure one or two things I could, but at the scale of my entire life it would become a full time job.
I guess I could start a co2 capture company, that is actually feasibly possible. But I don't think that's what people are getting at with the personal responsibility stuff. It's all - "which brand of tape are you using to fix the leak in your roof?"