[desertedisland]

> It has a real effect

Let me play devil's advocate here. Because I worry a lot about this.

In as much as it affects the outcome of climate change you're wrong: not eating meat, driving and flying less, etc. will not, in any meaningful way, save us from what are increasingly alarming predictions regarding climate change. What you're talking about are straw men.

In fact I worry that the effect is negative because everyone pats themselves on the back for these kinds of activities and thinks they've done everything they can when, as I say, the impact of what they've done is essentially negligible and draws attention from what really is driving climate change (and noone seems to talk about).

And what really is driving climate change (and numerous other environmental issues - see massive over-fishing, environmental destruction by dredging for sand / mining for minerals, etc.) is the massive shift out of poverty of billions in people in China and India and their demands for housing, cars, travel, construction, etc. The US and Europe have had (fairly dramatically) decreasing carbon emissions for some time now, but all of those decreases (and then some) are erased by the increases in India and China. Particularly China which built 184 new coal plants in 2020 and increased its own CO2 emissions by 4% in the second half of 2020 alone: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-coal-idUSKBN2A308U .

Hopefully it does not need to be said that you cannot fault these countries for massively improving the welfare of their citizens or say that this is a bad thing. To be fair to both India and China: both are aware of (do not deny) the problem and are devoting large amounts of resources to finding solutions.

But those are the facts. You can virtue signal all you like about being vegan but really you are doing nothing to address the actual problem (and may actually diverting attention away from it).

[sweetheart]

Yes, the things you described also have a profound effect on our carbon emissions. Agriculture also accounts for a large portion (those people leaving poverty gotta eat! And they wanna eat meat), and a large portion of agriculture is animal agriculture. So if eliminate or drastically reduce our reliance on animal agriculture, it stands to reason that we'd have an effect on overall carbon emissions.

Are there other things that can be done alongside reducing our demand for harmful products? Totally, and a lot of those things will involve regulation of industry, not individual changes in habits.

But the good thing is that we don't need to do one or the other, we can do both. I invite you to start doing what you can.

> and may actually diverting attention away from it

I find it hard to believe that trying to get people to change their consumptions habits in order to reduce our reliance on CO2 and Methane heavy industries is going to result in more carbon and methane. Do you have anything that actually says that folks who are motivated to make changes like this are somehow _less_ motivated to address climate change after?

It seems more likely that folks who want to virtue signal ("Climate change is awful, but _I_ won't do anything to help") are those who already weren't gonna do shit, so no loss there, really.

[taylodl]

Here's the only solution that's going to solve the climate crises: every person of the world is going to have to realize they they are responsible for their own CO2 output. The goods you buy, the transportation you use, how you heat and cool your home - these are all your choices and all impact your C02 output. Americans on average produce double the amount of CO2 than the Chinese do on average. Americans produce more C02 than Europeans, who in turn also produce more CO2 than the Chinese.

Once you realize your CO2 output is your personal responsibility then you can take care of your own business and strive to make changes to reduce your output. You can create demand for green power (not demand, create demand - actually buy green energy), you can make choices as to your thermostat settings, you have choices in what you eat, you have choices in what your purchase - all of these are within your control. Small changes made by hundreds of millions of people can have dramatic impact - in fact that's how we got into this mess in the first place.

What doesn't look good is Americans, who produce more C02 than anybody else in the world - by far - throwing up their hands and saying it's hopeless because of India and China, who's citizens are producing far less CO2. It's time for us to clean up our act and lead by example.