[GVIrish]

> People refuse to acknowledge that their conservation efforts for a year are undone by some guy in Texas in five minutes

I don't think that's a good way to look at things. Some guy in Texas is polluting a lot more than you, ok, but would it be better if that guy keeps polluting and you pollute just as much? We can't get hung up on, 'well some person/company somewhere else is undoing my savings'. That kind of gets into tragedy of the commons thinking.

It is disheartening to see parts of the country going in the opposite direction than we should be going for sure. And well-meaning but not very useful policies can be a pain. But I try not to be disheartened at backward thinking in other locales, I try to look at the places making advances (for example, India is ahead of schedule in the shift to renewables) to be find some optimistic amidst the bleakness.

[paxys]

It's not "just as much" by any stretch. A more comparable scenario is – you pollute by 10 units, your neighbor pollutes by 1000 units, and people knock on your door and say, well the neighbor is hopeless, but to save the environment you need to stop showering every day and get your usage down to 5 units. Have you made a difference? Technically, sure. But ultimately (1) you have drastically reduced your own quality of life for no measurable gain and (2) the real problem (next door) stays unsolved.

The only way out of the tragedy of the commons is strict regulation, not "ignore the bad actors and do the right thing yourself".

[hermitcrab]

Indeed. Individuals doing their bit is great. But structural problems (such as the undue influence of the fossil fuel lobby) need structural solutions (such as tax and legislation). A change of culture can also work, but that can take a long time.