LogFAQs > #974034954

GanglyKhan posted...

It's just incredibly defeatist of a person to not even try because of that fact, and that really bums me out.

To be fair, I kind of get it. I could invest tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours of labour, and sacrifice a considerable amount of my personal quality of life to reduce my carbon footprint to next to nothing, and it would make zero difference in the grand scheme of things. It kind of kills the motivation to try when you know trying won't actually accomplish anything unless everyone else (a sizable percentage of whom have not only explicitly said they won't try, but that they are actively trying to make it worse because "owning the libs" comprises their entire personal identity) does the same. I still make some efforts to not be too harmful, as I can (walking/biking to work whenever I have to go into the office, eating less meat, trying to be energy-efficient), but I can understand people not having the motivation to do even that (to say nothing of the fact that so much of American infrastructure doesn't even allow people to cut down on their driving without stranding themselves).

That's a big part of why top-down enforcement is needed: If they can be assured that other people will be putting forth similar efforts and that their efforts will be contributing to a collective large-scale improvement, people are going to be much more willing to get on board.

Also, every private passenger jet needs to be blown up. No more of that nonsense. The fact that I could spend my whole life sacrificing everything to minimize my carbon footprint and barely be able to dent the effects of Taylor Swift taking a 4-minute plane ride to the mall is insanely idiotic.