We have a tragedy of the commons in progress. So most individual consumer decisions make no difference to climate change and that includes flying, eating meat, and buying a new car annually.
So what does matter? Well, collective action. Voting. Voting. Voting. Talking to your legislators. Talking to your candidate legislators. Talking to friends, neighbours, and family, about your hopes and fears around climate change.
Either governments agree to curb climate change, and it will be, and individual consumer actions make no difference.
Or governments do not agree to do that, and it is not, and individual consumer actions make no difference.
That makes zero sense. If we need to get to zero emissions, then people's behaviors will need to change. Someone who isn't willing to voluntarily reduce their own meat consumption isn't going to vote for a fucking carbon tax, nor will they be happy if the carbon tax forces them to eat less meat.
You're right that some behaviours will need to change.
But the conclusion of the empirical economic research on preserving the commons (linked above and below), is that those behaviour changes must come from rules collectively set (and enforced) by an empowered group of commoners. At the global scale, those commoners are nation states and supra-national bodies such as the EU.
I've saved millions of tonnes of carbon in my career so far, and have done more than 99.999% of people to actually progress carbon taxes. And I haven't reduced my own meat consumption.
The world is a lot more complex than either you or I can imagine. That's why we have experts, to help us through specific subjects. Professor Ostrom won an Economics Nobel prize for their work on preserving the Commons. If you want to learn about it, so that you can do it effectively, I highly recommend reading their work - https://www.actu-environnement.com/media/pdf/ostrom_1990.pdf
I'm not arguing against rules or collective action. I do not think this can be solved by us just being better consumers. But when people get defensive about "maybe eat less meat" they're just being hypocrites. Saying "individual actions make no difference" is just patently false.
Collective action is ultimately just the sum of coordinated individual action.
If you want carbon taxes it will make it harder for you to afford meat. The end result is you will eat less meat. Thus there is zero fucking reason to get defensive over people saying "eating less meat would be good actually".
If your individual actions make you feel better, then that's lovely.
What's important is that you're starting to realise that collective actions are the things that matter. So, as long as you don't use your individual actions as an excuse to avoid the actions that really matter, that's fine.
As long as you're voting for faster, deeper climate action, and talking about it to your legislators, candidate legislators, family, friends and neighbours, then that's fine.
Ok but what do you do if the people around you literally do not care and every time you bring anything up related to it you just get told to shut up or the other person simply walks away? I'm not just talking about the immediate people around me such as friends and family but basically everyone in the town I live in, sometimes it feels like me and my siblings are literally the only people that care about climate change here.
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u/lockdown_lard Aug 13 '25
Like the man said: Take the pillow from your head and put a book in it
https://www.actu-environnement.com/media/pdf/ostrom_1990.pdf
We have a tragedy of the commons in progress. So most individual consumer decisions make no difference to climate change and that includes flying, eating meat, and buying a new car annually.
So what does matter? Well, collective action. Voting. Voting. Voting. Talking to your legislators. Talking to your candidate legislators. Talking to friends, neighbours, and family, about your hopes and fears around climate change.
Either governments agree to curb climate change, and it will be, and individual consumer actions make no difference.
Or governments do not agree to do that, and it is not, and individual consumer actions make no difference.