Sacrifices Will Be Needed

The media, social and traditional, do a bad job highlighting the potential impact of personal carbon emission reduction actions.  Photos of animals either trapped in or choked by plastic bags have a great deal of emotional impact and the decision to eschew the use of plastic bags is fairly easy to make as it only entails a small inconvenience on our parts.  Considering the emotional power and minimal personal impact, it's not surprising that in a survey done in Germany and the US, abandoning the use of plastic bags was considered to be the most effective personal actions to reduce CO2 emissions.  

The problem with both the German and US responses to the survey is that it's clear that people in both countries are conflating what is easy with what is useful.  The reality from a carbon emission standpoint is much different.  Here are the impacts on CO2 reduction on a kg per person basis:

• No more plastic bags                  3 kgs
• Switching off standby modes     53 kgs 
• Regional and seasonal foods     80 kgs
• Fuel-efficient driving                  340 kgs
• No more meat consumption      450 kgs
• One flight less per year             680 kgs
• Modern heating and insulation  770 kgs

One way to look at the disparity between the survey results and the impact is that lots of people are willing to sacrifice little stuff or small personal changes as long as the effort or inconvenience is minimal.

People aren't clueless, they are lazy and maybe a bit self-indulgent. They are ordering their choices in a form of self-justification. Plastic bags are easy and highly visible signs of virtue. It's like solar panels on your roof; people would rather spend money on them rather than efficient heating and cooling or insulation, because they are also visible virtue signals.

Nobody is even willing to acknowledge that what is convenient to them is actually producing a lot of carbon. The Germans like their meat so it's not so bad. The Americans want to fly so it's not so bad. It's all sort of the reverse of virtue signalling.

We are all going to have to make sacrifices and it's important to understand that the easy ones aren't going to make much of a difference.