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Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

I think even most people who "believe" are only saying it for social acceptance. I see no evidence of more than a very few people making the sorts of changes in their lifestyle that would make any difference in their personal carbon emissions

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The scope of the issue makes individual lifestyle changes laughably pointless.

All major world governments needed to nationalize or brutally regulate polluting industries decades ago. They didn't, and it's tough to see a path forward now even assuming the political will to do so somehow appeared out of the ether.

Shepherds can believe the commons are being depleted without it altering the incentive to graze their own sheep there. It would be nice if the option were between

a) cut back on carbon emissions personally, and climate change will be undone

b) do nothing and let climate change take its course

but the reality is the option for your average consumer is

a) cut back on carbon emissions personally, and whatever happens to the world will happen regardless because you're only a microscopic contribution to the problem/solution

b) do nothing, and whatever happens to the world will happen regardless because you're only a microscopic contribution to the problem/solution

There's a third option, though: Do whatever, but vote for a party that wants to curb emissions. Only governments can turn this around. Listened to an interview with a climate scientist who was advocating that. He said individual action is a distraction.

Neither political party is taking things seriously enough. They care too much to appease their corporate overlords.

Exactly. Even worse, most people, even here, mostly just talk about what other people should do.

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