I agree with much of your sentiment, but a top down approach with government regulations is absolutely necessary to assist with stopping harmful emissions and pollution. It's extremely difficult to tell everyone to walk to McDonalds to not waste gas and to not grab a plastic straw. Most everyone will not follow through with those requests when McDonalds is quite literally giving it away straws for free and gas vehicles are so readily available. But if you force McDonalds to use a recycled paper lid that doesn't require a straw, and force their suppliers to deliver those products with electric vehicles, and we force car manufacturers to only produce electric vehicles: then we can stop the emissions and waste generation at the source. People will have no choice but to take more green options if thats all that is available to them.