I realize we can fix more than one thing but the arguments i am always seeing is stating the consumer is the biggest issue and it’s infuriating.
Stop trusting the people on TV!
Though water rights are probably the lower hanging fruit to tackle…except it’s chock full of political issues dating back to the Spanish territorial days.
Politicians way worse than today in many ways found ways to build out the big infrastructure projects that made the modern southwest a possibility - ie the Hoover Dam, the national highways, and power grid.
If you buy local, in-season, sustainable foods, you have a 100% chance of being 1/300MMth of the solution, not a 5% chance of being that same 1/300MMth of the solution.
Granted, the consumer in question may be on the other side of the earth, which isn't great for creating healthy incentives, but it doesn't change the fact that consumers need to consume less.
A lower consumption simplifies down to the equivalent to: (aj) reducing GDP per capita, or (b) reducing the number of capita (people). Structurally and morally, both of those are very difficult to manage. Ironically the argument for less “consumption” is usually made by the well-off people in wealthy economies. Weirdly war and political strife that destroys economic systems may be good for the planet (and the USA in particular wins relatively against other economies which have GDP destruction).
I would state a solvable problem as: how do we increase consumption, while decreasing resource usage? That requires efficiency, technology, and reducing the environmental cost of our economic systems. To achieve those goals needs a systematic global system that encourages those effects, while avoiding the tragedy of the commons. Politically we don’t seem to be achieving that.
And whether we are talking factories or mansions, it’s behind the big walls that you find big resource use.
Blaming “consumers” for climate change, if they are not also material stakeholders in major emitting entities, is borderline gaslighting.
I introduce a new food product, Soylent Green. It tastes great, doesn't cost much and is nutritious. It starts becoming wildly popular.
Does that mean that there was huge demand for cannibalistic products? No. There was demand for tasty, cheap, nutritious food.
If this happened in real life the ingredients label would be a list of indecipherable chemicals, proteins, and "natural flavors". What you're suggesting requires that consumers be able to understand the externalities involved in the sourcing of every ingredient as well as the manufacturing process AND then use those to override their own preferences regarding the end product.
Identifying and preventing externalities or at least making sure externalities are factored into pricing is something that governments are MUCH better equipped for than any individual.
This is what you're pushing for, and what we have, and it's a terrible world to live in since it lets you the producer who is knowingly doing damage to avoid taking any responsibility and just push it all to "consumers."
Whatever happened to personal responsibility applying to rapacious producers too?
Public companies are legally required to maximize profit. This will only be changed politically, or by changing what provides the company profit. Both lead back to the consumer.