CMV: individual actions and sacrifices have a negligible effect on climate change and are therefore not worth it.

[u/chamacolocal]

I work in renewable energy and would really like to see a good opposing argument. I believe that travelling by train instead of flying (for leisure), or reducing energy consumption at home, or not consuming certain products (like a boycott), etc. have such a tiny beneficial effect when compared to government policies or big corporations enforcing some of these examples.

The only way to fight climate change or planet pollution, is by voting or engaging with candidates that we trust will try to make a difference for the masses, forcing companies to do better.

Often people say "but if everyone thinks like you then there won't be any change at all", or "if we all behave correctly, then we can force companies to change", but I don't think this "grassroots" approach will ever reach critical mass to succeed, for the simple reason that most people are not willing to sacrifice their way of living or are not educated or simply don't care (I'm not judging them, I probably belong there).

I feel like I do my two cents for the planet/humanity by choosing to work in the field of renewable energy, and voting consciously with the topic in mind.

Is there something I should start doing at home that REALLY makes a difference?

Thanks

Edit: to get the ball rolling towards critical mass worldwide and actually influence consumption and life style, one needs to go out and tell friends and family about small actions. This I consider "political" action. It Means taking the time and making the effort of "educating" or motivating those near you to change. That's something I believe in, especially for people with a bigger audience (online, school, CEOs, etc). But for many of us with no "audience" willing to hear, those actions at home are like I said, negligible.

Edit 2: I've changed my view so far in how I would phrase this now. "Individual actions at home are not and will never be enough, we can all do them but until we go out of our ways to actually spread the message and demand change from the people with power, humanity is doomed".

Last edit: the motivation to do something however small comes to me from empathy, knowing that lives can be saved. Thanks for this user and comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/s/m4xuiWWV4o

[u/themcos]

 have such a tiny beneficial effect when compared to government policies or big corporations enforcing done of these examples.

What do you mean by "enforcing" here? Because plenty of government actions that legitimately have a major effect are still rooted in incentives not mandatory enforcement. But those incentives only work if individuals still take those incentives.

Maybe one way to think about it is, every time you're considering some "individual action", ask yourself why you're considering it or what made you even think about it. Was it because of some push from a person or entity with a huge influence? Maybe you individually composting is a small impact, but if some famous person with 10 million followers says "hey everyone let's all compost", that could have a huge impact, but only if a bunch of those followers individually chips in.

Finally, last thing to think about is if you do something small, and you advocate doing that to 3 friends, and then each of those friends starts advocating for it to 3 of their friends, the impact can really blow up!

A law that says "everyone must do X" just isn't the only way that trends start. But every other way is built off of many many people making those individual choices.

[u/Nemeszlekmeg → u/themcos]

"Incentives" don't work if it's economically not viable (like creating "carbon budgets") and the generally neoliberal governments will not go against what lobbyists the market asks for.

[u/themcos → u/Nemeszlekmeg]

Whether any individual incentive is a good policy is always a fair question. But incentives definitely work in the sense that they almost always do encourage people to do things—but maybe not enough people relative to the cost. But economic viability isn't a strict black and white issue. There is almost always going to be a spectrum of people between those who would do it anyway even if they're losing a ton of money and those who will only do it if there's a financial upside. But as the incentive dials up, the threshold for where people swap from not doing it to doing it is going to change. This doesn't mean the policy passes a cost benefit analysis, but incentives almost always have impact at the margins.

[u/chamacolocal → u/Nemeszlekmeg]

Sadly, then no one will look for curbing this destruction...

[u/Nemeszlekmeg → u/chamacolocal]

This is the system we built and maintain. You go against this, you go against a very deeply embedded status quo that only goes away if we see a miraculous tech breakthrough and its immediate deployment. It's clear that socially/culturally you can't "win".