Edit: I wanted to apologize after reading some of the comments. You raise some legitimate points, I realize that there is a subtle malthusian element to this chart and some of you feel like a burden already. Furthermore, you raise a good point about corporate pollution, oil companies, and how their footprint is much greater than average plebs like us.
That’s 100% valid and I don’t disagree with you at all. My “compromise” I guess would be that continue to apply pressure and protest against large corporations, but in terms of ourselves, just pick a few things you can cut down on yourself, it does not have to be everything on this list.
For example, I really prefer having animal products in my diet, but I am willing to live in a small apartment , car-free, and not go on vacation much in my adulthood. In the same way, you guys can pick what you are comfortable with in reducing and what you do not want to compromise on.
All of us have different standards of living and we are flexible on some things, and some things we are not flexible. That is alright, just consider changing what you are comfortable with, but please do not think you are a burden. Your presence and your life is valuable to me. I don’t like to demoralize people.
Maybe instead of degrading your quality of life, you should place a solar pannels on your roof and make some money while also reducing your footprint far beyond what you see on the graph?
Or maybe you should press your government into diversifying from fossil fuels into solid mix of nuclear and renewable energy sources?
No! According to the eco propaganda you have to suffer in order to save the planet, which is a massive BS
What is suffering about that graph? I do most of it already and it saves me money.
For example LED light bulbs are nicer and cheaper to run - I have 60W equivalents where I used to have dingy 40W old bulbs.
Cold washing and hanging drying saves me money. My Hybrid car saves me money and I intend to move to Electric next, and that will help reduce pollution in my neighbourhood so it’s win win.
Recycling is easy enough when your council provides the tools for it. I recycle paper, metal, glass and separate out my plastics; I just separate at the time I bin stuff. I take batteries back to the supermarket where they legally have to take them for recycling, and take other items to the recycling centre when I need to and put them in the appropriate skips rather than just bag it all as general waste.
I don’t have a plant based diet and I don’t live car free, and I don’t specifically pay for eco energy yet (I’m thinking about getting solar though).But I don’t have kids and don’t want them so am doing that by default.
I lead a very good quality of life, and none of the things I do from the graph seem detrimental to it to me. What exactly am I missing out on quality of life-wise?
Eating a plant-based “diet” instead of actual food involves suffering.
If you have no car with which to commute to work in a timely fashion, you have three options:
All of these involve suffering and ultimately kill you.
The average household of 2.1 people here (the Netherlands) produces 0.8 tons of CO2e from electricity per year, at the current power mix. So, reducing that to zero places you somewhere between colder washes and getting a hybrid (0.4 tons). Not nothing, but also not even past the left half of the chart.
Also, realistically, net-zero isn’t actually zero at all, you need to massively overproduce to truly offset your consumption.
Suffering? What suffering?
Plus it’s literally labeled individual action.