Alas, I remain really pessimistic about the collective impact of individual actions to cut carbon, partly for reasons @themadstone already touches on in this piece.

But the main reason is that outside of climate folks, most people just won't do it. (1) https://grist.org/culture/cutting-your-carbon-footprint-matters-a-lot-if-youre-rich/

In theory, I think it's undeniable that meaningful individual actions at large scales could make a big impact. But only in theory.

If you could actually brainwash the global affluent to give up beef, unnecessary driving, and flying, yeah it'd help. (2)

Crucially, I just don't think enough people are willing to bother, end of story.

My personal experience is that promoting behavior change in the name of sustainability is really, really hard, even when you think you’re preaching to the climate-aware choir. (3)

I participated in campus enviro groups and volunteered as an "Eco-Rep" for four years on one Ivy-League campus, then did student climate group things for five years at the similar bastion of affluence and privilege that is Duke… (4)

...and all you had to do was look inside the average campus recycling bin to lose any faith whatsoever in individual-level action.

I mean, we're talking about sustainability outreach to (supposedly, lol) some of the most progressive, smart, ambitious kids in America... (5)

...and still your avg student literally couldn't be bothered to recycle or compost or even print their essays and notes double-sided, despite both UPenn and Duke spending at least tens of thousands of dollars on sustainability education and outreach. Annually. (6)

And recycling and printing double-sided are low-hanging fruit as far as behavior change goes! It takes maybe a few seconds of effort standing in front of a bin or fiddling with the printing app dialog.

Persuading someone to install rooftop solar is a lot more difficult. (7)

I think those of us in the climate and environmental space can often forget the degree to which we live and breathe this stuff, whereas most of our peers are concerned about climate change but only in passing. Then there are legions of folks who just don’t care. (8)

Or for that matter, folks who don’t have the time or luxury to care. Having the free time and financial flexibility to research and make purchasing and lifestyle decisions based on climate impact is pretty class-driven. (9)

Reading that Grist piece, I also can't help but remark on this bit:

"But after a beer with a U.K.-based friend who took a train to the conference, Nicholas, who is American but lives and conducts research in Sweden, realized something: She could have done that too." (10)

Yes, conveniently the European bastion of flight shaming also coincides with the only continent globally where convenient + affordable non-flying mass transit options can connect you to all the professional, educational, cultural opportunities one could want in a lifetime. (11)

And then unfortunately it's far too easy for individuals to get completely distracted devoting excessive effort + resources to relatively meaningless actions, especially in our world of greenwashed marketing. (12)

And as @themadstone points out, one starts hitting diminishing returns on even substantially-impactful individual actions depressingly early, because unfortunately only so much of your "footprint" is under your control. Lots of the life cycle is upstream of you. (13)

There are, of course, also those people who are virulently opposed to what they see as tree-hugging BS and all that.

Don't need to dwell on them too much, but worth noting that they can never be counted on to pitch in. (14)

And I can't help but think that a lot of this time and effort on personal footprints could be spent much more impactfully elsewhere. In particular, pushing lawmakers to set policies that change the climate impact of entire industries and supply chains. (15)

In total fairness, author Kimberly Nicholas does explicitly mention and address this category of bottom-up political actions, and this is the kind of individual action that I can wholeheartedly endorse.

Get politically active and stay active. (16)

Any individual wanting to make an impact on climate change should recognize that the root issues are deeper, linked to the technologies and practices that really control emissions at regional, national, global scales, and should approach the problem commensurately. (17-END)