I agree that consumerism is bollocks and is something we could easily get rid of whilst generally increasing our happiness.
Sure, so that works for a fork. And yeah, we can probably do it for all of the forks, so that's scalable.
How about rice? Laundry liquid? Humour me - surely you can think of things we use all of the time that are not possible to make net zero at present?
I mean, I can't even get off the gas in my boiler without putting in a heat pump that uses carbon to produce and maintain and repair. Even that one isn't fixed!
Yes, that's precisely the point. Save it for the items that really bring value to our lives. The reason we're so dependent on technology to help is because we dug a hole by doing the opposite.
And I'm not equivocating that it's easy. Your heat pump analogy is the perfect example where life-cycle effects should come into play. I think it would be very interesting to see a study of something like comparing a new EV with the impact of maintaining an older ICE car. I suspect a lot of EV purchases are about status veiled in sustainability.
I want energy to be spent on big impact things like healthcare and food and sanitation. But considering ~60-70% of the economy is based on consumerism there's a lot of room to improve
Sure, so that works for a fork. And yeah, we can probably do it for all of the forks, so that's scalable.
How about rice? Laundry liquid? Humour me - surely you can think of things we use all of the time that are not possible to make net zero at present?
I mean, I can't even get off the gas in my boiler without putting in a heat pump that uses carbon to produce and maintain and repair. Even that one isn't fixed!