We agree that policy is the best approach. But, the irony is that policy is needed because we can't rely on people to make the right choices at the individual level. While we agree that policy is helpful to wrangle bad actors, you seem to go one step further and insinuate it doesn't matter in the meantime if we all behave as bad actors. I get your pragmatic stance, I'm also saying there's a moral component to it.

>it's not my 'culture' to eat food and put the heating on in my house, everyone does it in every country in the world.

There's some irony in you claiming I'm acting in bad faith, yet you keep straw manning. I gave a specific example of housing zoning and you equate it to this?

Your defensiveness is telling enough that I'll just leave one more comment. Yes, every culture needs food and shelter. But how they go about those things is very culture dependent. Some may get their protein primarily from pork and beef while others from tofu. Some may live in a McMansion, while others have multi-generational homes. Those cultural choices have an impact.

Your comment about light switches is again bad faith attempt to trivialize salient points. An an example, residential energy use is higher on a CO2e basis than all of transport (road + aviation + shipping). It's actually higher than most sectors, save agricultural (barely) and industry. So let's just ignore all those, eh?

Edit: I think you're having a hard time understanding my point and are reverting to straw manning.

What I am NOT saying: "We need to have zero emissions."

What I AM saying: "Just because we can't reach zero emissions doesn't mean we shouldn't do everything we can to get reasonably close" Inability to get to zero is not an excuse to absolve oneself of personal choices.

If things are, in your words, properly "fucked" I'm assuming that means you're willing everything in your power to contribute to those big solutions. Are you willing to quit a high-status job to contribute? Or move to be part of an organization doing meaningful R&D? If not, there's some cognitive dissonance there.

Interesting thread. There is another kind of defeatism at play here. The sum of personal choices will only make so much impact. Let's say 20% (for sake of discussion). Unless the part that is causing 80% of the problem is solved, this won't be a solved problem and that 20% is not a very meaningful part of the solution.

I think that is a summation, no cognitive dissonance to it IMO. It's just saying the 20% does not matter, or would only matter when the 80% side is solved

There is a prisoner's dilemma here at play as well. At least the corporate actors need to change behavior.

Given all that, perhaps the debate is whether that hypothetical reduction is meaningful. To answer that, depends on your perspective on the scope of the problem and your response to that. Then throw in a prisoner dilemma part where you can potentially skirt by while everyone else changes, order declare it entirely hopeless because the actors that must change, are not. FWIW. Loved this thread

>At least the corporate actors need to change behavior.

Given all that, perhaps the debate is whether that hypothetical reduction is meaningful.

I think as you rightly point out, this is the distinction that I wasn't apparently getting across well. My point is that those corporate decisions are also made at an individual level to a certain extent. A CEO or board member can make a decision that scales, but it still starts with a few individual choices. The individual consumer can make a moral decision which corporations to support with their wallet. But I don't think that will happen if people figuratively sit on their hands maintaining the status quo because it's easier to wait for some silver bullet policy or technological advancement. I think it takes moral courage for those leaders and individuals to make those hard decisions.

This is not meant to say there's no role for regulation or policy, particularly as it pertains to asymmetries or misalignment in information. It's meant to negate the idea that individual choices are relegated to some marginal effect. That same marginal impact would extend to democratic voting to support said policy; your one vote quite literally has almost no impact, but that mentality is not how change is implemented. To reiterate, I think that becomes a convenient excuse to not do everything in our power to effect change. It can be a useful rationalization for lamenting about a problem while doing little about it.

Regarding the "meaningfulness" I do think it's meaningful. Looking at the breakdown of energy use, I don't think there is a magic bullet and it will likely take efforts across multiple domains and approaches. I also think reducing the use at the demand side is one of the quickest and straightforward methods that we don't need to wait on some technological leap forward. The OP seemed to take issue with conservation in buildings...building energy use is greater than that of all transportation. It's also low hanging fruit in many cases where 10-30% savings can be had for marginal cost through conservation. If we were talking about those savings in transportation vs. food or shelter, I think the conversation would have went differently. The fact that it didn't makes me think there are other cognitive biases going on.