196

I agree with the general prescription, but cultivating a sense of personal responsibility is useful for the moment when harsh regulations are going to be set in place. Voters are far more likely to agree with high carbon taxes if they have already started to try reducing their emissions.

I'm definitely not defending the stance of liberal media on this: climate change isn't an issue of personal responsibility, but personal responsibility should be promoted on top of systemic change. I'm not telling anyone to live the life of a Tibetan monk, but to put some effort into having virtuous decisions and habits, leading by example, and also use that to claim: "We are doing our part already, but capitalism cannot fix the problem".

Reducing the discussion to "actually, it's corporations only which should change how they work" is going to lead to a pretty large reactionary backslash when people find out that a sustainable economy does also, in fact, require to change our relation with the economy.