Thanks for telling me what it was I meant.

Unfortunately for you, having an opinion doesn't imply being right. e.g. the fact you have a hobby-horse about privacy doesn't mean everyone else does.

You're also just flat-out wrong. If I encouraged 10 other people to "go green" but din't alter my own lifestyle one jot, that would have MORE impact. That's why the argument "can't believe Obama is taking a private jet to go and talk about reducing emissions" is so dumb.

My personal actions make NO difference to overall climate effects. However, the trick is to make everyone believe the contrary so it DOES make a difference. That said, my view is that industry and cars are the biggest culprits.

My personal actions make NO difference

Now, that comes down to philosophy :P

You're also just flat-out wrong. If I encouraged 10 other people to "go green" but din't alter my own lifestyle one jot, that would have MORE impact.

That would only be true if you assume those 10 people actually take the advice and alter their lifestyle. Chances are they're just like you: They hear the advice but they don't do jack about it because they think they are too insignificant to make a change. In a situation like that, if you change your lifestyle, your actions DO have an impact. But these scenarios are completely irrelevant because of what I said earlier.

If you change, you make the same impact than if you don't do anything at all. That's my point.

My personal actions make NO difference to overall climate effects

Do you really believe that? Simple things like turning off lights when you don't need them, using low power light bulbs, not flushing the toilet unnecessarily, taking short showers, etc. These all have a larger impact than what you might expect.

My personal actions make NO difference to overall climate effects. However, the trick is to make everyone believe the contrary so it DOES make a difference. That said, my view is that industry and cars are the biggest culprits.

My city put together stats and ad campaigns not too long ago.

The top source, 52% of the city's air pollution comes from tailpipe emissions. While mass transit and alternate forms of transportation are longer term solutions are good, the simplest recommendation is to buy a newer vehicle. The average vehicle is just over ten years old, meaning there are many vehicles from the 1990's and early 2000's out there. In general, newer vehicles get better fuel efficiency and have reduced emissions.

They estimated that if everyone replaced their vehicle with a new one and made no other changes, tailpipe emissions would drop by one third.

Heavy industry was the second highest air pollution source, at 18%.

Household sources were the third highest source of air pollution. Furnaces, water heaters, grills, and other sources of air pollution.

You are right that you are one individual among 7 billion other people. So you individually are a small amount, on the order of 0.000000X% of the pollution, more or less.

Individually your contribution is relatively small. One person making a few small changes won't do much.

Collectively, all seven billion people making a few small changes would be enormous.

Do you really believe that? Simple things like turning off lights when you don't need them, using low power light bulbs, not flushing the toilet unnecessarily, taking short showers, etc. These all have a larger impact than what you might expect.

Of course another important thing to keep in mind is regional resources and needs. The grandparents of one of my friend's own a property with a spring well, and even in the worst summer droughts it has apparently never dipped below 1000 gallons an hour of crystal clean water flowing out of the hill side. However due to the nature of the geology there there is relatively little surface water in that part of the valley, and as such much of the vegetation can die off by late summer except for a small section along the brook at the bottom of the valley or one of a handful of streams coming off the hill side. You could sit in their house and literally flush every toilet in the house while running every cold water tap wide open, and you would actually be helping the environment. Their septic leeching field is often one of the greenest parts of the valley come mid summer, other than the parts that they're not directly irrigating with the excess spring water. They're slowly building up a deeper layer of water holding topsoil as well, and holding more water for a longer part of the season.

TLDR version: Solutions to Environmental issues are complex and should be addressed with local conditions factored in.

To be honest the greens would complain and fight against just about anything technologically progressive so as to bring us back to the stone age.

My favorite is fracking. Despite the fracking experiment in the US haven proven to be very successful environmentally and economically (thanks to shale oil, oil prices have crashed and inflation is at its lowest which is benefiting everyone), the greens here in the UK are fighting with every ounce of strength they have against it. Unfortunately the government here is extremely weak and easily suckered and hence an enquiry which will take zillions of years has started. If you think i'm exaggerating about how long it will take, ... then my next (very close) favorite....

Heathrow airport 3rd runway proposal. The urgent need for a 3rd runway was brought to light 20 years ago. Planes have been literally flying tail to tail since then and a number of near misses- thats how congested Heathrow is. The greens started flat out against it 20 years ago - with their obvious claim - extra runway - means more fights - means more planes - means more pollution and more noise. (These people always exclude the economic benefits and secretly fly in planes themselves) Anyway an enquiry started back then... Gordon Brown's government attempted to go ahead with it about 7 years ago... Well the greens successfully bullied him off it. And the debate is still ongoing with no end in sight

In as much as I detest ultra-right-wingers (much worse in the US than anywhere else) who take stupid right-wing stance just for the sake of it, i equally detest ultra-left-wing greens (much worse in the UK) who take anti-development stance under the cloak of fighting for the environment.

My favorite is fracking. Despite the fracking experiment in the US haven proven to be very successful environmentally and economically

It was my understanding that fracking was a HUGE success economically but absolutely disastrous environmental impact - is that incorrect?

It was my understanding that fracking was a HUGE success economically but absolutely disastrous environmental impact - is that incorrect?

Most site that do this analysis and studies are set up green groups who never look at this kind of issue objectively. Well you might says skeptics are bound to be biased too. Fine. So lets turned to Wikipedia's take on the effect of fracking in the US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_United_States

Hydraulic drilling being what it is there are bound to be crack spillages etc, So the barometer of measuring success should then be comparing against the available alternatives :fossil fuel and nuclear energy. Considering the environmental disasters by nuclear energy plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country and oil drilling accidents/environmental disasters, its clear fracking is the most environmentally clean and less accident prone of the lot. You might say fracking is still comparatively young and less wide spread - Thats is correct, So maybe the jury is still out on this one - But my gut feeling is , fracking will definitely come on top by huge miles

Most site that do this analysis and studies are set up green groups who never look at this kind of issue objectively. ....

But my gut feeling is , fracking will definitely come on top by huge miles

Fail

My favorite is fracking. Despite the fracking experiment in the US haven proven to be very successful environmentally and economically

It was my understanding that fracking was a HUGE success economically but absolutely disastrous environmental impact - is that incorrect?

We've got rivers here that have been healthy and relied on for our food supply for tens of thousands of years... but now are toxic and actually flammable!
But the fact that this occurred at the same time as the fracking operations is just a coincidence. Just like all the other coincidental disasters worldwide. It must be extremely economically successful though.