@Denny 👏 yes on consumption! From my experience in the waste industry, most people want to recycle and call it good on doing their part for the environment. Over the eight years I did outreach about waste, my messaging transitioned dramatically from "here's how to recycle pretty much everything!" to hyping repair, buying used, participating in the sharing economy, and preventing waste -- especially food. (I live in a community that's already pretty good at recycling.) Unfortunately they were still hanging on to recycling everything being the answer when I left...
@tracydurnell Yeah. The general behavior and attitude that I see is that people want to do as little as possible to correct the problem when what is required is that we overturn our way of life. And even that won't fix the problem because we've already gone too far in the wrong direction. Coming to a complete stop only helps alleviate the worst possible outcomes. And yet, given all that, it seems that most just shrug and continue on.
A part of the problem is that people seem unwilling or unable to grasp the full implications of the outcome. Be it the extinction of other species on the planet or our ability to feed ourselves or the new reality of extreme weather rather than more gentle, dependable moderated weather. And so, so many details in terms of how it can all upend our lives in the relative near future.
I'm not sure what it says about my brain that I find it hard to think about anything but this.