Good question but let me reframe it. You’re absolutely right. Any one us don't have an outsize impact on the 36.3 gigatonnes the world emits each year — except perhaps Kim Kardashian and others flying their private jets. But a more useful question is how are you part of a solution. There’s two ways that I can see:

1. You reuse your own emissions a small, but personal meaningful amount. This has the added benefit of bring your life in line with you personal values (and you may even have more fun)
2. You’re a walking billboard for how to do things a different way.

I personally think #2 may be the biggest impact you have by shifting norms. Here’s what I wrote in my first column:

"While global problems don’t seem entirely amenable to individual action, that is only part of the story. Human culture and global warming are not linear systems. They are driven by exponential curves, social contagions and threshold effects. They exist at the messy confluence of biology, economics, psychology and physics.

Take solar panels. In 2021, researchers in the journal Nature published a paper studying why people install solar panels on their roofs. Subsidies, geography and policy were all considered. The most powerful factor? Whether a neighbor already had solar panels. There was even a proximity effect. People living within two blocks of homes with panels were the most likely to buy their own. Solar panels, in other words, were contagious. With climate, we must consider social norms as well as policies and incentives."

You might not be the problem, but you certainly have to be part of the solution ;)

Not OP obviously,

Making people responsible for climate change is a clever PR trick.

Most of the collected recyclable materials ends up in landfills or sent / sold to 3rd world countries, where they were dumped, burned or processesed without any environmental considerations.

Mining for rare earth materials, that are necessary for batteries and motors of EVs cause environmental destruction and conflicts, exploitation of poor people.

Textile industry is one of the biggest polluters of waterways and environment in general.

Current Disaster Capitalism and neoliberalism is the problem. And the best thing a person can do is not consuming.

Recycling is the number one thing people say they do for climate change. And it’s great. For metals, glass, paper, and batteries in particular, you’re making an impact. But the questions is much less clear for single-use plastic (better to avoid). And other things are more important if you’re prioritizing.

As The Atlantic reports, when Project Drawdown, a nonprofit group, "analyzed more than 80 separate means that could help keep the world from passing the oft-cited threshold of 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius of warming, the recycling industry’s projected contributions fell below the median, trailing geothermal power, efficient aviation, forest protection, and dozens of other actions."

You, like most people, probably know 97% of climate scientists conclude that the Earth is rapidly warming because of human activity. But that doesn’t convince everyone! Yale estimates only 11% or “dismissive” and 11% more are doubtful. So what do we do with this 22%?

I actually wrote about this a while ago, and there’s an excellent Reddit thread exploring this topic more: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5zvuxx/former_climate_change_deniers_what_changed_your/

So Yale Climate Connections analyzed 66 answers describing the motivation behind people’s conversion from denier to believer. The biggest reason was a slow acceptance of clear scientific evidence. For many, seeing graphs of atmospheric carbon dioxide and overwhelming data supporting the conclusion that humans are rapidly, catastrophically warming the planet was convincing. “It’s just difficult for me to deny it with the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence that supports it,” wrote one.

But they have to get there first, and in many cases, people aren't even willing to consider these facts. That's where values come in.

Many people rejected climate science in the first place because of 1) their families 2) personal politics and identity, which were a close second. “Mostly because my family rigorously shot it down whenever it was remotely mentioned,” one person wrote in the Reddit thread. Another writer had grown up “actively and obnoxiously denying climate change because my dad told me it wasn’t real.”

A third major reason was a desire to avoid the enormity of the problem. “I really doubted it for a while, because honestly it scared me,” one poster wrote. “I figured if I just denied it and pretended it wasn’t a thing, it wouldn’t be and it would just go away.”

So how do you change peoples’ minds? Lead with values. Throwing scientific studies in people’s faces is likely to have the opposite effect, putting people into a defensive crouch. People tend to reject the validity of scientific evidence if it conflicts with worldviews.

You can present information in ways that already align with people’s beliefs without triggering emotional, defensive responses. As a good analysis of the research summarizes: "Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what has [been] called a “culture war of fact.”

That gives facts a chance.

I can help with this. I help design ecosystems that minic nature (Canadian Permaculture Legacy on youtube).

Stop thinking about what is the best tree. Planting trees isn't the solution. Trees are fragile. We shouldn't be sequestering carbon using "pines in lines".

We should be planting ecosystems. Trees, bushes, herbs, flowers, groundcovers. Our goal should be to design in as much diversity as possible to attract the most amount of insects, which is food for higher order creatures, and using plants that build soil life. We should use natives (to attract the insects that eat them).

This way, we aren't just planting trees, we are building soils and restoring the food chain.

Pines have very little food for other creatures. Seeviceberries on the other hand may sequester carbon slightly slower, but they attract birds. Lindens support bees. Milkweed brings in monarchs. Yarrow brings in green lace wings. Innoculated logs bring in mycelium, and habitat for insects, which are then food for frogs which are food for snakes, which are food for small mammals. Etc.

Building a robust ecosystems will leverage any benefit from the tree, by building soil, and a resilient web of life that will replicate itself along the edge of the new forest.

We can either plant 1000 trees that will die in 20 years and create a dead ecosystem, or we can plant 1000 trees, flowers, bushes and herbs that will replicate themselves and create a system where birds and squirrels now plant new trees, bees spread pollen, dynamic accumulators build topsoil, etc.

Not OP but I would say a pondarosa pine. But the long answer would be that you should just plant whatever you want because I think I saw somewhere that the tree needs to be several decades old before it really starts to capture carbon.

Do you have a source?

This sounds like propaganda. Do you have a credible source for this statement?

You're asking a lot of good questions, but I'm afraid there's not a lot of good answers right now. An HVAC contractor won't be able to tell you much. The best resource I have found is Rewiring America. Check out this IRA calculator they have. https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator

It matters! The transportation sector is now the largest source GHG emissions in the US: 27%. Decarbonizing that is critical. While not perfect, EVs are a necessary step in getting US emissions on track. Of course, it’s best to walk, bike, share, etc. but electric mobility is important, especially as we decarbonize the electricity grid. The one exception?

The electric Hummer is actually worse than many gasoline vehicles.

Couple great things about it: avoid methane emissions in landfill, turbocharges your garden (or someone else's), and you get a much better sense of how much food you're wasting — the biggest source of emission.

Oh, and composting doesn’t have to be hard anymore. I wrote all about it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/21/home-composting-new-technology/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com

It’s helpful to compare where the average person’s emissions come from. Housing is the top source (around a third) and transportation is next (around a third as well). For most people, those emissions vary dramatically. Frequent flyers, especially. Because plane travel is so energy intensive, it often contributes an outsize share of one's emissions.

So even if you drive every day for a commute, flying across the country several times could swamp those emissions. So there’s no one right answer to that except to say that a few long flights equals many, many miles in a car.

[deleted]