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Comment by snarf21 | Hacker News Reader

Improve our lives according to whom? You? Have you cut your consumption by 50% this year? Have you installed solar (if you own a house)? Have you started growing your own vegetables? Have you bought a house that is 50% smaller to reduce heating/cooling needs? Do you want someone telling you that you have to do all these things and more?

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> Have you cut your consumption by 50% this year? Have you installed solar (if you own a house)? Have you started growing your own vegetables? Have you bought a house that is 50% smaller to reduce heating/cooling needs? Do you want someone telling you that you have to do all these things and more?

My consumption isn't very high to begin with, there wasn't much to cut. My house is shaded by large trees and solar wouldn't provide much benefit, so instead I've cut electrical use. I do have a garden, yes. I have a modestly sized house and 2 roomates.

Could I do more? Sure, not that it'd make much difference with the apparent sentiment being "fuck the future if it makes things inconvenient for me now". Especially for the incredibly well off portions of our society that consume ludicrously more resources than the median and then tell us all there's nothing we can do.

Sadly, I'm convinced that only an authoritarian dictatorship could actually pull this off, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like that either. I'd much prefer if people would just not throw up their hands because they're asked to be a little less comfortable for the sake our descendants' future.

Since you ask, I've reduced over 90 percent, which I've shared publicly, anticipating I may be like a Roger Bannister to some. Will you join?

Here is a graph: https://joshuaspodek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ReduceFo...

On my blog https://www.joshuaspodek.com I post my electric bills, that I pick up litter daily, that I haven't flown since 2016, haven't filled a load of garbage since 2019, and more. Most importantly, that each of these changes improves my life. Or watch my TEDx talks on sustainability leadership: https://joshuaspodek.com/tedx.

Leadership, not individual action is the point. Yet more important and magnifying my effect, I lead workshops in food deserts, coach executives and politicians, and host a podcast helping change American and global culture from the attitude I read in your post, that sustainability and stewardship are burdens, deprivation, or sacrifice, to expecting it will improve their lives, help the most vulnerable, and create stability and abundance.

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