I listened to a podcast that posed the question "is it better to pressure industry to stop polluting, or focus on minimizing your own footprint" and the dialogu

I listened to a podcast that posed the question "is it better to pressure industry to stop polluting, or focus on minimizing your own footprint" and the dialogue that sparked, as well as the conclusions, were very informing. In a nutshell, it's incontrovertible that as a single person, most of us can only hope to achieve climate change, there are, after all, 8 billion of us, so on average each of us can only achieve 1/8e9 * 100% change in pollution. However, behaviour is learned by sharing. In that mind set, the best course of action is, in addition to one's own virtue, to encourage others to also recognize the situation and to change their own ways. In this way, one multiplies their own impact. People need to be the first movers of any social change, regardless of their own insignificant impact, because behaviour spreads and eventually industry will have no choice but to change. Simply sitting at the sidelines complaining of industrial pollution is about as helpful as watching your own house burn.