I just got a CO2 meter and checked the levels in my house and went down a rabbit hole trying to address the issue. Apparently it would take 249 areca palms to offset the carbon RESPIRATION of one adult.
So okay 249 trees just for me to breathe, not to mention the rest of the bad things we all do.
So how can this math ever balance? 249 trees just to break even seems like an impossible number. Then all the flights I have been on, miles driven, etc.
I feel like that’s… Way too many trees. Is it hopeless or am I missing something?
As others have pointed out, individuals are not the problem nor are they the solution. How we produce energy and manufacture goods are the issue. The corporations producing energy and manufacturing goods don’t want to change to sustainable alternatives because it will cost them money. So they’ve invented the idea of a carbon footprint to make it seem like it’s your desire for electricity that is the problem and not how they generate it.
Don’t say we because you’re not part of it. You’re the victim of it.
You’re part of it if you use electricity or consume anything you didn’t grow in your own garden.
Everyone likes to say “it’s the oil and gas companies” but like, no shit, we burn oil and gas, and billions of people die if we just suddenly stop.
Corporations aren’t giggling madmen burning gas for fun. They’re shipping things across oceans and powering cars and buildings, they’re making shit you buy.
Every single person contributes to climate change and it is by changing spending and investment habits (which is ongoing and has been for a while) that we overcome climate change.
If we were actually net zero, humans would still reproduce until we aren’t anymore.
Overpopulation is an unsolvable problem.