I've thought a lot about this, and I agree in principle, but I can't figure out how to get passed the aggression. When people have their "common sense" challenged, they really seem to go off the deep end. As I said, people almost coming to blows over debating the merits of standing up or sitting down while showering -- never in my wildest dreams did I expect such an extreme reaction. I think the parent's post is right on the money. Most people are completely unaware of this short circuit as far as I can tell and probably it's just part of being human. The worst thing is that, being unaware, we simply don't register or recognise that we do it.

I don't know you and so I'll take your statement that you never stopped learning or being critical about something at face value. The thing is everybody thinks they are the same! If I accused you of not being critical, of unconsciously accepting superficial information and wielding it as if it were gospel, you can imagine how you would feel. This is a deeply threatening accusation.

The end result is that I can't effectively have that discussion. Has anybody here really (other than you, potentially) looked at their effect on the environment? Have they every thought about the impact that buying a new pair of trousers has? Or heating their house above 10 degrees? Or accepting sidewalks be built outside of their house (not to mention roads)?

I'm being extreme to try to illuminate a point. I don't know anyone who has ever even tried to find out what those impacts are. "My bare minimum standard of living has got to be OK" is just more common sense and we all do it. It's easy to draw the line somewhere and rationalise that the other guy has it wrong -- because they almost certainly do! It's much harder to be introspective and say, "Hey I have no idea what's going on here and mostly I'm going on hope that what I'm doing is OK". Even to suggest that concept to people is to provoke anger (and I really hope I have avoided doing that in you).

It's that anger that I don't know what to do with. There is no problem in saying, "OK, I've done the math and here is exactly the impact of my lifestyle and if everybody follows that lifestyle I can show that the planet will be OK" (well, really more than "no problem" if you can actually do it ;-) ). I'm sure you've tried suggesting to people ways of improving their lifestyle. What is always the response? "Don't be ridiculous.", followed by a lot of rationalisation. And if I say that even you with your enlightened ways are causing problems at about the same level of magnitude as others, then I am quite certain the response will be anger and a feeling of "Don't be ridiculous". The fact that such a comment from me would be completely unjustified is somewhat beside the point. Do you really know, or do you just hope that it's wrong? And if it's the latter, can you get beyond the anger of the accusation to improve? And even if you can, can you teach others to do it as well?

That's the problem that has been going through my head for a decade. While I've thrown some mighty accusations in your direction, I hope you realise that I'm not really accusing you of anything. These are the accusations I threw at myself. These are the areas where I realised that I was wanting. While you may be the first exception, I've yet to meet anybody who hasn't been found wanting in this area, so I'm still at a loss.