I really don't think this message penetrates very well. I think mostly because of the very, very intense marketing we experience in this country. If you want to live "green" then: stop buying shit! Yes, also, don't live in a huge home. Don't fertilize the hell out of your yard. Don't leave your house lit up like Christmas every night. Keep the thermostat below 70 (or even better: 65) in the winter and above 75 (or even 80) in the summer. Don't take baths, and take fast showers.
But really, it is buying shit (particularly disposable shit but really pretty much anything) that is the problem. It has to be made, it has to be transported, it has to be disposed of. All of those things contribute carbon. That is true of food, furniture, toilet paper, baby wipes, every damned thing.
Of course, if people listened to that it would put an even bigger hurt on our economy, and frankly, most Americans don't really want to live "green" lifestyles as they kind of suck... I mean the nations with the lowest carbon footprints (per capita) tend to be among the world's poorest. Americans with the lowest carbon footprint also tend to be very poor (homeless, carless, and living in an urban setting).
No matter how "green" I become, I am responsible for a hell of a lot more carbon than an impoverished Bangladeshi. That would be true even if I were better than 95% of Americans (I'm not). Of course I'm orders of magnitude better than our nation's millionaires and billionaires.
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