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Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: We can not save or help the environment by telling people to change their habits. This is why we need to disincentivize destructive behavior.

Reposting because my title was inaccurate and made everything confusing. 

Living in the US, I went to visit the country that I was born in, Egypt. I noticed signs that tell people to not litter and be mindful of their surroundings. The streets and floors are flooded with garbage and everyone is throwing trash on the ground right in front of me because it's more convenient than finding a trash can. There's no law against littering and if there is, the government is not strong enough to enforce it.

The US has laws that prevent this, and even in areas where there's little enforcement, a fair amount of littering is likely. 

I extend this to generally anything that people do that helps the surroundings environment "
(School, work, actual environment, etc) but is not convenient to them.

People often stack their plates with foods at open buffets and waste an incredible amount because it's more convenient than putting a little on your plate and eating before adding more. 

You can raise your kids to care about things like this but I don't think enough people care themselves and the way that parents raise their children is their business so it's not practical.


I believe that it's a waste of time and resources to tell people to save the environment and use less water, etc. 

This is why I believe the only practical way to solve the issue is to create incentives such as charging water at a constant rate until the consumer hits a cap of (let's give an arbitrary amount of 1000 gallons) and then charge the consumer extra passed that at a higher rate. 

Of course you should always try to account for factors such as the number of people in the house, etc, when deciding how to create the incentives. 

CMV 

Thanks!
gpt
I can see what you are saying, but this disproportionately puts responsibility for 'saving the environment' on individual people when the reality is that this is not a practical way to solve the issue of global warming & the environment at all. Because the vast majority of pollution is not caused by individuals, it is caused by corporations. One of the biggest lies that we have swallowed is that we are personally responsible for the environment. It's nice to do our bit, but to put it in perspective, it is estimated that a single container ship will produce more carbon emissions than 50 million cars. The shipping industry alone produces more pollution than most countries.

Making people save a little bit more water, or do their recycling, ultimately isn't going to do anything compared to that. It's a moot point. Instead, we need to be campaigning for corporations to reduce their emissions, and we need to make that viable within big industry.