Not sure what “3 million dollar home in a gated community” has to do with anything?

@Varn I agree with some of what you said, but in the end, laws do not change things that much, really. There are very probably ten times as many laws on the books in America than there were in 1945. Are we ten times better as a society because of them? Example, Civil Rights laws protecting minorities: 1 in 3 or 4 black men are imprisoned here and they are given longer sentences than whites. Since we lock up more people than any other nation and all prisons are work camps, slavery has certainly not disappeared, now has it?

The environmental issue is complex and in a capitalist society who the fuck is gonna regulate consumption, which is the core issue here? If WE don't buy shit, THEY won't PRODUCE it. Remember when middle class American families had only one car? Did someone put a gun to our heads and force us to buy cars for everyone over age 16 in family...ATV's, powerboats, 8 miles per gallon RV's, leaf blowers, lawn tractors, etc. ad infinitum? If we don't buy airline tickets, planes will stay on the ground instead of causing lung cancer in millions of people living in near airports. Veggies and fruits grown anywhere near a highway are growing in soil that is polluted 3 feet deep.

Since our governments represent us, and are put in place by us, maybe blaming it is an indirect way of appropriately ‘blaming ourselves?’ We do regulate consumption as a society, and government's our only legitimate tool.

Gravitating toward good people, I know a lot of them. But as they deprive themselves of the conveniences of wreckless consumption, someone like the ‘professor’ you describe will deplete everything a dozen actively concerned citizens will forgo… He (and family) live ‘the high life,’ while a dozen of humanities best purposely avoid such adventures, pleasures and daily opportunities of gross consumption.. Makes me sick.

Yet you can’t ‘regulate freedom!’ … we’ll hear from ‘koch (actually rhymes with crotch) industries’ PR campaign! The hell we can’t! ..but we need our Government back to do it ~

Self change can control climate change. Vote for climate change, and grow and sequester algae in plastic bottles. Build things with bottles containing algae, from bookshelves to buildings. Growing algae takes CO2 from the water it grows in, which comes from the air. Bubble air through a bottle of fertilized water, or open the bottle frequently, blow CO2 into it a as you exhale, screw the cap on, shake it, and set in the sun. When it is full of algae, save it as long as possible, hopefully centuries.

We can lobby local governments to provide local landfills to sequester algae filled bottles. Algae grows faster than anything else in the world. It can double it's mass in hours. Planting trees is good, but they grow slowly. Billions of people growing and sequestering algae can clean the Earth of plastic bottles and reduce atmospheric CO2. Industrial projects to clean the air of CO2 will cost trillions of dollars.