No kidding. Why are critics always so hard on those who make the effort? Like if you aren't riding a bamboo bike with soy based tires that are bound with saliva and urine, in hemp and cedar bark pants, you have no right to be proud of the efforts you have made. If you're not living in a 100% earthen pit dwelling, covered with twigs and leaves, and reading by a light powered by your own fecal methane, then you have no right to judge the consumption habits of others. Why this need to pick apart the efforts of those who are making real and tangible reductions in their consumption habits? If you can't do everything, then don't bother doing anything?I'm sure if you broke down the life of even the most hardcore environmentalist you'd find many things they could be doing better
For sake of brevity, I didn't lay out my entire approach to the material world, and how I would handle each and every variation and situation. For example, I did say I try to fix things rather than replace them. I did not say I fix everything. No kidding that when the resources required to repair something exceed those to replace it, it would anti-efficient to repair it. This is simple common sense.
When I talk about buying used electronics - I'm buying older electronics and giving them a longer life. My computer is nearly 6 years old, I run ubuntu because it is more legacy software friendly. And yet, I am still very much a part of the digital age. In fact, my entire business depends on a strong personal and professional presence across many social networks. I am much more digitally literate than my brother - who upgrades his computer roughly every second year. Electronic lifecycles are way too short - and I'm saying that there are ways around their designed, and not functional, obsolescence.
Same goes for clothes. I buy clothes, new and used, and I wear them out. Other people buy clothes to hang in their closets. This is considered an acceptable pass time. This has a huge cost, not only to the environment but also to the poor sods who make them
.
And you can do your own research, it's pretty easy to find info - but you are grossly over-estimating the amount of embodied energy in a car. You choose to stand by your feeling that you are somehow doing good by driving an old car. However, you would have a hard time finding data to support this. Especially since not only are newer cars more efficient, but they are also much cleaner burning. Go ahead and try to prove me wrong - I would welcome it in fact, because, as you know, I too drive an old, dirty vehicle.
I for one like living in a modern world. I like all the improvements to our quality of life that petrochemicals have brought us. The point is, that in the last 20 years or so our consumption has gone rampant, and it's costing us all. If everyone in North America was able to make the same changes to their lives that I, and many others have made (not commuting by car, not eating factory meat and avoiding agri-industrial foods, demanding more life from consumer goods) then we would be well on our way to a target of less than a two degree temperature change. Best part is, one's quality of life improves along with it - try it. Instead, we have been duped by the "economic crisis" swindle of the last 20 years into accepting a return to the highest levels of income disparity since just before the great depression. But that's a whole different discussion.
I suppose hypocrits just get to me. 
Good Ship