Guys, the low flow stuff and the endless regulations are a big issue for a lot of people.
The easy solution is to charge the actual cost for water, and for carbon, and then refund that money somehow so that it incentivizes what you're going for (being smart about using resources) by *accurately pricing* them.
Putting a regulation on every single home appliance is a waste of time and creates a ton of resentment on all sides. It's a stupid, stupid way to get people to realize that the resources they use have a cost.
-W
You're right. Almost everything we do has unintended consequences. We really need to learn from history and learn about how our brains work, so we can make better choices.
As to the original question, well, a couple of cartoons got it more clearly than this, but I like to think of the analogy of a two by two box; the rows are 'do something' and 'do nothing', the columns 'climate change is real' and 'climate change is a lie'. Think of those four outcomes - do something/lie is a much better outcome than do nothing/real.
I try not to think about any of this because it's so scary. And because peoples' responses tend to be so so so selfish - which is exactly how we're 'programmed' - and always makes me think of the 'are we more intelligent than bacteria on an agar plate' question (ie, massive growth then dieoff back to a sustainable population). Are we? Doesn't look like it - seems that we're far too interested in becoming middle class and having big everything.
Particularly in North America, but everywhere else is trying their best to catch up.