Nobody to rescue us

I have been frustrated with the fact that it is almost impossible to live ecologically in Finland. Everything seems to work against this goal. Even when considering a fairly radical lifestyle, I cannot reach anything close to sustainable. The biggest (but not the only) item in the catalog of my unsustainable habits is that I am living in an apartment. And I have the luxury of 30 square meters per person (120 square meters total). When searching for items to further improve my personal carbon footprint, the only option was to move to a smaller apartment or to move to a country where less energy is needed for heating. Unfortunately, Finland requires heating for a large part of the year. I wrote a letter about my frustration to our local newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat, which happens to be the biggest daily in Scandinavia). When it was published, many people chimed in with their opinions. It was eye-opening to see how many were trying to argue away or justify the fact that Finland has - per capita - one of the largest carbon footprints among comparable countries (e.g. Sweden or Switzerland have lower carbon footprints than we do, see here). There was (as usual) the typical (and wrong) blaming of the population-rich countries. Some just told me to be satisfied with what I am doing, while others told me to get help from a shrink. Lots of defensive rationalization and compartmentalization. The smarter we are, the better we are at rationalizing. I think we all know deep down that we are just pretending to rescue the planet. Most of the Germans also knew deep down that these factories, where all the Jews had been ordered to work, were not just producing soap. The US came to rescue Europe in WWII, but no US is coming to rescue the planet.