A fixation on system change alone opens the door to a kind of cynical self-absolution that divorces personal commitment from political belief. This is its own kind of false consciousness, one that threatens to create a cheapened climate politics incommensurate with this urgent moment.
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Because here’s the thing: When you choose to eat less meat or take the bus instead of driving or have fewer children, you are making a statement that your actions matter, that it’s not too late to avert climate catastrophe, that you have power. To take a measure of personal responsibility for climate change doesn’t have to distract from your political activism—if anything, it amplifies it.
I have been on this hill for years, ever since the whole “recycling does nothing” attitude became popular.
People who make these individual lifestyle changes are more likely to advocate for holistic change. Meanwhile those who adopt a cynical take on environmentalism are more likely to disengage entirely. This seems incredibly obvious to me.
I love the “nascar doesn’t hurt the environment, big companies do! f1 doesn’t hurt the environment, it’s big oil’s fault! racing my shitcrate down the road doesn’t hurt the environment, even though I’ve modified the carb so unburnt fuel spews out the back because VROOOM VROOM makes me sound like a real man, no, it’s uh, all those datacenters fault!”
whatever their fetish is, they’ll die on that hill defending it instead of changing.
Think about it: their own children will pick up the tab, be the ones who suffer the worst for these silly fucking games, and they literally don’t care. THEIR OWN KIDS. Zero fucks given. When they don’t even care about the future shitshow their own kids will have to suffer, what leverage can be found?
Wait, we actually have to do something? /s
Change has to come from both sides, from companies as well as from consumers. Yes, Your actions don’t really matter when you try to reduce waste, but the oil tanker spills millions of liters into the ocean, or when you use electricity from renewable sources while there is coal extracted and burned to fulfill the need of energy.
But as a consumer you can change the perspective about it by observing it from the personal economic side. This way, doing something in favour of reducing waste or doing something to lessen the effect of the climate catastrophe is merely a side effect of your actions:
- I don’t have children, because I don’t want to take responisbility for them. Also, I don’t like children. This saves me a lot of money, which I don’t have.
- I am relying on a car. But instead of driving a truck-like 5l-gas guzzler, I drive a small economic car. 90% of the time I drive alone anyway. A small car means less fuel consumption, less tax, cheaper repairs. Also, there are more parking spots availiable for me in the city, since the car is shorter than other vehicles (at least for parallel parking).
- When running errands, I combine them with using the car. For instance, I do my grocery shopping on the way back from work, and I can make use of my car’s storage capabilities. This saves me precious time, since I’m on the road anyway.
- When buying clothes, I don’t buy the cheapest clothes availiable. Mid-price ranged clothes are more durable, and they can be worn longer and are cheaper in the long run. Also, I don’t use fabric softener. Not only does it contribute to polluting the enviroment - fabric softener reduces the capability for towels to dry things (which defeats the purpose of a towel), because it hinders the fabrics’ capillar effect for storing water in the fibers. Additional to that, I don’t use an electric dryer. I hang my clothes to dry. This measurement extends your clothes lifetime, which is saving money.
- Although I am a meat eater, I am open-minded to vegan food - in the last decade it came a long way and there are good substitutes. Some of them are trial and error though (some taste like a stack of hay smells), but the alternatives are out there. It doesn’t have to taste exactly like meat. The worst thing that can happen is, that you expand the list of things you can eat.
- And the most important thing of all: DON’T BUY USELESS CRAP! Sure, the cloud-based app-operated thing is appealing, but what happens, when the company that produces it goes bankrupt? The cloud service gets shut down! You have a paper weight now. I don’t buy such things, because I don’t want my home cluttered with stuff I don’t need eventually. When I buy new stuff (mostly to replace broken stuff that I can’t repair) I do research first and evaluate what features of the desired thing really benefit my needs. I rather buy expensive stuff that is more durable an has a longer lifetime over all. In the long run it turns out to be less expensive.
In my opinion it makes more sense to analyse your actions with the affect of personal economic impact in mind than to view it in the sense of reducing the impact of the climate catastrophe. Because since your neighbor isn’t, you can easily feel helpless and de-motivated.
You can say this, but you can’t make it happen. What is more realistic, changing the attitudes and habits of billions of individuals quickly enough to reverse climate change, or enforcing restrictions on thousands of companies?
That’s fine, but the focus should be on the thing with 99% leverage and not on the thing with 1% leverage.
The thing with 99% leverage sadly has only a chance of 1% to happen while the 1% leverage thing you can just make happen. And if you make the 1% thing happen in more people the votes for the 99% thing start to go up as well. And eating less meat does have an impact. For years now i read headlines that year n had less pig meat being eaten in total than year n-1 (pork being the focus as my country afaik does not have a big beef industry so it’s not as relevant to report about it)
We have very little influence on the industry as a whole but if you buy less meat, the meat industry actually becomes smaller over time. The alternative products also become more and more. Super markets over here all have a vegan shelf at least and there’s more vegan only restaurants opening up in my city that even made my meat eater colleagues go there to eat from time to time.
Finally someone said it.
“But the companies”. The companies will only stop doing what they do if you don’t buy from them.
Exactly! We can’t blame these companies and then buy their stuff and deflect all responsibility.
It’s sort of a cycle that runs on apathy, ignorance, and lack of empathy.
Powerful groups manipulate and coerce people and markets
Manipulated, coerced people buy more of what they are pushed to
Consumer votes in leaders that support this exploitative cycle making laws facilitating companies manipulating and coercing their behavior
We need to break out of this cycle by conscientiously rejecting this manipulation, buying less, voting, running for office, etc. (i.e. degrowth)
