this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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Individual action cannot be a solution for the climate crisis. The whole idea of individual responsibility for climate impact is the divide and conquer strategy of big business as ultimate form of the collective action problem.
Global actions are the sum of individual actions. Just because one can not safe the world alone, one still should behave like one could.
Nope. Global action is more than sum of individual action. It is meta action that only the collective humanity can do, and not just the time when everyone is doing the same thing, as if that was possible.
And no, you should not behave as if you can solve the climate crisis yourself, because you cannot. Time, money, attention, willpower and empathy are limited resources in people. Of you spend all your personal resources just mitigating your own impact, you will convince yourself that you've done enough when the job is not to curb your personal impact, but to drive cultural and political change that results in global policy that solves the problem. Changing one politicians mind to support pro-climate legislation is far more valuable and impactful than any amount recycling you could ever do.
Further than that, there are emissions done on your behalf that you have no say in; emissions spent on building and maintaining the government that provides services (whether you use them or want them or not), infrastructure that you cannot help but utilise to live your life or military that "protects" (or destroys brown people's homes, it's really a toss up).
Big business has been telling us to recycle for approximately 40 years, and recycling is at an all time low as proportion of total waste produced. Advocating away from meaningful legislation and towards individual action is the ultimate weapon of big business. Recycling, and individual action more broadly, are effectively the same as being stabbed in the abdomen and bleeding to death, and then confidentially pulling out a band aid and putting it onto the gaping wound. I mean, yeah, sure, put it on, it'll absorb some blood, but you, and our planet, are still dying. More decisive collective action, such as calling the ambulance and seeing a team of trauma surgeons asap is necessary.
Meaningful legislation follows collective individual conviction - this mindset that the individual does not matter is simply an excuse to resist change, which means that government will basically never feel the mandate to make any meaningful legislation. People must be willing to be better, and that starts with personal investment in the problem. For example, if you bike more and use transit more, even when it is mildly inconvenient, local politicians and authorities are far more likely to invest in those modes.
Further, there is a lot that people can do to their effective emissions, regardless of external emissions. Quitting meat, for example, is an individual action that can have enormous benefits collectively. Buying solar panels and home investments, even at a slight loss, drastically reduce emissions. When you talk about externalized emissions, you fail to admit that a massive portion of the global emissions are due to the individual consumption of resources. Period.
Additionally, individual political action - donating, campaigning, and running, are all individual actions that contribute to the greater collective action. The idea that this is fundamentally different than other type of individual action is wrong.
As far as I am concerned, the mindset that the individual doesn't matter is an immensely toxic and dangerous one: it is escapism, denial, and a transparent effort to assuage one's personal guilt toward responsibility.