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Author: Jack Marley, Environment + Energy Editor, UK edition
Original article: https://theconversation.com/why-personal-climate-action-matters-according-to-experts-248960
Do you feel powerless?
You probably aren’t responsible for the investment decisions of an energy company, nor do you have a hand in government policy. But still, you are reading about climate change – a problem that can easily seem intractable to most people.
The Veganuary campaign reported record participation this year: 25.8 million people worldwide tried a lighter lifestyle without meat and dairy in January, knowing that enormous emission sources sit beyond their immediate control. If such resolve to fix our planet exists, how can people exercise it?
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You might be used to thinking of climate change in terms of your carbon footprint. That’s no accident, says science communicator Sam Illingworth (Edinburgh Napier). A public relations firm, hired by oil giant BP, invented the concept in 2004 as part of a deliberate effort to shift attention from corporate culpability, he says.
“In my research into climate communication, I see how stories of guilt resonate with communities already facing misplaced blame,” Illingworth adds.
You’re not alone
“Net zero heroes” are set up to fail, Illingworth says. But realising this only makes collective action more important, and shows the futility of trying to bear the weight of the problem on your own.
Your choices do not exist in a vacuum. Earth is an interconnected community of living and non-living things says ethicist Patrick Effiong Ben of the University of Manchester. African philosophers like Jonathan Chimakonam and Aïda Terblanché-Greeff have a helpful concept for thinking through the weightiness of your decisions: complementarity.
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“Complementarity holds that the relationships that unite individual things can extend to prove the value of every contribution, no matter its size,” Ben says.
Read more:
Think your efforts to help the climate don’t matter? African philosophers disagree
You can test this notion by choosing to eat a plant-based diet or forgo flying and observing your influence on others. If you’re sceptical, just think how many of your habits or turns of phrase are borrowed from loved ones. Steve Westlake, a behavioural psychologist at Cardiff University, says that your pro-environment choices can ultimately alter what other people consider “normal”.
“In a survey I conducted, half of the respondents who knew someone who has given up flying because of climate change said they fly less because of this example. That alone seemed pretty impressive to me,” he says.
Read more:
Climate change: yes, your individual action does make a difference
“They explained that the bold and unusual position to give up flying had: conveyed the seriousness of climate change and flying’s contribution to it; crystallised the link between values and actions; and even reduced feelings of isolation that flying less was a valid and sensible response to climate change.”
What’s stopping us?
Often, is is not apathy that holds us back, but a seeming lack of options. In the UK, where I live, a train is by far the better travel choice emissions-wise but it is usually much more expensive than a flight that covers the same distance.
Environmental psychologists Christina Demski (University of Bath) and Stuart Capstick (Cardiff University) criticise the laissez-faire approach of successive governments that have “[gone] with the grain of consumer choice” while failing to recognise that many people would gladly choose the green option if they could afford or access it.
This desire to do something meaningful is continually frustrated, they say, but it will not vanish as the crisis worsens. Everyone alive and yet to live needs a liveable climate. Securing it is within our technical and material means.
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Just listen to this from sustainability researcher Joel Millward-Hopkins (Université de Lausanne, previously University of Leeds):
“Fortunately, in new research we found that using 60% less energy than today, decent living standards could be provided to a global population of 10 billion by 2050. That’s 75% less energy than the world is currently forecast to consume by 2050 on our present trajectory – or as much energy as the world used in the 1960s.”
Read more:
How 10 billion people could live well by 2050 – using as much energy as we did 60 years ago
Instead of seeing your new vegan diet as a personal choice, think of it as a political act taken in solidarity with people and other species bearing the brunt of climate change say political philosophers Alasdair Cochrane (University of Sheffield) and Mara-Daria Cojocaru (Munich School of Philosophy).
Read more:
Veganism: why we should see it as a political movement rather than a dietary choice
And remember that it isn’t all sacrifice. The joy that is possible with more expensive and more energy-hungry lifestyles is fleeting says Capstick, but contentment, he argues, is low-carbon.
Read more:
Climate change: greener lifestyles linked to greater happiness – in both rich and poor countries