It's okay not to be 100% sustainable

We've all got to work towards being more eco-friendly, but it's not all-or-nothing

We’re continuing our talk about doing our bit for the environment and against climate change — read the issue about individual responsibility and action here if you missed it!

Any of you watch(ed) The Good Place? 

I won’t give you any spoilers, but at one point, some of the characters in the show find out that it’s not possible to live a ‘good’ life on earth anymore. Every single thing you do, every decision you make isn’t wholly your own, and therefore, it’s impossible to do something that’s 100% good, no matter your intention. 

This brings me to what we need to talk about today — eco-perfectionism. A fancy term that a lot of people use to dismiss eco-friendly or sustainable actions because they’re not 100% perfect. 

“You don’t have to be perfect to push for things around you to improve. You can be against the meat industry, even if you eat meat every now and again. And you can fly to a climate change conference and still push for results. In the end, I believe the most consistent way forward is for lots of imperfect individuals to take small steps in the right direction. What then starts off as a small gradual movement will eventually lead to change on a bigger scale.”

Choosing planet over perfection

I’m not sure if I read this phrase somewhere or cobbled it together myself, but I attempt to live my life by this principle. It’s easy for people to preach complete perfection, but everything isn’t all-or-nothing. In fact, the more we insist on a perfect environmental or sustainable life, the less people are inclined to do the little they can. 

“Not only [do] people in the public spotlight who fight for sustainability have to justify their imperfect actions nowadays. Any person who openly takes the future of our planet close to heart makes themselves vulnerable. Instead of receiving praise and recognition for taking a step into the right decision, they are accused of not doing everything right.”

Eco-perfectionism, eco-shaming, or sustainability-bashing — call it whatever you want; all it’s doing is discouraging people from at least trying to be slightly more sustainable when they can. 

Doing the best with the resources and information we’ve got

Many things are easier said than done, and practising total and complete sustainability is one of those. In fact, several factors impact how much you can do. 

If you come from a developing country, sustainable items may not be easily accessible or even affordable enough to justify a switch. At the same time, many developing countries have been sustainable in their own ways for centuries — except the West is discovering these ways now, so we’ve come a full circle from when people were shamed for those very things. Not to mention the incredulous hikes in prices as people appropriate these ways for profit under the guise of sustainability (even if their intention is pure). 

In poorer countries, oftentimes, meat is a source of protein and a cheap food item. Vegan food continues to be expensive, even for those people who make decent money. Sure, you can argue that you could find recipes that allow you to make meat-free food without spending too much money, but it takes both time and effort to find that information. 

Time is money for many people, and honestly, in this world driven by hustle culture and milestones, few people have any energy left to put toward yet another new thing. Still, they care — they care how much they can. And it’s not like they’ll only continue caring this much. So starting and doing something, anything, is better than ignoring the problem and doing nothing. 

Now, there are folks in developing countries who are privileged and often do what they can with the money and resources they’ve got. But somehow, it feels like it’s never enough! If you recycle and try to buy locally but take a plane or drive a car (god forbid you live in a not-so-connected place 🙄), you’re basically doing nothing. All your efforts are negated — or so some of these so-called environmentalists believe.  

“It is important to remember that everyone is working on themselves to be a better environmentalist. They will make mistakes and not do everything right.”

Shame isn’t a good motivator

You know what? I fully understand that we need to give people who are shouting from the rooftops about climate change a stronger voice and a better platform. But when that platform becomes a place to make people feel guilty or ashamed about the choices they have no control over — that’s when it becomes toxic. 

Shame has never been a good source of motivation. Often, people will half-ass whatever they’re being shamed for or stop doing it entirely. I mean, if you’re going to be called out for not doing 78 things out of 100 (but you still did 22), then why would you continue doing the other 22 things?

Many of us have a lot of eco-anxiety anyway (at least I do). It’s a bit of a joke to focus on our careers, our daily chores, and think of what to make for dinner when it feels like we won’t get to enjoy our later years in peace (or at all). But we keep moving and doing the best we can — so let’s not add a shame spiral to that mix, yeah? 

So, maybe we could ease off on the eco-perfectionism and let people do the best they can, yeah? Improvement happens under positive reinforcement, not punishment — or we’ll simply end up with people who resent doing anything eco-friendly at all (purely out of spite). 

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Nia’s Newsletter Rec!

Cassie writes Reading Under the Radar, a weekly recommendation newsletter that brings you books you’ve likely never heard of. There seems to be a rotating list of the top 10 books everyone is interested in, but what do you read after you’ve read all those? That’s where Reading Under the Radar comes in. 

Here’s a cosy murder mystery (what an odd juxtaposition of words, no?) set in a small town’s ice-cream shop. 

Read a small-town murder mystery set in an ice-cream shop

Cool stuff to check out this week!

• For my fellow freelancers! I love you all, but as Sophie Cross says, we all need to turn off "People Also Viewed" on LinkedIn! This is a v helpful tip, and she's got more in her course: LinkedIn for Humans (not sponsored, I genuinely think it's helpful).
  EDIT October 2023: I’m thrilled to be able to share an affiliate link for LinkedIn for Humans now; please use this link to get the course so I can get a new book for myself ;)!

• A beautiful piece on the slow, painful demise of a friendship you never thought would end.

• If like me, you spend an unhealthy amount of time on Twitter and are watching its descent into chaos with terror, I've got two tips for you: download your Twitter archive (it takes a few days to generate, and the wait times are getting longer now) and export all your bookmarks (I've used Dewey and will sit and sort through 400+ bookmarks at some point this week). 

• India has one of the cheapest data costs in the world. Now that I've moved to the Netherlands, I'm acutely feeling the pinch when I've got to shell out euros upon euros for a few meagre gigabytes. Here's what mobile data costs in 233 countries. 

• In case you need to pick up a book to hit your reading goals, this Tweet has a goldmine of brilliant books you could check out. My rec was Anxious People by Fredrik Bachman (which I've been recommending for ages now). 

• Leaving you with some realistic yet comforting words?

  

  I’ll see you next week — maybe not at the same time, but definitely the same place.