It's okay for us to do our bit too
It's okay for us to do our bit too
While we wait around for systemic change to combat the climate crisis, we can shoulder some light individual responsibility too
Most of the people I follow have been posting stories about Diwali for the last couple of days. One of India’s biggest festivals, we celebrate with a lot of light and love — and unfortunately, with a side of noise and air pollution.
One of my friends, an accomplished environmental economist, posted a story against a backdrop of smog and loud-ass firecrackers with this line that gave me pause:
“Individuals cannot be held responsible for systemic problems but that doesn’t exempt us from responsibility either.”
I’m the first person to say that large corps and a whole system designed to be ultra-capitalist are most of the reasons we’re dealing with droughts, famines, inclement weather, and whatnot due to global warming.
A recent report found that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1988. Incredibly, a mere 25 corporations and state-owned entities were responsible for more than half of global industrial emissions in that same period. (source)
However, I said most. There’s a tiny bit of individual responsibility that we often ignore — or perplexedly, put all our blame on. It seems to be an all-or-nothing kinda thing which I’ll tackle in another newsletter.
It’s okay to take a little bit of individual responsibility
But individual responsibility is small; it’s doing our part where we can while continuing to acknowledge and demand change when possible from our governments, leaders, workplaces, etc.
Let me illustrate: we burst a lot of firecrackers during Diwali — equivalent to America’s 4th of July or New Year celebrations across the world. But along with being pretty for an ephemeral moment, they’re also incredibly loud, horrible for any and all animals, and lower the air quality by significant amounts for weeks after — masks post-Diwali were a thing way before Covid made masks mainstream.
However, in the last few years, governments (state/country) have been taking measures to reduce this. But there are still a ton of firecrackers going around. Of course, it’s less noisy than, say, 2010, but we’ve got a while to go — but we don’t have the luxury of time like we did before.
Even if there’s a statewide ban on firecrackers, it’s easy to procure stuff because the people that previously made a living from selling firecrackers will still need to do that. Unless the government has rehabilitated them and offered them different work to support themselves, you’ll find firecrackers to burst.
But does that mean we should still buy them? Sure, buy them. Support the small business. But you don’t need to get kilos worth of firecrackers to burst through the whole night. One or two, maybe, or support them by buying but not bursting. We’re working on solutions to this bit; bear with me.
Individual action can encourage systemic change
It’s incredibly easy to twist this as most corporations do — they put all onus on the individual: switch to paper straws, drop off everything at your recycling centre, don’t do this or that, etc.
It’s not that easy, though, and we know it. Some people need plastic straws. Companies make sure everything cannot be recycled (it costs them more money to make recyclable stuff, more effort, and everything), so even if we drop it off correctly, few things can actually be recycled.
But that doesn’t mean we still don’t owe it to ourselves, the world we literally live in, and a future generation to do our small bits.
The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report emphasizes that behavior, lifestyle and cultural change have a high mitigation potential in some sectors, particularly when complementing technological and structural change.
It’s not cheap to buy good-quality, long-lasting fashion. But there’s no need to shop unnecessarily for fast fashion when you probably don’t need clothes. Now that thrifting’s mainstream, you could find some good stuff for similar prices, and you’re not patronizing a store that potentially uses sweatshop labour to mass produce stuff while exploiting people (including kids).
In general, higher consumption lifestyles have a greater environmental impact, with the richest 10% of people emitting about half the total lifestyle emissions.
Or else, the poor bear the brunt of our apathy and obliviousness
In particular, individuals living in poorer countries who have contributed almost nothing to climate change deserve the most support and the least guilt. They are neither the primary perpetrators of global warming nor the ones who have the power to enact the structural changes necessary for limiting global warming, which would have to involve holding powerful industries responsible.
We’ve seen this happen recently — Pakistan faced some of the worst floods in its history. 33 million people were displaced (that’s nearly ⅕). And yet, the country only contributes to 0.49 of the global carbon emissions — less than 1%, and it’s the eighth-most vulnerable nation to the climate crisis.
In a nutshell, most of the blame lies on companies exploiting people and nature and the system built to propagate our descent into a literal hellhole. But it would be nice if we weren’t simultaneously apathetic and hopeful. Apathetic to the state of the climate crisis and our deteriorating living conditions, believing it’s the fault of the system and those corps. Hopeful about that very system and those corps fixing themselves overnight.
Maybe it won’t amount to much — reducing meat, buying less fast fashion, or switching to reusable containers and utensils when possible. But it’s certainly not adding more (fossil) fuel to the fire, is it?
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Nia’s Newsletter Rec!
Spark is a free weekly newsletter from Elizabeth Marro that explores life through the lens of what we read and write. Every Saturday, you’ll find a themed issue with essays, book recommendations, interviews, a growing network of resources for readers and writers — and more.
Most of all, you’ll find something that makes you think/laugh/wonder and a community of bookish folks and writers.
If you resonated with one of my recent issues about mental loads and how most women tend to bear the brunt of them, you’ll like Elizabeth’s issue on maternal wages, the cost of childcare for single parents, etc.
Cool stuff to chew on this week!
Happy Diwali! 🪔 Here's what my city (Mumbai) looks like during the festival of lights:
Did you miss me in your inbox last week (say yes, even if it's just to be nice)? I was at Frankfurt Book Fair!
A Bored Chinese Housewife Spent Years Falsifying Russian History on Wikipedia (some wild dedication, huh)
I've previously shared a thread from this Twitter account (@/theculturaltutor) but recently found out they might be into some fucked-up white supremacism/nazi-adjacent stuff (somehow, all the appreciation for the old world didn't tip our radar until right now). So this is an FYI.
Banging an old drum (for this newsletter, at least), but adult friendships continue to be immensely difficult — 1 in 7 men and 1 in 10 women in the US don't have a single friend. . Here are some ways folks on Twitter said they made friends in adulthood.
Last week I gave some cool recommendations over at Dense Discovery (one of my fav newsletters). A small excerpt:
Q: A piece of advice worth passing on?
A: When a fan told SUGA (a member of K-pop band BTS) that they'd given up on their dream, he responded: "I think you must have had tremendous courage. Giving something up decisively takes lots of courage." He reminds us that sometimes dreams change, and it's okay to give up, change course, and move on. You can choose a new dream or mourn the old one – but all of it requires some form of courage.
I’ll see you next week — maybe not at the same time, but definitely the same place.
Thank you for the heads up on that twitter account!
YES! We absolutely need to compost the rich (read: hold the 1% accountable for destroying lives and the planet) AND we can do our part, when and where we can. Thank you for your words!