I frown when someone tells me that my vegetarianism has no impact on society's carbon footprint and individual action has no place in climate change mitigation. They say one environmentalist can't make a difference in a sea of environmental destruction...
Those sceptics may be painfully correct since individual action must be cumulative for it to be significant - a main premise in this blog. I have discovered, however, that it is society's structure that hampers green behaviour and not enough individuals engage in green behaviour for meaningful change to happen; there are various conscious and subconscious barriers an individual may face when engaging in green behaviour, resulting in unsustainable behaviour to perpetuate.
So returning to the original questions I wanted to answer during this journey... maybe it is pointless to be individually green - if we're thinking of it being the only way to mitigate climate change, but that's not the case. Green behaviour should be part of a holistic approach to climate change mitigation; I'm not going to be giving up my vegetarianism anytime soon!
And that leads me nicely onto my next point... Environmentalists, we still have a very important role in this climate change mitigation! In this blog, individual action was synonymous with the actions we can individually take to reduce our carbon footprint, but now I propose it to mean something slightly different: a bottom up approach to governance of climate change. We support and promote the national actions that can be delivered by the state. Essentially, we are voters, members of civic organisations, colleagues, friends, advocates of policies and funding... we should capitalise on this.
With our passion and drive, we must influence the implementation of structures and systems that promote societal green behaviour for both individuals and industry by enhancing the state's political agency. For instance, since nudging has the ability to spur green behaviour, we could promote this coupled with policies that guarantee green behaviour. Institutional and policy change will not happen on its own!
I can clearly say individual action is vital for climate change mitigation, perhaps not in the way I first thought, but regardless individuals must help cultivate marked change at the state level that cascades down to the citizen level through policies and incentives. This won't be easy, but then our victory wouldn't be a true celebration. The clock is ticking.
Those sceptics may be painfully correct since individual action must be cumulative for it to be significant - a main premise in this blog. I have discovered, however, that it is society's structure that hampers green behaviour and not enough individuals engage in green behaviour for meaningful change to happen; there are various conscious and subconscious barriers an individual may face when engaging in green behaviour, resulting in unsustainable behaviour to perpetuate.
So returning to the original questions I wanted to answer during this journey... maybe it is pointless to be individually green - if we're thinking of it being the only way to mitigate climate change, but that's not the case. Green behaviour should be part of a holistic approach to climate change mitigation; I'm not going to be giving up my vegetarianism anytime soon!
And that leads me nicely onto my next point... Environmentalists, we still have a very important role in this climate change mitigation! In this blog, individual action was synonymous with the actions we can individually take to reduce our carbon footprint, but now I propose it to mean something slightly different: a bottom up approach to governance of climate change. We support and promote the national actions that can be delivered by the state. Essentially, we are voters, members of civic organisations, colleagues, friends, advocates of policies and funding... we should capitalise on this.
With our passion and drive, we must influence the implementation of structures and systems that promote societal green behaviour for both individuals and industry by enhancing the state's political agency. For instance, since nudging has the ability to spur green behaviour, we could promote this coupled with policies that guarantee green behaviour. Institutional and policy change will not happen on its own!
I can clearly say individual action is vital for climate change mitigation, perhaps not in the way I first thought, but regardless individuals must help cultivate marked change at the state level that cascades down to the citizen level through policies and incentives. This won't be easy, but then our victory wouldn't be a true celebration. The clock is ticking.
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| Image: Posters For Good |
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