But first, keep on doing those little individual things that you can do by yourself and that you hope might make some amount of difference. You will gain immense personal satisfaction, and you may even change minds as you walk the walk of taking climate action. And the more of us who are acting as individuals to make progress on the climate crisis, the better. But… are there enough of us? Have we raised the issue of environment/climate high enough? I would argue that — no.
Pew Research says:
Climate change is a lower priority for Americans than other national issues. While a majority of adults view climate change as a major threat, it is a lower priority than issues such as strengthening the economy and reducing health care costs.
Overall, 37% of Americans say addressing climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress in 2023, and another 34% say it’s an important but lower priority. This ranks climate change 17th out of 21 national issues included in a Center survey from January.
I just got back from the grocery store. I’d forgotten my canvas tote, so I bought a couple of plastic bags. At Tesco, their plastic bags are made of 100% recycled plastic, emblazoned with a reminder to reuse them until they can no longer be reused, and then recycle them again.
This is heartening, is it not? Well, maybe.
Google says!
Only about 9% of plastic is recycled, while the remaining 91% is either landfilled, incinerated, or dumped into the environment.
Just using recycled plastic to make carrier bags — or hauling all your plastic waste to the local recycle center every Saturday (in your gas powered car) — is not going to save us from our planet-wide plastic problem. But it’s an individual thing that I can do in the moment, and I suppose it is better in an incrementally minuscule way than doing something worse, like using not recycled plastic or… I am not sure what.
Similarly, I do not drive a car. And that I suppose would be laudable… except… my husband does.
I can justify it easily! Until he retired last year, he needed to get to work at 3 o’clock in the morning! And there is no way to take public transportation at that time (at least in Seattle, where he spent the last years if his career) because bus routes do not exist at that time of day.
Not our cat, not our car… just cute!
Of course, there are other reasons that he owns a car… and try as I might, I have not been able able to convince him to get rid of it. I am not him and he is not me and no matter what I say to dissuade him, he is going to own a car.
So far, that has not been a deal breaker for our marriage. It is unfortunate that the unfettered use of personal automobiles may very likely be a deal breaker for ecosystems, the health of the planetary climate, and potentially much of life on earth.
I do not drive. I have not driven in over 25 years. I do not even have a drivers license any longer. What has this saved the planet? Have I contributed in any meaningful way to lesser emissions!? Most probably not. I ride in a car driven by my husband. Not every day — not every trip. But I do.
Google, again:
Personal vehicles, such as cars and vans, are a major contributor to climate change. In 2021, road vehicles were responsible for 91% of the UK's domestic transport emissions, with cars and taxis accounting for 52% of that. In the EU, passenger cars and vans are responsible for around 16% and 3% of total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, respectively. CO2 is the main greenhouse gas that drives climate change.
The consensus on this site and elsewhere in the activism and otherwise progressive communities is that if each of us individually do our little incremental things, that will add up to big effects over time. Small efforts, together, can make big changes.
In some ways, that is absolutely true! In other ways it is clearly not, otherwise our ecosystems would not be drowning in plastic, greenhouse gas emissions would not be going up (with yes, to be fair, some sectors rising more slowly than in prior years), landfills would not be brimming with discarded fast fashion, and we would, in short, not be in the pickle that we are in today.
Plastic trash in the water, Lovely. Doubtless awesome for the fish.
All of that is relatively easy to say. It is entirely possible to take small individual actions, work individually to convince others to join you, and make small incremental differences in a local area. We are all powerful in very small ways. We are all more powerful when we gang together. But it is still difficult in the extreme to mass small individual actions into something with the force to change the trajectory of something as loomingly devastating as climate change.
And here is where systems come in.
I realize that when I talk about system change, I seem to be ignoring how in the past, grass roots efforts have made such a difference in so many arenas. And it is inarguably true that people power has made a difference in the past. To take just one shining example: The brave patriots who marched in Selma changed the world. But what they did individually would not have changed anything if systems had not changed because of their individual actions.
Without the freedom riders and the marchers in Selma and the constant barrage of one thousand thousand small voices influencing politicians, we would not have had the Voting Rights Act, we would not have had the abolition of Jim Crow, and so forth.
What’s my point? No — I am not disparaging individual effort. There are so many of us here in this online community who are doing the right things. We recycle, we buy solar, we own an EV, we grow a garden, we vote blue, we conserve, we send money to Greenpeace and fund rescue operations for stranded whales and clean up local beaches and in general do the hard, grass roots, local community level work that MUST BE DONE.
But right now, the climate change activism movement is not large enough or loud enough, apparently, to change what needs to be changed in the systems that are creating the crisis. There are not enough of us who put climate and/or the environment NUMBER ONE. There is always something to draw our attention, or that seems more immediately compelling. I get it — I do. To a point.
What so many folks seem to be missing is that EVERY PROGRESSIVE / DEMOCRATIC FIGHT is subsumed by the climate. Can we pay attention to anything other than food shortages if crop yields crash? Can we pay attention to anything other than sheer raw survival if we’re hit with multiple Cat 5 hurricanes, mudslides, wildfires, and punishing heatwaves in a single year? Can we make cogent sense about immigration if thousands upon thousands of refugees fleeing climate change arrive on our doorstep?
I would suggest that (A) no we cannot and (B) buckle, up, because that’s what’s coming. Everything else seems more important, I guess, until IT IS NOT. My suggestion is that we come together as activists and, once we elect Kamala Harris, we pivot to climate. We focus on climate. We “center” climate.
We need help from our government(s) to make systemic change. Governments can impose rationing. Governments can implement wide reaching legislation that mandates solar or wind. Governments can outlaw SUVs — put an individual cap on beef consumption — regulate fast fashion marketing — stop exploration for new sources of oil and natural gas — and do so efficiently and quickly.
Just one granular example: Don’t want to individually give up beef burgers? Your government can ration the hell outta beef, right quick (as the USA did in WWII) and make the entire SYSTEM serve the greater good, rather than relying on the sum of many tiny individual actions.
Some of us might fantasize about removing the government — others might argue for extra-governmental solutions. But the sensible answer to this is that, for now, governments are the most stable, most powerful, and most effective way to make system change. In western democracies, it is said, THE PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER.
But we need to shriek and shout and demonstrate (while it is still legal) and throw our weight around and holler and descend en masse on city halls and our representatives’ offices and Washington DC. We need to step up and step out and not just “march” but get UP IN THEIR FACES to demand change. We need HUGE numbers. We need NVDA. We need mass actions. We need strikes. We need walk-outs. We need more than 37% to put the climate in the number one spot on their list of urgent priorities.
We’re so close to being absolutely and utterly out of time that it terrifies me — and should terrify you.
What do we do now?
Remember:
Asking did not work.
Voting did not work.
Marching did not work.
Emissions keep going up.
Our leaders have failed us.
#ClimateRevolution
Thanks for reading!
-Kira Thomsen-Cheek
@KiraOnClimate (Twitter)
@ClimateRevolutionary (Instagram)
Climate Revolution Now (Substack)
Read on DailyKos: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/28/2258773/-How-To-Make-A-Difference-When-The-System-Is-Broken
You are correct that the problem is systemic, entrenched and interconnected. We've fallen into the trap called capitalism, and our hardwired psychology and game theory seals our fate.
If you do want to do something, this was my favorite read of all 2023: https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/