Climate Individualism

Let's not beat around the bush: you can't solve climate change. I can't solve climate change. Together we can't solve climate change, not even if the entire world population cooperates.

Even if we all separate our garbage for recycling, isolate our homes, take public transportation or a bike, if all car owners buy an electric car, if we all stopped going on vacation and so on, even then we won't make more than a small dent in the progress of global warming. In my post You Do You I wrote this:

Most people on the left have no problem recognizing the truth and reality of systemic racism, where on the right it's only something that exists on an individual basis; some people are racist, sure, but there's no systemic racism. The same goes for poverty where on the left we see the socioeconomic structures that necessitate the existence of poverty, but on the right poverty is the result of individual failing. Always. [...] The truth is that there are no individualistic solutions to systemic problems. They only serve to generate more profits for the corporations that sell us those individualistic fake solutions.

Unfortunately the grunt of the burden is put on the shoulders of individuals, and this is exactly the wrong way to solve this problem. Telling citizens that they need to adjust their individual lifestyles to combat global warming is just another way to tell them that they're responsible, that it's their fault. This shaming tactic has the opposite effect; it makes us passive, not active. Don't take it from me, but from climate psychologist Per Espen Stoknes:

We have lots of studies that show how people tend to disengage and the reason is fear and guilt feelings, which tend to be evoked by the "doom framing," and then we start to shut down.

These are feelings that make us passive not active. We know from psychotherapy that just shaming people or making them feel guilty does not enhance the willingness to change. People start to avoid those messages and people who make them feel bad.
_{source: Deutsche Welle}

So even the effort to activate individuals in the fight against global warming, which is the wrong tactic to begin with, is handled poorly, to say the least. And like I said in the introduction, even if that were handled properly and we all did our bit to lower our ecological footprints, we'd still fail for one simple reason: the system is what needs to change. Capitalism is what needs to change. Any economy that depends on growth and profits for its very survival is antithetical to reducing our ecological footprints. Like mentioned in the below linked video, if you're reading this on a computer screen or a smartphone, you'd have to give that up in this system. When watching that video you'll soon recognize it only speaks of solutions to this problem within this system. That's why it speaks only in terms of investments, supply and demand, profits and other economic terms as understood in capitalism. Even though it ends by saying that we all need to do our tiny parts to contribute to the systemic change we need, it fails to say the obvious; that there are no solutions within the current system, which is capitalism. Watch it anyway; despite itself, it does a great job at explaining why we'll never solve this problem by changing our individual lifestyles...

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