RedUcE, rEUse, reCycLe

I’m sorry, but buying a reusable metal straw will not save the planet. 

After some research, I’ve come to the dreary conclusion that, contrary to popular belief, individual effort to reduce one’s carbon footprint has little impact on the fight against climate change.

Now, let me be clear. I’m not just talking about slacktivism, like signing an online petition to provide support for Australia’s firefighters or posting misleading photos about the Amazon wildfires to garner public support. It’s obvious that those sorts of actions have little to no impact when it comes to any sort of public issue, much less a global catastrophe on the scale of the climate crisis.

I’m talking about actions that most people think will help our planet’s environmental position: eating less meat, taking shorter showers, and, of course, ditching the notorious plastic straw.

After all, the U.S. produces over 10 million barrels of oil a day; last year, the world released 43.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air. We’re on course to barrel past the Paris Climate Accord target of 1.5 °C warming, and a future where we hit 3 °C or even 4 °C warming—leading to mass drought and vast swaths of uninhabitable land the world over—isn’t inconceivable. 

Those are staggering statistics. 

Even more striking? One, two, or even 500,000 people changing their lifestyles to live entirely carbon-neutral lives wouldn’t make a dent in those numbers. 

I know what you’re thinking. 

“Brian, you’re literally a pescetarian because of environmental concerns, and now you’re telling us it doesn’t matter? What’s your deal?”

First of all, I’d prefer you use the term “transitioning vegetarian.” I’ll get there in college, I promise!

Second, I’m not saying that individuals shouldn’t live a more sustainable lifestyle. By all means, eat less meat, buy less fast fashion, and use less plastic. Any individual contribution, no matter how small, is a step in the right direction—at the very least, it helps us avoid a defeatist mentality that’s sure to prevent any meaningful climate action.

What I’m saying is that shifting responsibility for the climate crisis away from institutions and onto individual shoulders is an attitude that’s foolhardy at best and disastrous at worst. 

As a piece of anecdotal evidence, whenever I talk about the environment or climate change in class, from elementary school to senior year, the discussion has always revolved around the steps we as individuals can take to mitigate the effects. 

“We can use LED light bulbs instead of those old CFLs.”

“Make sure to turn off the TV when you leave the house!”

“REduCe, reUsE, rEcyCLe!”

The result of such an individual-centric focus to our environmental issues? As Morten Fibieger Byskov, a postdoctoral researcher in international politics at the University of Warwick, writes, “focusing on how individuals can help is very convenient for corporations.”

Exactly. 

By focusing on the fact that ordering an Impossible Whopper, rather than a regular Whopper, reduces the purchase’s carbon footprint by a whopping 87% (pun intended), we conveniently ignore the fact that fast-food chains like Burger King, KFC, and McDonald’s are heavy contributors to the 14.5% of global emissions that result from livestock farming.

By choosing to buy a hybrid Toyota Prius because “it helps the environment,” we conveniently ignore the fact that Toyota is a huge contributor to a car industry whose 2018 cumulative emissions surpassed those of the European Union. 

By buying one of Asos’ “Responsible edit” pieces, we conveniently ignore the fact that the fashion industry contributes more to global warming than airlines.

In other words, it seems like no matter what sustainable choices we make, we still play a huge role in propping up the very corporations that pollute the Earth in the first place. 

That begs an obvious question. 

What can we do?

Well, seeing that just one hundred companies have emitted 71% of total global carbon emissions in the last three decades, it seems reasonable that in order to stop the climate crisis, we have to get corporations to stop polluting at such ridiculous rates. 

A small part of that is making decisions about where you spend your money: buying a Prius or Tesla is certainly better than buying a Hummer or pickup truck.

The bigger component is realizing just why those corporations pollute so much in the first place. The video below teaches the basics of the tragedy of the commons, an economic phenomenon that explains why a public resource, like land or water, will naturally become overused, overharvested, and overgrazed.

When given free rein to do what they want with natural resources, corporations will naturally pollute the environment. The only method to stop it? Governmental regulation. 

Until the leaders of blue-chip corporations come together and decide to collectively lower emissions at the expense of the quarterly profits (a wildly unlikely proposition, albeit admittedly more probable now than ever before), strong governmental rules, like the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan, are the only way to ensure that corporations behave responsibly and with regard for our future.

So what can we do?

We can push the government for stronger reform by attending a local climate strike, or by writing your congressperson.

If that doesn’t work? Just vote them out. 

The summer after my sophomore year, I worked as a field intern for the campaign of Sean Casten, a former clean-energy entrepreneur who was running against Rep. Peter Roskam, a climate-denying congressman with no scientific grasp of reality. Even though I wasn’t even old enough to cast my vote for Casten, I’m pretty happy with how it all ended up.

So if you call yourself an environmentalist, it’s probably time to brush up on your political knowledge. 

When we have a government that takes the climate crisis seriously, we’ll have a policy platform that reflects that. When we have an effective, enforceable policy platform, corporations will pollute less. That’s our only chance at avoiding catastrophe. 

Pretending otherwise is like trying to drink the ocean out of a (reusable) straw.