Using tote bags and shunning bottled water can make us feel ethical. But collective action is the only real solution

The New Year’s upon us, and it’s a good time to look at the resolutions of the environmentally conscious. A cursory scroll down social media sites tells me that eco-awareness and ethical choice are on a rapidly rising curve.

But there is a striking pattern: the good intentions of leading a greener life are all limited to individual action. People have, according to their particular inclinations, resolved to make lifestyle changes that are friendlier to the environment, but on an individual level. Some have said they will give up meat as there is increasing awareness, especially in the West, that raising livestock and then farming to feed the animals are responsible for dangerous levels of carbon emissions.

Others have resolved to minimise the use of plastics in their lives: it is now well recognised that no plastic is good plastic, and that they are clogging our ecosystems and oceans to an extent that they are threatening the diversity of life on the planet.

Two kinds of people

On the face of it, such resolutions represent an earnest desire to make ethical choices that makes for a more sustainable living. These a slew of individual choices articulated through resolutions derive from a popularly accepted maxim that there are two kinds of people, those who believe in personal responsibility — small actions leading to something great — and those who do not. This might not be entirely true.

It appears that the popular perception on the importance of personal choice is overblown. If we were to save the environment from irreversible damage, individual and family decisions to lead a greener life may simply be not enough.

Buying green products or leading a more environmentally responsible life is a sign of our commitment to environmental values, and there’s nothing wrong in that. Unfortunately, that by itself does not do enough to save our planet and could even lead to more irresponsible behaviour, consumer research has found.

People are likely to act less altruistically and are more likely to cheat and steal after purchasing green products, as opposed to conventional products, researchers have shown.

Be that as it may, it is becoming increasingly clear that individual choices are not adding up to make a difference to a system hostile to the environment. Sociologists call it the behaviour-impact gap, which suggests that individual pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours do not always reduce the environmental impacts of a consumption driven lifestyle.

Some experts argue that just changing our individual patterns of consumption will not save the environment. There has to be a collective mobilisation against this tide of unsustainable consumption.

Straw in the wind

By resolving to stop using plastic straws and disposable bags, we will do little to stop their proliferation in our environment. People have to come together — within communities, and at the State and national levels — to make any action meaningful.

The waste we dump in our immediate environment is another case in point. Using tote bags, refusing to buy bottled water and shunning unnecessary packaging may help reduce your household waste and make you feel ethical and good.

But such action is inconsequential when we consider that household waste makes up less than 10% of the total waste our society generates.

Tackling the remaining 90% would mean changing the entire system of production, distribution and disposal, which can hardly be achieved through individual action alone. Working collectively for change is the only option in such a scenario.

Hope in sight

Although the environmental situation that we have landed ourselves in is indeed dire, there is still reason for some hope that stopping runaway environmental degradation and irreversible climate change might still be possible.

In India, for instance, knowledge about the environment has entered the school curriculum. Entire generations of schoolchildren are now aware that sustainable use of our natural environment is an absolute necessity.

Many young people, in India and elsewhere, are becoming vocal against the wasteful lifestyle of their parents. And they are coming together in increasing numbers to voice their concern. These youthful protesters could be just the medicine that our environment so desperately needs.

Soumya Sarkar is Managing Editor of IndiaClimateDialogue.net. Follow him on Twitter @scurve