On Being Responsible for the Planet
Argumentative Indians is a column in which we pick up topics and ideas that seem to come up frequently and start disagreements, looking at both sides of particular divides and examining their views.
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A few days ago, a friend of mine who works at a foundation attempting to tackle climate change decried the phenomenon of Earth Day as a marketing gimmick. She said that although it started out as a noble cause a few decades ago, Earth Day has now been taken over by the larger phenomenon of corporate greenwashing, a process by which companies who are amongst the largest polluters and culprits in terms of environmental destruction use it as a marketing opportunity to showcase various initiatives that are often created for the very purpose of positive PR.
Though I disagreed in the moment, saying that ‘doing something is better than doing nothing’, her point suggested a deeper truth that I’ve often argued about with friends and family in recent years. In terms of the statistics and the science of it, most people around the world can see that climate change is very real and impacts nearly every nation in several ways - droughts, floods, natural disasters, rising temperatures, and so on. Apart from a (sadly sizeable) section of middle America, there are few people who would deny that it exists. In fact, as I write this, India’s heatwave continues unabated, with temperatures hitting record highs more or less every year around this time.
Yet, when it comes to ‘what can be done’, opinions often clash. On one hand, at an individual level, we can save water, not use plastic, go vegetarian, use public transport, take less flights, turn off lights, and do various other things that, the theory goes, will add up like drops in the ocean to make a significant impact in terms of energy consumption and fossil fuel use. But although these things might allow us to feel better about the state of affairs, the other take is that placing the responsibility of environmental consciousness and action in the hands of individuals and consumers is the greatest trick that industry and regulators have pulled off in recent decades.
Looking at the science and the statistics, it becomes clear that ‘drops in an ocean’ can also be seen from the opposite lens. A report from 2017 found that just 100 companies, mainly in the oil, gas and energy sectors, were responsible for over 72% of the world’s emissions. And although the statistics make it seem easy to digest, they are part of an incredibly complex web of production and manufacturing that relies heavily on the energy generated by burning fossil fuels. Every industry and more or less everything we consume is reliant on these companies, from food production to mining to technology to transportation to construction. Every day, nearly 100,000 flights take off around the world. The amount of energy used by computing technologies, particularly cryptocurrency, has been a cause of concern in recent years, and the amount of waste all of us generate in terms of plastic and packaging and other forms of trash is staggering. It seems quite clear that this problem is not individual but systemic, and a ‘drops in the ocean’ approach is unlikely to achieve much because very few people can exist outside of society and consumption.
One might argue, reasonably, that this is no reason to stop doing things at an individual level. But the feeling of helplessness at the larger problems continuing unabated while we turn off our lights or switch to reusable steel bottles is certainly real. Why should I bother when nobody else is, why should I change when the behemoths around us don’t? These are thoughts that are symptomatic of the lack of agency that most of us feel we have today. Not only is it ‘not our responsibility’, the narrative that it is and that our consumption choices can change something in a system where we are not even an infinitesimal fraction of a percentage point is part of the logic behind greenwashing, and part of what allows things to continue as they are.
Nearly 70% of young people in a survey last year said they deal with some degree of moderate to extreme anxiety about climate change and its effects. Perhaps the indignant reaction people have when you say ‘you going vegan isn’t changing anything’ is because it is simply a realist point of view, born from nagging feeling that what we are doing is appeasing ourselves while there is little political or collective action to the required degree. From protests to ‘stop oil’ stunts to throwing soup on famous art work, climate activists have made many attempts to grab public attention and try and change the status quo, but the sense that it is too little in the face of a relentless system continues to haunt most of us.
Before veering too far into hopelessness, I would conclude by thinking that, as always, the answer lies in the middle. It is possible to believe both things - we are not particularly responsible or impactful in terms of our individual carbon footprints, but there is still merit, even if it is small, in doing what we can. In an ideal world, our small daily decisions would be accompanied by better regulation and collective action and systemic shifts that are slowly progressing, and that many brilliants minds are working on. But in the meantime, all we can do is put our drops in the ocean and hope that the tide turns sooner rather than later.