Hank Green on the importance of individual action, not because it helps directly (which it does), but because it helps remind our brains of the problems which need to be solved.
Social scientists have studied this, and they’ve found that people taking individual action leads to more pushes for policy change, not less. The original idea is that if you focus more on individual action there will be less push for policy change. It turns out to be the opposite of that.
As social psychologists Leor Hackel and Gregg Sparkman said in their 2018 article, “People don’t spring into action because they see smoke; they spring into action because they see others rushing in with water.”
I’ve seen a lot of the “It doesn’t matter what individuals do because 90% of the emissions are done by 50 companies” sentiment on Lemmy, and find it concerning. What are the best ways to address this?
I agree that it’s a distraction, just like the “100 companies” is a distraction. I can’t stand the systemic/individual comparisons because people don’t even know the difference. For example, I can get a 30% tax credit for solar/storage, $2k on a heat pump, $12,500 off an EV in Colorado, and more coming soon for low/moderate income folks via the IRA in the US. When people go to buy this stuff, is it an individual action or the result of these policies? Does it even matter outside the context of this weird debate where the two things are falsely thought of as mutually exclusive? We can all walk and chew gum at the same time. Do what you can, vote, talk, etc. and don’t get caught up criticizing beneficial things others are doing because they aren’t exactly what you would do in their shoes. Building a culture around solving the issue takes many forms.