livin veg

Personal responsibility is often touted as the way to change the world. I’m a firm believer in personal behavior and the importance of making humane choices. Going veg, riding your bike, composting etc. All of it makes a difference.

But sometimes I think our insular culture finds it easier to ONLY focus on the personal choices instead of also taking action politically. This article discusses the issue…

An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.

So what the article is really saying is that as great as personal change is, we need to do more. The article is definitely worth a read. It confronts the difficulties of maintaining the insane scope of our consumer culture while still trying to make change. It’s contradictory.

The answer to the above question is that it’s not an either/or. It’s both. Personal action is the first step. Other kinds of action are harder but will change the world where it really counts. In policies.

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