It is often said by climate change denialists, and even by those who fully support radical systemic social and economic change, that while making changes at an individual lifestyle level might make you feel better, it does not have much of an impact on the broader social, political or global capitalist economic system we all live under. However, the reality is that individual lifestyle choices and radical systemic social and economic change are, in fact, fundamentally related, mutually supporting, and reinforcing. How so?
Let’s say that over time you have decided to live a simpler life. You do more walking or bicycling than driving, require less space to live comfortably, and strive to follow Michael Pollan’s dictum “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants”. At this point you are committed to a lifestyle that, while not in any way deprived, is both healthier and less consumptive, leaving behind a much smaller ecological footprint. Very likely you adopted this choice of lifestyle because you took the time to learn as much as possible about the environment and the science of climate warming, became more and more concerned about the way things were going, and decided at a personal level to make some important lifestyle changes. This, in turn, led you to see the importance of joining with others who, like you, are committed to raising consciousness about how together we might further the goals of climate adaptation, mitigation, and building more ecologically resilient communities—a step beyond individual lifestyle changes to the recognition of the need for broader social change. It only takes one committed person doing the right thing to inspire others to do likewise, and this marks the beginning of the transition from individual to broader social and systemic change.
With and through others we gradually come to an awareness that social and economic change necessarily requires radical political, economic, and institutional transformation. Finally, together we begin to realize that climate action is inescapably linked to climate justice. In other words, advocating for and helping to advance public policy about climate warming at the community, national, and international levels necessarily involves the recognition that equity and human rights considerations are at the core of systemic change and action on climate change and the environment. Or, more succinctly put, we grasp that climate warming has disproportionate effects on historically marginalized, vulnerable, or underserved communities that mostly reside in Global South nations.
Of course, not everyone goes through these latter levels of awareness in the above order, but the point is that different stages of understanding and action regarding the environment and climate change are not only related to, but mutually support, enable, and reinforce other stages of awareness. Lifestyle changes, taken in isolation, may not amount to much in the broader scheme of things. However, they are very meaningful in this sense: when we speak to others or make an argument about the need to address climate warming we can do it from a perspective that knows and understands how difficult or how easy it is to make such changes. Speaking from our own lived experience gives climate change advocacy a grounded credibility. It not only inspires others but also deepens our own capacity for insight into broader social, political, and economic areas where radical change is called for. In other words, changing the way we live, pressing others to adapt to a more sustainable way of thinking and acting, and advocating for climate justice gives us at the same time a deeper understanding and insight into what needs to happen at more radical systemic social, political and economic levels of climate action.
And that’s the key point I want to put forward in Part I of this essay on the ethics of environment and climate change— namely that individual lifestyle changes, climate change advocacy, and systemic change grounded in justice considerations are not just connected, but are mutually interdependent and reinforcing. Individual lifestyle changes underpin the need for more radical system changes, and likewise, system change requires personal lifestyle changes. To separate the two is something climate change denialists, corporate profiteers and high emitters revert to when they feel their bottom lines or opulent lifestyles are threatened. For the latter, the best way to undermine the climate change movement is to trivialize individual lifestyle changes while making systemic change appear to be ridiculously utopian. The best response to this calculated form of denialism and cynicism is to take responsibility for our lifestyle choices and recognize that at the same time, we have an ethical responsibility toward the well-being of humankind and the planet that sustains life.
Three big questions remain: What does systemic political, institutional, and economic change look like? What would its practical implications be for communities, nations, and the relations between nations? Finally, what sorts of ethical approaches would best help us to understand and elaborate our obligations towards each other and other communities and nations?
In Part II I will explain the systemic, economic, and political frameworks that we currently operate under. In Part III I will describe the constitutive role of law in creating and maintaining the contemporary capitalist system that accelerates global warming and environmental destruction, and then I will say how these laws are realized in specific institutional arrangements and promoted through corporatized media. Finally, in Part IV I will introduce some ethical approaches to environment and climate warming and then say how each of these can be applied at both the individual and broader systemic levels of thought and action in ways that underscore our mutual obligations toward others and towards the planet that provides the very condition of possibility for life itself.
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