Do individual choices matter?
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts. — George Eliot, Middlemarch
Take charge of your own existence, Moneo! — Leto, God Emperor of Dune
The wrong fight
For most of the 2010s—and lingering even today—a particularly annoying argument has cluttered climate discourse: do individual choices matter in addressing climate change?
It began with fair criticism: guidance around how to start taking climate action (“buy energy-efficient appliances”) was overshadowing the need for systemic reform. If everyone bought electric cars, but those cars were charged by coal and gas power plants, then we didn’t buy a better climate—we just bought longer tailpipes. Given the systemic barriers to decarbonizing everyday life, emphasis on individual behavior was basically a distraction, with too many people channeling their climate concern through symbolic gestures and not enough trying to change the power system.
There’s truth to this. Governments can do what individual can’t: set emissions standards, finance clean infrastructure, direct industrial policy, and hold polluters accountable. And fossil fuel companies do use the individual framing to shield themselves from accountability: BP famously popularized the “carbon footprint” concept to shift blame onto consumers while investing almost nothing in low-carbon technology.
But fair criticism curdled into self-sabotage. See Naomi Klein’s 2015 College of the Atlantic commencement address:
[T]he answer to the question “What can I, as an individual, do to stop climate change?” is: nothing. You can’t do anything. In fact, the very idea that we—as atomized individuals, even lots of atomized individuals—could play a significant part in stabilizing the planet’s climate system, or changing the global economy, is objectively nuts. We can only meet this tremendous challenge together. As part of a massive and organized global movement.
This overcorrection dismissed the value of individual action in a way that was factually inaccurate, strategically short-sighted, and thoroughly disempowering. In the US, household consumption—the accumulated weight of individual choices around transportation, food, and energy—drives a substatial share of emissions. These choices don’t require “a massive and organized global movement” to do so; they simply accumulate.
More frustratingly, Klein seemed to be telling graduates that the only path to change ran through a global movement—a standard so high that it quietly let everyone off the hook. Writing for The Sierra Club, Jason Mark put it sharply:
A fixation on system change alone opens the door to a kind of cynical self-absolution that divorces personal commitment from political belief.
Not changing your actions because the system lags behind you would be like throwing trash on the ground because your local government didn’t place bins in the right places. No amount of failed political leadership absolves us from being responsible human beings.
Yes, and
The good news is that the either/or framing is losing. Individual action alone would be wholly insufficient; top-down change alone would be tyrannical. We need both—and not just because “every little bit helps.”
First, individual actions are the easiest way to get started. They succeed for the very reason that Klein’s “global movement” fails: the barrier to entry couldn’t be lower, and you don’t have to wait for anyone else to begin.
Second, our choices are socially contagious. We don’t just look to experts; we look to people we know and trust. When you switch to an EV, choose to eat less meat, or put solar panels on your roof, you’re not just reducing your own footprint; you’re shifting what feels normal and possible to everyone around you.
Lastly, our influence doesn’t stop with those around us—we influence up, and not just through protest. The systems we rail against aren’t abstract forces; they’re made up of people making individual choices at every level, from households to neighborhoods to city halls to legislatures. Culture underlies every political system, not the other way around.
To put it differently, why should I expect a member of Congress to do something hard—say, voting against the interests of a major donor—if I’m not willing to do hard things, myself? The moral credibility to demand political courage—to accept costs, take risks, and act—has to be earned.
The knowledge gap
The good news is that most Americans are concerned about climate change, and most do feel a sense of responsibility to help address it. The challenge lies in arming good intentions with good information so that people know where to focus. Exploring the choices that matter most will be the focus of my next post.