Personal is political – and how that approach can inform climate action

Do you feel powerless?

You probably aren’t responsible for the investment decisions of an energy company, nor do you have a hand in government policy. But still, you are reading about climate change – a problem that can easily seem intractable to most people.

The Veganuary campaign reported record participation this year: 25.8 million people worldwide tried a lighter lifestyle without meat and dairy in January, knowing that enormous emission sources sit beyond their immediate control. If such resolve to fix our planet exists, how can people exercise it?

You’re not alone

“Net zero heroes” are set up to fail, Illingworth says. But realising this only makes collective action more important, and shows the futility of trying to bear the weight of the problem on your own.

Your choices do not exist in a vacuum. Earth is an interconnected community of living and non-living things says ethicist Patrick Effiong Ben of the University of Manchester. African philosophers like Jonathan Chimakonam and Aïda Terblanché-Greeff have a helpful concept for thinking through the weightiness of your decisions: complementarity.

“Complementarity holds that the relationships that unite individual things can extend to prove the value of every contribution, no matter its size,” Ben says.

You can test this notion by choosing to eat a plant-based diet or forgo flying and observing your...

Read more