A fixation on system change alone opens the door to a kind of cynical self-absolution that divorces personal commitment from political belief. This is its own kind of false consciousness, one that threatens to create a cheapened climate politics incommensurate with this urgent moment.
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Because here’s the thing: When you choose to eat less meat or take the bus instead of driving or have fewer children, you are making a statement that your actions matter, that it’s not too late to avert climate catastrophe, that you have power. To take a measure of personal responsibility for climate change doesn’t have to distract from your political activism—if anything, it amplifies it.
Like I’m all for that we need to hold a fire under corporations. But we also need to change too. Just because they do like, 70% of it doesn’t mean we’re off the hook. We’re buying those products that they pollute for. We drive the cars that are polluting. We buy the cheap clothes that they shamelessly pollute. We each have to change.
Corporations have absolutely no incentive to change, consumers need to vote with their wallets if they want something to happen. But no, everytime someone points out this blindingly obvious fact we get the “uhm actually corporations need to change, it’s not my fault they’re feeding off my unsustainable habits.”
We have to work together, we only have power to effect change when we work together, solidarity is our strength.