Finding Our Part

The world is in crisis. The climate crisis is really just one part of it. We are reaching a place where the joint action of billions of humans can have huge, horrible consequences even if those actions, undertaken by a single human, wouldn't do any noticeable harm.

We've dealt with some similar problems before. We created treaties to cut CFCs when they were damaging the ozone layer and reduced the impact of acid rain. Earlier, we learned sewer systems when having people in a city toss their waste into the street wasn't working. We have found some techniques for managing hunting and fishing rights, although fisheries need more help. We developed property to help avoid the tragedy of the commons. There are strong social norms to control excess noise and public nakedness and other activities that benefit you but annoy your neighbors. So we have successfully dealt with some conflicts of private versus public interest.

The climate crisis impacts the entire world. Also, it is often a conflict of groups versus the globe instead of an individual versus their neighbors. This larger scale may be part of why we are finding it intractable.

The groups who are benefiting from emitting carbon that harms the entire world are large and powerful. We have types of power now that were unimaginable even two centuries ago. Monarchs might control the output of an entire country – but they couldn't launch global advertising campaigns or cross the world in a day or field the labor-hours or security forces of modern multinational corporations and nations – there weren't that many people yet! Nor was there the sheer economic leverage we have now.

And we have been using fossils fuels to create a lot of that technological and economic power. Many of us are invested in it – literally, because we have shares of oil and coal companies, figuratively, because we enjoy the freedom of our cars and the warmth of our furnaces, and systematically, because we have learned to live in a way deeply interdependent with many others who are also using fossil fuels. Our lights come on from fossil fuel power plants. Our stores hold food grown with them, plastics made from them, everything transported with them. When we go to rally against climate change, we still may have no choice but to burn them to arrive. Our customers and neighbors use them, take their livelihoods from them, need them to live. Suppose all fossil fuel companies stopped paying their employees immediately. The resulting slowdown in the economy would match the Great Recession, with blackouts, and might rise to the level of the Great Depression.

Humans are scared of change and they are scared to lose income, which is how we survive within civilization. It's no wonder that many resist taking on the climate crisis.

So what can we do?

Start disentangling ourselves as we can, how we can.

Individual action may be your part: reducing fuel burned, divesting from fossil fuels, making your home more energy efficient, purchasing renewable energy and installing solar or wind power, and so on.

Or, your part might be joint action: money or time given to organizations fighting climate change, speaking out, voting and organizing for climate candidates and measures. You could be creating systems and products that disentangle us, and working with your neighbors to help them join the efforts.

I have more in my book Carbon Reset, which I give away here: www.carbonreset.com

One of my parts is to imagine how the zero carbon future could be more satisfying than our present.

What matters most is that you find your part and keep taking the steps. As James Clear recently said, "Rome wasn't built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour."