When environmentalists say “systemic” or “systems change” do they mean “government has to do it”?
First, context: When, over a decade ago, I started my experiment avoiding packaged food for a week, I discovered why my mind debated with itself over minutia like “should rubber bands count as packaging,” “what about stickers on fruit,” “what about food already in my cupboard,” and so on.
As soon as I started, I found I could answer all those questions by doing. Most didn’t matter. Those that mattered, mattered minimally, in particular, they mattered far less than the value of hands-on practical experience.
Why did my mind occupy itself with them for six months, then (the time between my conceiving the idea for the experiment and my starting it)? It was delaying me from starting. It was protecting me from starting, fearing I might fail. It also prevented me from learning. Hands-on practical experience addressed all relevant questions and concerns, and dismissed all irrelevant ones.
There is no substitute for hands-on practical experience (HOPE).
Likewise, all debate about individual action versus systemic change is mere delay. Just start acting and you’ll learn how your action is the rout to systemic change.
About environmentalists and talk about systemic change
Can you name one environmentalist trying to live sustainably? I can’t. I’m not sure Greta Thunberg counts any more, but that’s irrelevant. They lack hands-on practical experience (HOPE) so haven’t learned that only through their personal action can they learn what to do to change systems.
Still, when they talk about systemic change, they always seem to make clear they don’t want individual people to act. They prefer to blather about BP then buy BP’s products, through airplane tickets and such, thereby funding their lobbyists, advertisers, executives, and future extraction.
Great job, geniuses!
So what action do they envision, if not a movement of people? As best I can tell, they believe action must come from institutions, which generally means businesses and government. They recognize that corporations won’t act without being coerced—after all, they’re funding polluting corporations to build the pipelines and refineries they purport to oppose—so I think they see government as the only institution to start with.
People in government can tell the difference between what people say and do when people’s words and action conflict. When environmentalists say “shut down the pipeline” but spend more on plane tickets some months than on food, they know people vote according to their behavior. Nearly all that food is packaged and shipped across continents and oceans, funding yet more extraction.
Environmentalists blame government and say it should act while leading it to support their polluting, depleting lifestyles. They perpetuate their outrage by rendering themselves impotent.
Great job, geniuses.
Start by living by your values. Hands-on practical experience will teach you a world of effective action you can take that you can’t imagine from just pointing fingers and blame. Taking personal responsibility for what you can do doesn’t remove responsibility from BP, elected officials, or anyone else. On the contrary, it gives you the integrity and credibility to prompt them to listen to you instead of dismissing you.
You’ll have to give up the outrage, but you’ll gain effectiveness.
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On initiative, leadership, the environment, and burpees