Studies Show Individual Climate Action Not Counterproductive

TL;DR: what Hank Green said, or what these scientists said.

Being involved in various environmental groups for much of my life, I’ve heard it many times: the argument that, because the big fossil fuel companies are to blame for climate change and because solving it requires systemic, societal change, it is distracting or even counterproductive to talk about actions individuals can take to be more sustainable. Telling people to reduce their carbon footprint (a term invented by BP for PR purposes), the thinking goes, instills the belief that we can solve this just by recycling more and flying less; it takes the heat off of companies and governments to implement the larger changes that could actually make a difference.

Makes sense. And for a while, I was on board. But then I became aware of research showing that this is not actually how the psychology at play works. As science communicator Hank Green explains, “one of the most important ways that we show that something is an emergency is by acting like it’s an emergency.” It turns out (free PDF) that individual actions towards sustainability reinforce in one’s mind the urgency of the situation, making one more likely to support policies of larger-scale change. People like to be consistent: the thought process is “if my values prompt me to turn off the fan when I leave the room, maybe they should also prompt me to support a carbon tax.” Also, when others see us taking individual action, they are more likely to take individual action themselves, resulting in a positive feedback loop of taking the climate crisis seriously. There do exist situations (free PDF) where offering people “quick fixes” for a specific problem seems to undermine support for more thorough, more costly solutions to that problem, but this seems to be the exception, not the rule, and in any case seems to be mitigable through effective communication of the quick fix’s insufficiency.

Basically, these three things can all be true at the same time:

1. Big fossil fuel companies are morally blameworthy for engaging in a climate disinformation campaign despite having some of the best early evidence of the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions (relevant xkcd).
2. The climate crisis cannot be solved without large-scale, top-down interventions that go well beyond individual changes in behavior.
3. Individual action is nonetheless useful, because it tends to catalyze support for such systemic change rather than distracting from it.

So, fellow proponents of climate action, let’s stop dismissing individual behavior changes and rather work towards understanding how they can best be harnessed to generate support for more systemic solutions! Also, as I’ve written before, let’s not ignore the meta-point here: in a movement fundamentally based on people accepting scientific evidence even when it collides with their existing beliefs or practices, it is imperative that we hold ourselves to that same standard and be conscientious about responding to evidence of what is actually true even if it conflicts with what feels like it should be true.