Your Individual Climate Actions Matter and this is Why

One action can lead to another.

Newton Cradle with Blue Sphere

Do your individual climate actions, mine, and everyone else’s matter? I strongly believe that they do—in more ways than you may think.

Yes, I have read many articles and blog posts, followed social media threads, and watched interviews of climate scientists and environmental experts declaring that our individual climate actions will not be enough to avert the worst of the climate crisis or to mitigate its effects.

Yet, here I am advocating for individual climate actions and averring that they do indeed matter.

“Is she in denial or just naively promoting wishful thinking?” are logical questions. Let me assure you that I do not inhabit a fantasy world or an alternate reality. However, I do reject the premise that what we do as individuals does not matter.

In this post, I will attempt to explain why I believe that our individual climate actions do matter. Perhaps my reasoning will resonate with you or perhaps not.

We Need Massive Structural and Social Change

Climate experts and many others keep repeating the mantra that the climate crisis requires massive structural and social change. Our energy, transportation, food, water, land use, justice, and economic systems—our very way of life—needs to be completely transformed if we (meaning people) are going to continue to be able to live on Earth now and in the future.

This is an undertaking like no other that has ever occurred in human history. It is going to take all of us changing our own lives and demanding that corporations and governments act like there is a climate crisis because there is one.

Who do you think is going to get that done?

It is going to be people, individual people. After all, it is individuals who make up families, neighborhoods, cities, corporations, nonprofit organizations, government bodies, and international climate movements.

You, I, and everyone else are the individuals that can collectively change the world. Our children, their children, and all the non-humans with which we share the planet are counting on us.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

Barack Obama

That brings us back to individual climate actions and why they matter.

Action Begets Action

When faced with a mind-bogglingly complex and seemingly insurmountable situation, like the climate crisis, some people immediately step up and take action. I am humbled by and grateful to these people. But that does not describe me and maybe not you either.

Many, if not most people will feel overwhelmed. You are just one person. What could you possibly do that would make any positive difference? You may feel powerless and afraid. Freezing like a deer in the headlights you do nothing. You are in a state of inertia indisposed to motion, exertion, or change.

“Well, duh.” you may be thinking. “But, how am I supposed to get over feeling overwhelmed, powerless, and afraid?”

Do something, anything, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem.

Taking action breaks the cycle of inertia. It gives you a sense of accomplishment. A feeling like you can do something. One action can lead to another which leads to another and so on.

Lois Gibbs in Her Kitchen with Her Kids in 1978
Lois Gibbs with her kids in her kitchen making calls about the Love Canal toxic waste dump – photo Center for Health, Environment & Justice.

Then one day you will realize that you are one of the millions of other climate activists around the world who are all striving to live more lightly on Earth and in harmony with all the other living beings that share the planet.

Are you wondering what action you should take to get started? It is up to you. Consider choosing something that you actually want to do and that you feel confident you can accomplish. You can work on the harder stuff later.

Ideas and inspiration can come from almost anywhere. Talk with your family, friends, and coworkers, watch a film, go for walk, read a book, check out social media, attend an event, or read blogs posts here on Green Groundswell.

I am not suggesting that I am a paragon of anything or that I am a model climate activist. But I do know that my own journey began when I purchased a reusable water bottle and filled it up with water from my kitchen sink faucet.

Naysayers will suggest that we cannot wait for each person to find their inner climate activist. The thing is you cannot force another person to change. The only person that can change you is you.  

Water Drops and Ripples

Water Drop Creating a Ripple
Photo – Shutterstock/science photo

Let us say that you switch to reusable shopping bags, plant a pollinator-friendly garden, or install solar panels. Patting yourself on the back you feel that you have done your bit for the climate movement.

Is that enough?

Chances are that whatever climate actions you are doing, there are millions of other people around the world doing the same thing where they live and millions of other people are doing different climate actions.

Just as tiny drops of water will fill up a bucket all these actions add up to a significant positive impact.

Another benefit of taking action is that you are setting an example for other people that action is empowering. Your action could start a ripple of other actions.

Will incremental climate actions be enough to stave off the climate crisis? I do not think so.

However, as long as you, me, and everyone else is engaged in climate action at any level there is always the possibility that we will move beyond our comfort levels and do what is necessary to transform our society.

I will look for you along the journey.

Featured Image at Top: Newton’s Cradle perpetual motion device with one blue sphere – photo credit iStock/26ISO.

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Author: Linda Poppenheimer

Linda researches and writes about environmental topics to share information and to spark conversation. Her mission is to live more lightly on Earth and to persuade everyone else to do the same.

4 thoughts on “Your Individual Climate Actions Matter and this is Why”

  1. That is a powerful message that everyone should read and believe. As my daughter, who still calls herself the “unlikely environmentalist”, I have been awakened each week, by reading your blog, to a myriad of relevant and meaningful topics. Your array of issues and ideas seems endless. The categories you have researched and written about are boundless. Somehow you always have just the perfect photos and quotes to enhance your written words. Lucky are those who have found “Green Groundswell .com”

    Your last line, “I will look for you along the journey”, is a special invitation to everyone to begin.

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