Why the impact of individual efforts to save the environment is already restricted from the start
The year is 1971. It is the nation’s 2nd Earth Day and the day Crying Indian’s first ad campaign airs on national television. The ad features its still infamous tagline - “People start pollution. People can stop it.”
Those 7 words are bold. Simple and elegant, they fully capture a modern environmentalists’ essence. Quite honestly, it's amazing how this effective yet evil strategy is still fooling people around the globe years later. With just a sentence, environmental damage has now been shifted to you, me, and all the people who believe that by going vegan, recycling their own plastics, and turning off the tap in their kitchen, we are making a large difference. Individual consumers now feel responsible and motivated to challenge themselves to switch to plastic straws or use a little less plastic in their daily lives.
But who has been left unchallenged? The very corporations of plastic manufacturing, wholesale, and retailers that were behind this ad. Large companies such as manufacturers of packaging are being left off the hook by redirecting attention to an individual’s choices. Millions of Americans participate in ocean beach cleanups, trying to make actions of picking up beach litter seem like something much grander. But it’s not. Instead, the more direct issue of plastic production (which designs and makes what ends up on the beach) has been left virtually untouched and almost ignored. A study conducted by Nature Climate Change suggests that our emphasis on smaller personal actions can actually undermine support for the substantive climate policies needed.
Humanity’s negative impact on the environment is disproportionately corporate. According to the Carbon Disclosure Project’s Carbon Majors Database, just 100 companies are responsible for over 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions since the late 1980s. It is these worldwide implemented systems that bring life on earth to certain doom. Global capitalism is a system that relies on human labor to mass-produce goods. Corporations constantly search for cheaper ways to produce more, and in turn, lead to the exploitation of humans and resources in the land.
Besides finding ways to produce large quantities of items cheaply, companies use certain techniques to make sure that even if we try our best to recycle and use less wasteful products, we cannot. “Planned obsolescence” was introduced to dig America out of the Great Depression. This is the idea that manufacturers intentionally design their products to break in a few years so that you will have to buy another one. Economically, this technique keeps sales high, people in jobs, and factories running. However, it is also wasteful, expensive, and increases the amount people buy and then eventually throw away. Manufacturers rarely admit to the use of this idea but companies consistently accused include those who produce fast fashion, nylon tights, printer cartridges, lightbulbs, and of course, smartphones and laptops. Apple has been under watch for this technique for several years now and so has other tech companies. In general, consumer tech really only lasts a couple of years before new software updates or your phone company pushes a brand new model onto you. Globally only 12% of smartphone upgrades involve older devices being sold or traded for the new one. This means that ecologically damaging devices are thrown away and eventually end up in a landfill. Think about the rate at which phone companies push out newer models, think about where your old models end up, and lastly, think about how necessary your switch was.
It’s a bit disheartening to see how companies who are the foundation of a nation’s success are already so corrupted. But there is still hope for change. A group of economists called “behavioral economists”, led by Richard Thaler who is the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics, has come up with some theories that could help induce behavioral changes that can potentially change things on a larger scale. The 5p bag laws and the 10 cent plastic bag laws were implemented in the UK and the US in recent years. The people behind these policies were behavioral economists. A lot of the policies instituted by their ideals revolve around understanding human nature and then using the observed patterns to make rules that can benefit the environment. Policymakers were debating whether to give people the money for a bag if they chose not to use one or to charge people money for a bag. Behavioral economists decided that charging people would be more effective as it is human nature to dislike losing money more than getting something for free, increasing the number of people who bring their own reusable bags on shopping trips. This policy has truly made a huge difference! There has been an almost 86% decrease in plastic bag sales in large corporations around Europe and the US, which means that our oceans have been spared millions of plastic bags. And that’s not all. Recently two federal legislators in the US have begun the introduction of the "Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020". This bill extends producer responsibility for all packaging materials, minimum-recycled-content mandates for certain products, a national container deposit, single-use plastic product bans, a three-year pause on new virgin plastics production facilities, and more". Already, community leaders have shifted their attention to battling corporates for environmental safety action. Several legal policies like bottle bills have been passed in states and countries around the world and more will definitely follow in the coming years.
The modern environmental movement began decades ago. Yet our impacts have been insignificant to say at best. Yes, people must change their daily life habits. Yes, this is a movement everyone from all social classes needs to participate in. But to be able to make a difference in reversing the disastrous end humanity has directed nature around the globe towards, we need corporate and systematic change. Nations need to come together across all political, racial, and religious boundaries and instill policies that incentivize corporate environmental stewardship. It is utterly ridiculous that mother nature has been squandered by cheap ways to make money and profit. This is our planet and our home. And it's about damn time for our higher-ups to finally realize that.
References:
Team, Economy, et al. “Your IPhone Is Literally Designed to Break...and It's Not Just Your IPhone.” Economy, 1 Nov. 2017, www.ecnmy.org/engage/your-iphone-is-literally-designed-to-break-and-its-not-just-your-iphone/.
Team, Economy, et al. “Why Are We so Bad at Taking Care of the Oceans?” Economy, 3 Nov. 2017, www.ecnmy.org/engage/bad-taking-care-oceans/.
Arechiga, Samantha. “To Take on the Climate Crisis, We Need to Change Everything.” Teen Vogue, Teen Vogue, 20 Apr. 2020, www.teenvogue.com/story/climate-change-action-must-be-systemic.
Mann, Michael E., and Jonathan Brockopp. “You Can't Save the Climate by Going Vegan. Corporate Polluters Must Be Held Accountable.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 3 June 2019, www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/03/climate-change-requires-collective-action-more-than-single-acts-column/1275965001/.
Plastic Pollution Coalition. “A Beautiful If Evil Strategy.” Plastic Pollution Coalition, Plastic Pollution Coalition, 26 Oct. 2017, www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2017/10/26/a-beautiful-if-evil-strategy.
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