All the small things
. . . and why, despite everything, they still count
There’s a frequent message in some eco circles that what individuals do doesn’t matter. Often it comes with the old chestnut that “100 companies are responsible for 71% of greenhouse emissions,” which I dislike, because it makes it seem like regular people have nothing to do with those companies, aren’t using their oil or holding shares in investment accounts. Don’t get me wrong, we can’t hold individuals responsible for fixing the choices of institutions and governments, and not everyone has the capacity to make greener choices. We can’t recycle our way to a stable climate, and your reusable water bottle isn’t the key to freeing the oceans of plastic pollution. But even with all this, on most days, I still believe what we do matters. If you subscribe to this newsletter, you probably feel that way too, though it isn’t easy.
We don’t want to do only the smallest things, but we shouldn’t write them off either. They are not enough, but they are not unworthy. We know that every fraction of a degree, every healthier ecosystem matters. And with a runaway crisis that is so massive and sprawling, feeling like you can contribute, even in the smallest way, is a kind of clean-burning fuel.
A couple of weekends ago I did a bunch of little eco errands, among them thrifting with a friend, recycling my office’s dead pens at Staples, getting new insoles for my old boots, testing batteries and properly disposing of the ones that were kaput, posting things online for giveaway, buying a box of rescued food. I did these things during unnaturally warm February weather, when a jacket was optional, forget a hat and mitts — part of a stark pattern that proves humans have changed the climate irrevocably.
None of the things I did on the weekend will keep the icebergs chilled, the forests unburned, the droughts at bay. These outcomes are all well outside my circle of control. But I don’t think that because I wasn’t blocking a pipeline, my actions were inconsequential.
I’m here to remind you, and myself, that there is value in knowing these actions have a small impact and doing them anyway. Let me run down a few reasons:
They can be intrinsically satisfying. You’ve taken a small problem and handled it; you’ve done what you could today. A tiny bit of order restored in the chaotic universe.
They’re a reaffirmation of your values. You’re staying engaged when the dominant system wants you to check out, to go with the flow. If you want to see yourself as climate committed, you prove it to yourself with acts of service and responsibility. We are what we do.
An engaged person is more likely to step up when the bigger opportunities arise. You’ve stayed tuned in and kept the “doing things” muscles strong, and maybe you’re ready to accept a heavier load.
These actions often have ancillary stacked benefits to you and to the world. My thrift trip was also a fun hang with a friend and we snagged some great deals; the stuff I donated is less likely to go to landfill, more likely to be used again, and perhaps made more accessible for someone with financial constraints; the things I bought required no additional resource extraction, manufacturing pollution, transportation emissions, or human rights abuses, and ended up home with me instead of in a landfill for thousands of years.
Your eco behaviour is contagious. Humans are social creatures, always taking cues from others, alert to how norms may be changing. For example, the most influential factor in someone getting solar panels installed: if their neighbours already have them. A recent study of 130,000 people in 125 countries, reffirms that most people are “conditional cooperators,” more likely to take eco actions if other people do, but we seriously underestimate how many people care.
Big victories are made up of small actions. None of the things I did this weekend were part of a collective effort, but our small actions can be. How do petitions get tens of thousands of signatures? One at a time.
In theory we should always reach higher, try to scale up our impact: write a letter and ask friends to, or share a sample letter, for example. But sometimes you can’t or don’t want to take the advanced option. And listen, maybe right now you honestly don’t have enough spoons to attend to even the small things. That’s okay! They are, after all, only small. They can wait, or you can opt out. At worst you default to the dominant system. Actions need to be sustainable for you as well as the world. Trying to confine a year’s trash to the contents of a mason jar will likely make you lose your mind. (Maybe the only use of a mason jar I disapprove of.) Sometimes perfect is the enemy of good.
Activist Kate Schapira, in her wise newsletter, perfectly summed up this effort to find the sweet spot in our activism:
What concerns me is what’s possible: possible to do, possible to demand. People afraid of losing what they have defend themselves by saying that the real power is elsewhere, somewhere they’re not; that they’re not the ones who can do something, change something. Okay, well, what can you do, what can I do that isn’t everything (impossible to do) and isn’t nothing (impossible to live with)?
Sometimes our activism looks like a cannonball into the deep end, sometimes it’s a toe dipped into the shallows. But all of these actions have ripples, even if they’re ones you’ll never see. The important thing is to step away from the lounge chair and get a little bit wet.
Without the old weekly format, we don’t have wins of the week, but the comments and my inbox are open for your small actions or your big thoughts on this issue.
xo
Jen
Five Minutes for Planet is written by me, Jen Knoch, and edited by Crissy Boylan. Opening photo of one of my small wins, an amaryllis bulb that I save and recharged over the summer to bloom again this year.
"We are what we do."
Absolutely.
I intend to walk and take the bus all over when we end up in the suburbs later this year. We'll still have a car, and we'll use it when we need to (i.e. grocery shopping for a 5-person household) but I'm not going to let half a century of car-centric municipal planning decide how I approach my neighbourhood.
As far as I can tell, on the street we're moving to there's no solar in play: but the moment we need to do any repair to the roof it's getting fitted with some cells—and I'm sure it'll lead to some conversations with neighbours, which I'd be very happy to have. Same with anybody who spots me or my kids waiting for a bus or walking down the street with a pizza from the nearby plaza. Let our weak impulse to conformity be permission for those around us to consider a slightly broader set of options.