Serve, Work and Transform: How we think about Personal and Collective Action

Friday, February 7, 2020

How we think about Personal and Collective Action

Dear Rev.,

Hi! We are well into 2020. And I am wondering: How is your New Year’s resolution going?

My plan for the New Year was to tread more lightly on the planet with some personal changes. Specifically, I wanted my family to eat mostly plant-based food, moving away from carbon-intensive meat.

I have long felt that I can do more to lower my family’s carbon footprint, and have felt guilty that I haven’t done more. The New Year felt just as good a time as any to increase my efforts.

But as I started reading about the climate impacts of meat, I started wondering: Are changing personal habits enough to make a difference? Why are we, as individuals, asked to change our lifestyles when the climate crisis is arguably not due to personal deficiency? Our power as consumers is strong but asking individuals to bear the burden of global warming can shift responsibility and accountability away from those causing the vast majority of climate change.

Consider this: A recent report found that just 100 companies are responsible for a whooping 71% of global emissions since 1988. Incredibly, only 25 corporations and state-owned entities were responsible for more than half of global industrial emissions in that same period. Most of these are coal and oil producing companies and include ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, Gazprom, and the Saudi Arabian Oil Company.

And so I wondered: What can I do, as an individual, that actually matters, and what do we need to do together to slow the increasingly destructive effects of climate change?

We here at GreenFaith have been thinking long and hard about how we most strategically push the levers of power to have the most impact - individually and collectively.

Here is where we come down on this: it’s not EITHER/OR, it’s YES...AND.

Of course, we need to consume less and choose more low-carbon alternatives. But individual choices will most count when we also come together in bold collective movements to hold accountable those who cause the greatest damage. Take a look at how we're thinking about this on our blog: