Activism - Personal Reflections
By Fiona Breucker
At times, learning about sustainability issues and climate change can leave me feeling helpless and guilty. Not only am I deeply worried about an environmental doom which is now widely known as eco-anxiety and the unjustly distributed consequences for people and planet that are already unfolding around the globe. I also feel restless about my role in this scenario. The facts demand immediate and drastic change, but the scope of the problem leave me feeling like my imperfect attempts to consume, travel and live more sustainably are at best an insufficient reply to the current climate emergency. We need big changes, and can’t big changes only be made by “those up there”, the big companies and important policy makers?
Consulting history, this assumption can be proved wrong. Many major historical changes have been brought about by people demanding change through measures such as protest or civil disobedience, as the suffragette or the civil rights movements illustrate. In a modern democracy, protest and civil disobedience are only two possibilities amongst many with which people can push for change. Here are some further suggestions how you can make your voice heard:
Political Activism
If you want to take to the streets, you can join several movements at the moment:
Greta Thunberg started her school strike for climate in September 2018 and was soon joined by millions of young people. The Fridays for Future movement is now present in similar forms on all continents. You can also join if you are not a student or a young person and there are special groups for certain occupations such as Scientists for Future gathering under the same name. In recent times of the confinement, lots of groups also organise online protests.
If you prefer the method of nonviolent civil disobedience over protesting, you might want to have a look at Extinction Rebellion, which has local groups in many cities worldwide
Online activism:
Sign petitions: it takes around 2 minutes to sign a petition online, and it can make the hell of a difference! One example of a victorious petition is the decrease of tax on sanitary items in Germany, which went from “luxury item” (19% tax) to “necessity” (7% tax) under pressure from a petition signed by 190,378 supporters. If you want to learn more about petitions, you can check out environmental organizations’ pages or join their newsletters (e.g. WWF, Greenpeace, 350.org) or check out Change.org, where you can sign petitions directly.
E-mail your MP: You would be surprised that they often reply (even if it is automated answers, or answers by their assistants, it will make a difference to them if they received 3 or 300 emails by their voters about a topic they care about). You should easily find the name of your MP and her/his email through a simple google (or Ecosia) search.
This brings me to the next, very straight forward suggestion or rather must-do: vote!
The list goes on - join a political party or environmental group, donate time and/or money, attend citizens assemblies: be an active citizen!
Behaviour Change
Even if it feels like your personal behaviour cannot make enough of a difference to stop climate change, all individual actions combined will make a substantial difference. And since we have to start somewhere, why not start with what we can influence most easily - our own behaviour? Eating, buying and travelling more sustainably can minimize your environmental footprint meaningfully. So switching to green energy providers, saving energy, using public transport or biking, eating less meat, and repairing or sharing stuff instead of buying more will make a difference to the world’s carbon budget.
Besides cutting carbon, we can hope that our behaviour and the conversations we have about it might help change current discourses and the perception of what “normal” consumption is, which can then lead to actual change. Take vegetarianism for example. Some years ago, especially in the West, it was strange to ask for a vegetarian meal in a restaurant (and in some cultures and regions it still is). Nowadays, vegetarianism is semi-mainstream and even vegan options are widely available in many places. Your personal consumption habits also send an important signal to policy makers and producers since “every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the world you want” (Anna Lappé).
Divest your Money
No matter how much, or how little money you have in your bank account, the bank will use it to invest in whatever it wants. For many banks, unfortunately, this includes investments in environmentally damaging industries such as fossil fuels. So make sure to check your bank and find out what your money is used for. And then maybe switch to one that invests your money in positive change like the German project Tomorrow which offers a free saving account through an easily accessible app and a Visa card, where your money is only used to invest in sustainable projects. Other options include the ethical bank Triodos.
Sustainability Initiatives
There are plenty of very cool local initiatives out there (you can soon read about them in our sustainability initiatives section). Join an urban garden, participate in a cloth swap, make a bee or insect hotel, visit a repair café, produce your own cosmetics sustainably or get together with a bunch of people to start your own initiative! There are lots of funding possibilities that can help you get started such as the European Solidarity Corps, and many projects rely on time more than money anyway. Sustainability is not only about cutting carbon or sacrifice. It is about creating a more sustainable world, both socially and environmentally, which can and should be fun. And finally, nobody is perfect and I of course do not follow my own advice on all points or at all times. However, I prefer to do some little things imperfectly, than nothing at all.
