8 responses to “W11.1: Environmental Activism”

1. The work done by large organizations is not enough because as seen by the article, All that Performative Activism Adds up, comments on how environmental activism shifted from large group initiative to social media approaches. However, the issue is that these social media approaches do not necessarily take action but attempt to make ourselves feel better by acting like these small things that we do put into action will make a difference. People want to promote environmental activism when, “It comforts us and distracts us from the fact that every day we make conscious and unconscious decisions that hurt mother earth. Most of us aren’t willing to sacrifice air-conditioned classrooms’ on a 90-degree day today to prevent daily 90-degree days in the future.” People aren’t actually wanting to make sacrifices but they do want outcomes. However, I wouldn’t shame people for this human nature because ultimately I think the big contributors to climate change are responsible as opposed to the average person on social media. Since they are generally the reason climate change is as bad it is, “We must confront the root causes of climate change instead of trying to patch a gaping wound with band-aids, no matter how painful it will be.”

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2. In response to question 2, I think national organizations are creating positive change in spreading awareness and pushing for lawmakers to pass legislation in relation to climate change, but more needs to be done for the cause, as the climate crisis has become not only a politically divisive topic, but also an issue that generations and people of different economic classes are divided on. In terms of climate change’s politicization, the division over government intervention in environmental regulation and the overall importance of this regulation has only widened since Trump’s presidency – namely, Republicans have started to oppose this effort more and more. Simultaneously, Gen X and Baby Boomers have been shown to take less initiative in the climate change movement than their younger counterparts, which is not only an interesting topic that I hope we discuss further in our discussion on Tuesday, but not helping the US gain a public consensus on the movement. And ultimately, big corporations and wealthy Americans contribute the most to carbon emissions – changing their view on climate change as just another trend, and to alter their practices to make real change would improve the state of the climate crisis tremendously. Though it seems almost impossible, working to break this divisiveness between different demographics of Americans and continuing to stress that climate change is a pervasive and enduring issue are my current ideas of what large organizations should do next to make more positive change.

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3. The divide within the level of importance of environmental activism between older and younger generations has become increasingly evident. As outlined in the Pew Research Center’s report, millennials and Generation Z adults “stand out for their high levels of engagement with the issue of climate change [by] talking more about the need for action on climate change.” On the other side of the spectrum, those in Gen X or Baby Boomers seek their engagement primarily through voting and less through “engaging with climate change content online.” The issue that arises regarding the effectiveness of work done by environmental activists is how we can bridge the gap between each of the two generations. To illustrate, graphics in the report reveal that the younger generation is much more in favor of radical changes such as eliminating fossil fuels and transitioning to electric vehicles in comparison to the older generation, which is more reluctant. Additionally, Annie Lowrey’s account of performative environmentalism in her article from The Atlantic explores an idea known as the “foot-in-the-door” phenomenon, which demonstrates how “little actions have a way of becoming big actions,” through an experiment with driving signs in a California neighborhood. This is followed up by the emphasis on how “doing works better than showing works better than telling.” By summarizing Lowrey’s claims, it seems that only a portion of the work done by environmental activists today is truly effective, and more unison is required across generations. The only way to unlock our full potential is by “doing” more and pushing forward small impacts that will eventually snowball into a “big action.”

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4. Responding to question 3, the work done by environmental activists is ineffective. A factor of that ineffectiveness is those same activists contradict their promises with their actions. In Performative Environmental Activism, Soham Sethi claims that most environmental activists support the environment yet still harm it. For a meeting concerning the topic, “Many of the white-knight famous people in attendance flew in emission-heavy private jets,” which release 14 times more emission than standard planes. Also, in an attempt of a heroic measure, California Governor Gavin Newsom gave extra support to the most desperate counties for water reduction, Mendocino and Sonoma. However, these two counties are where Newsom’s wineries reside, meaning that Newsom is indirectly causing the problem. This trend of humans being the cause of the issues they want to solve is apparent in this article. With Annie Lowrey’s All That Performative Environmentalism Adds Up, “the world needs consumers not just to behave more responsibly when it comes to the climate.” The world also needs people “to understand the survival-of-the-species urgency of the unfolding catastrophe.” Overall, many people claim they support environmentalism. However, their actions say otherwise because they do not recognize the severe consequences that come along with these risks. Overall, progress to a better environment will only increment by so much with people not realizing the danger of such recklessness on the environment.

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5. Soham Sethi’s article, Performative Environmental Activism is Pointless, argues just that exact point. Sethi outlines how many celebrities and influencers have created an image of being environmentally cautious and invested, when in reality these same people are only further contributing to the climate crisis they claim to be fighting against. These celebrities use their platform as a means to promote themselves even further via their supposed investment in combating climate change, by donating large sums of money to organizations that are failing to put tangible use to these funds, thus improving their own social media engagement and net worth. This is most evident when Sethi describes the pledge that many celebrities made, donating to help battle climate change, only to travel to their conferences in private jets producing insane amounts of emissions, and how the funds that the US and UK pledged to send to lower income countries have not fully reached their recipients. Ultimately, this article explains the importance of actions over words, and how the only way to truly combat the climate crisis is to sacrifice today’s convenience for tomorrow’s global health.

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6. It seems that there are two “types” of environmental activists- the activists like Greta Thunberg who motivated Europe’s “flight-shame” movement and those like Leonardo DiCaprio who The Voice article would claim is a “performative” activist. As expressed by The Atlantic, public opinion and societal norms can heavily affect activism. People are “highly sensitive” to what others are doing and would thus be more likely to participate in environmentally friendly habits if the people around them encouraged it. I think that the idea that solely blaming corporations for climate change issues can prevent change is persuasive and would lead me to believe that environmental activists, who are actually making change, have more power to help encourage a societal narrative of protecting the Earth. I think that it is tricky, however, as more and more people are learning the statistics about how one person’s carbon cuts won’t make even a dent in the issue at large.

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7. While the work done by large organizations is instrumental in enacting positive environmental change, such organizations will not put in this valuable work until they have no other option. I think that The Atlantic article “All That Preformative Environmentalism Adds Up” has a good takeaway on this point. The article addresses the question of whether small-scale personal changes make any real change with the environmental movement, or whether their preformative nature makes them harmful. In the end, it concludes that these individual changes are what’s actually necessary to produce large-scale climate legislation, because once environmental consciousness becomes the mainstream, large organizations and politicians will have no choice but to create change. While I think that placing blame on regular consumers is harmful to the movement, I completely agree with this article’s takeaway. Work done by large organizations is absolutely important in causing large-scale change, but a shift in culture will apply the pressure necessary to get them to act. In this way, the work done on their part is both enough and not enough, because their actions will always follow consumer culture and the pressure applied by the public.

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8. The work done by large organizations is not enough to combat climate change. As the article in the Atlantic stated, corporations are overwhelmingly responsible for climate change, with “20 of them are responsible for 35 percent of global emissions since 1965”. With this kind of culpability comes the responsibility to alter their practices and minimize their impact, and while many companies are outwardly making a huge publicity push and claim for more environmentally conscious and sustainable practices, but for the most part these are small gestures instead of the real change that needs to be made (and they often hike up the prices on their more sustainable products, making them less accessible, and preventing consumers from being able to use their buying power to advocate for change).

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