This post is about being powerless against climate change. It is going to be a short post.
A few weeks ago a friend visited the Azores and passed by to say hello to me :)
It was a foggy and rainy weekend, but we had fun going around the island and she also accompanied me and my supervisor to collect an insect trap. Besides the hikes, we also had time to grab a beer and have a good talk. We were not talking specifically about climate change; it was more about the world and its very many problems. Many of the world issues such as social injustice, women empowerment, climate change, animal ethics, the sixth mass extinction, etc. are strongly related.
Grasping global phenomena is difficult when you are a monkey used to live within a range of a few km. Of course, nowadays we have televisions, the internet, and airplanes that allow us to see what’s happening also in other places. Yet, most of us still live within relatively small spatial scales and do not travel far away with the purpose of shed light on the status of the world. So when we heard about global problems, our natural reaction is to think that we cannot do much, and what we can do can never be enough.
And here is when I and my friend had a little bit different opinions (maybe, I am not even sure). I felt that she thinks that I believe that stop eating meat and driving an electric bike is enough to reverse climate change - that individual actions can be effective to change how things are at global scale. Nope, I don't think that's enough, but I think that my clarification is worth to share.
My point is that what will be the final, future outcome of our good actions is irrelevant for the decision about whether or not we should start good actions now. What do you have to do and what do you need to solve a problem are two different things. It is unethical to do a bad action once we know that it is bad for a reason. It is similarly unethical not to choose to do a good action when you have the alternative between one good and one bad action.
Let me use a chess metaphor :)
Losing at chess is common as much as winning. But would you play a losing chess move knowing that you are going to lose the game? You won’t if there is awareness. Awareness can stimulate changes in your lifestyle and in the society. I think is what we really need - both for ourselves and the world - is to start enjoying more what is good for the environment. We should turn good actions into actions that make us feel well. Ultimately, we must feel that we are doing our best.