Privilege and Activism: Why Living Sustainably Isn’t Going To Solve The Climate Crisis

It’s 2012, and I’m sitting in the “Cozy Reading Corner” of my 4th-grade classroom. I curl up on the couch, nearing the end of my copy of “My Life With Chimpanzees” by Jane Goodall. I scanned the page and stumbled across a phrase I didn’t recognize: “just-me-ism”. Remembering what I was told to do when I stumbled across a word I didn’t know, I kept reading and found the author’s definition of this term: “It’s that feeling that you’re only one person and you can’t do anything about what’s going on. But we have choices, and every day people make choices. Even in a consumer-driven society, we see people making new choices about organic foods, and industries making choices about recycling or the need to stop polluting.”

For the past week in 4th grade, every day after school, I had come home shocked and confused why so many animals’ lives were cut short — not just by poachers, but by the pollution of their environment. More than that, I hated the feeling of being so helpless to their cause. Now, finally, I knew what I could do! I grew up believing that one person could change the world, and what I read had confirmed that was true. I just had to do my part to clean up litter and be kind to animals. I closed the book and smiled, confident I knew how to keep animals and the environment safe.

Over the next few years, I took this advice to heart. I was thrilled when my school came up with more methods of composting, harbored a ton of guilt over not becoming vegetarian, and encouraged all my friends to eat and live ethically. Everyone in my community seemed to be trying to do the same things — I lived in a rural area, so there wasn’t usually litter around, and people would frequently buy locally and sustainably. It never seemed to impact where I lived, so I honestly didn’t think about climate change. I certainly wouldn’t have said we were in the midst of a “climate crisis”. What I saw in the media of climate change centered people who looked like me and thought like I did — white people interested in individual change, who talked about helping our environment in broad and optimistic terms. However, whenever I did projects on current events, I saw gray smog smothering the cities of China, islands sinking in oceans, and refugees fleeing their homes because of the changing climate. This distressed me, but I reassured myself — our leaders must be taking action. They had to be seeing the same images I did. How could they not be making the environment their top priority?

So, when Trump announced that the U.S. would be leaving the Paris Agreement, I was devastated. I lamented what a catastrophic effect not being part of this treaty would have on our country, and for that matter, the world. Wanting to back up my indignation with facts, I looked up the text of the Paris Agreement, ready to proclaim all of the amazing initiatives we were backing out of…and found that not a single part of the treaty was binding. None of the countries in it were actually held accountable to do something, and the few goals they did set every 5 years weren’t being met by the majority of countries.

Ergo, I was left not knowing what to believe. I thought changing my own lifestyle would eventually have an effect, I thought climate change was fairly straightforward to solve, and I thought international leaders had at least some of the problem under control. If none of those was true, how would things ever actually change?

I found my answer in U.S. Youth Climate Strike, and the groups they supported. I read about indigenous youth working tirelessly to protect Standing Rock, and other reservations that the government sought to use for pipelines and other fossil fuel uses. When I joined thousands of students in my city in walking out of class to demand action on climate in my city, it cemented for me: individual, incremental action couldn’t solve climate change, and neither could empty promises by international leaders. The people leading the movement would be young people and frontline communities — those who will be most affected by the issue and have been the ones most marginalized by others that intersect with it.

This is not to say that people shouldn’t try to live sustainably, it is just to realize that it’s a privileged position to be able to rely on these methods. It takes time and money to live sustainably. I say this as someone who prioritizes buying ethically and being vegetarian — these decisions are mostly helpful for its impact on an individual’s mentality and conscience. In the same way, the majority of international agreements over the last 30 years have been performative and ineffective. True and lasting change has to be brave and wide-spanning, holding those corporations and companies that contribute to the climate crisis accountable and acknowledging the communities most impacted, centering them in the solution.

I grew up believing that one person can change the world. I still believe that — but we can’t do it by thinking they, or anyone else, can tackle the problem all on our own.

Catie Macauley is a 17-year-old high school junior and activist from Portland, Oregon. She currently serves as the Policy Lead for the Portland Chapter of U.S. Youth Climate Strike. She is involved in other movements that intersect with the Climate Justice Movement (which is every single one!), serving on the Youth Advisory Board of Vote16USA, as a youth leader for Kids4Peace International, and as the Communications Director for R.E.P. Oregon, an organization focused on racial equity in gun reform.

Note: The views of the author may not reflect the views of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike.