The 80/20 of Personal Action for Climate Change
As I’ve become more involved in fighting climate change, I’ve gotten into the weeds of the debates about personal action vs systemic change.
Ultimately, the crux of this in my view is that our personal actions do matter, because they’re the only ones that will lead to systemic change.
Systems exists because individuals made them so. Changing these systems also requires individuals to lead the charge.
For example, just because me personally taking transit instead of owning a car won’t change the world, advocating for change in my community can lead to taking cars of the road in the future. This could become a local systemic change and may be a key “tipping point” into change on a greater scale.
These types of thoughts have lead me to think about what is my 80/20 for personal action that fights climate change? What does matter? What doesn’t? What has the biggest potential upside?
Quick Recap of The 80/20 Rule
If you’re not familiar, the 80/20 rule (also known as the Pareto principle) states that in many situations, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In other words, a small portion of inputs tends to lead to a large portion of outputs.
This principle can be applied to all sorts of situations from economics to personal productivity. The key insight is that not all things are equal. Some activities or efforts tend to be much more impactful than others. By identifying and focusing on those high-impact 20%, you can achieve a disproportionate amount of results.
When it comes to taking personal action on climate change, I see three big actions that make up the 80/20. Here they are.
1) How You Make Your Money
I’ll use myself as an example.
I have worked in the supplement industry for several years. My job is just to type and think away and stare a computer and take stimulants and poof, I get a paycheck every two weeks. There’s nothing environmentally destructive about this, right?
But what is my time and brainpower going to? And where is this money that shows up in my bank account coming from?
As I’ve learned more about our economy and its link to climate change, it has become clear to me that supplement industry right now is fundamentally extractive. This is not to bash the supplement industry, although there is plenty to bash about the supplement industry. I use this example as an indictment on our extractive economy and because it’s where I work.
Constructing these powders first requires lots of raw materials from different plants and animals. No doubt, they’re harvested with various levels of sustainability. Then, they’re shipped from all over the world on trucks, planes, or freight trains. This alone is a huge strain of resources. Then in a manufacturing plant, it takes more energy still to bring the resources together and convert them into a fine powder that mixes well and tastes good. Then it gets put into a plastic tub (bad), and then shipped off to its destination, again on a truck, plane, or deisel-powered freight train.
Only then does it show up at a consumer’s home, where they plop a scoop into a shaker bottle.
This industry is so far away from being sustainable, that I know any supplement brands calling what they do sustainable is greenwashing.
I’m spending a large chunk of my life, working on something that’s destructive to the planet. This, naturally, undermines my attempts to fly less or compost or whatever.
I have come to recognize this and also forgive myself because hey, I gotta make money to live! To live under capitalism is to live under a contradiction of ethics. I need health insurance, after all, and I’ve discovered that’s very challenging without taking a 9-5 in a industry that keeps the wheels of our extractive economy moving. All bow down to the economy.
I know it’s time for me to get away from this.
I’m thinking more about how I can get yummy food in my tummy and comfortable roof over my head, plus some niceties like traveling, in a way that is good for the planet. I’m giving blogging a go and I’ll keep you updated.
2) How You Invest Your Money
If you have been fortunate to save and invest, then the next big lever is where to put this money so that it goes to work to help the planet, not hurt it.
If you have a typical retirement account in an index fund, then your fund is invested in companies like giant oil and gas corporations and the big banks. As they make record profits, you get a tiny piece of that.
When everybody told me I should open myself a ROTH IRA and put it in the market, nobody told me I was funding climate destruction!
I want to be out of any role in funding oil and gas companies. One, because I hate them, and two because I don’t even think it’s a good investment if I look at a 40-year time horizon. What they’re doing is unsustainable.
But the problem is it’s actually not easy to find a low-cost index fund that’s divested from fossil fuels. And again, many of the “socially responsible” funds, well, aren’t actually that socially responsible. Even if they are, they’re often more like mutual funds, which tend to have higher fees. Do I want to sacrifice my returns, potentially running into six figures over my life over this?
As of now, I haven’t found a good solution, but am I reading and learning from Fossil Free Funds for ideas. For more on this problem, I recommend you check out their site and free resources.
An easier change is where you bank. The big banks like the Bank of America, Chase, Citi, and Wells Fargo are the ones who give the big loans to oil and gas that allow them to undergo massively destructive projects. Without this funding, they wouldn’t be able to do so.
You can use Bank.green to see the score of your bank. Fortunately there are a few banks doing things different, and I don’t see much downside.
There’s also your credit card, which again has similar issues. You may lose out of the best points programs though. Again, I haven’t found a perfect solution.
I’ve made a few changes, and am documenting all of it, which I’ll be talking about in a later article once I have some better answers.
This has made it clear to me that we need some people in the finance industry to lead the charge here. We need people doing step #1 better so we can do step #2. Yet, I’ve only realized that because I’ve personally tried to make changes. We once again get into discussions of personal action vs systemic change. The answer is both.
3) How You Spend The Rest of Your Time
This is where it gets fun, and where it has gotten fun for me. For me, Saturdays Are For The Planet. I spend every Saturday morning working on, writing about, or educating myself about climate change.
Of course, this has meant that I’m spending more hours working on fighting climate change. But a downstream effect of this is I make sure that climate change is on the top of my mind. Since I’ve started this, I’ve noticed myself thinking about climate change and ideas to help on all days of the week.
I encourage you to look into what you can do this Saturday morning, and go from there. For example, you can start by making a point to have one conversation about climate change each week. (And check out this article for strategies to talk about climate change.)
A few weeks ago, I set aside the morning to read about my hometown’s plans, and was pleasantly surprised to learn about a push for more sidewalks and bike lanes. So if you’re looking for a first step, you can’t go wrong with learning more about what’s going on in your community. Local politics is notorious for low voter turnout. If you want to advocate for something, you can seriously, single-handedly, help a vote get passed.
As another idea, choose a topic you’re interested in, whether that’s travel, food, health, or whatever, and spend the morning thinking about what you could do in this realm. Maybe just look up some articles. For example, I spent a morning think about this for the health and fitness industry, and it later turned into this article on Ways The Health and Fitness Industry Can Combat Climate Change.
Getting These Right Breaks The Destructive Exploitation → Donation Model
If you make money doing something that’s destructive to the planet, you let that money grow in stock of companies that do further destruction, then donate the profits to a climate non-profit, is that a net benefit? Most likely, it’s not. At best it’s debatable. But you’ll get to write off the donations on your taxes and pat yourself on the back. This is a cycle we need to break.
Forgive Yourself For Small Actions
The flip side of all this is, if you do get these big things right to fight systemic change, then the fact you personally take a few commercial flights per year, or go to that restaurant you love that gives you plastic forks or whatever your indulgent activities are, is OKAY.
In fact, you’re doing way better than almost all of the environmentalists telling you to recycle or buy a Prius more or whatever the heck they’re talking about.
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