Although large-scale societal efforts are more important, small scale efforts are also great and should never be discouraged. It’s still worthwhile to make your little corner of the earth a little healthier!
Some of the ways that small-scale lifestyle changes can help:
1. They can create a greater market for sustainable products, making them less of a novelty and over time making them less expensive and more accessible.
2. They help move the societal standard in the direction of ecological consciousness. Human beings like to imitate what we see others in our social group doing.
3. Small-scale actions foster greater investment in the cause and can eventually lead people to greater support of large-scale movements.
4. They help people feel good about themselves and feel involved, which is good for mental health and staving off hopelessness and apathy.
5. It’s good practice for the large scale societal and lifestyle changes that will be necessary to live in a more sustainable future society. Just because that future isn’t here yet doesn’t mean you can’t start practicing now!
The important thing is not to substitute small-scale actions and lifestyle changes for supporting larger movements.
If you can and want to do both then that’s wonderful and you should do both! But we can’t pat ourselves on the back for picking up litter and then as a result not lend our energy to organizations that are striving to fight climate change, biodiversity loss, etc on the world stage.
Any amount of effort is better than no effort. Just because an action won’t save the world on its own doesn’t mean it is meaningless.
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