Individualism And Climate Change

“We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to” (Terri Swearingen). Climate change is a serious issue, arguably the most serious issue our planet will ever have to deal with, and the majority of the blame can be placed on capitalism and neoliberalism. Capitalism and climate change go hand-in-hand; capitalism encourages consumption, use of fossil fuels, individualism, exploitation of anything that can make a profit and deregulation which are all major contributing factors in the current climate change crisis.

Since birth we have been taught to buy more, to buy the best that money can offer, and to always upgrade to the new model. Consumption is more important than the impact that our technological advances might have on the environment. Juliet Schor argues that if Americans hadn’t been so overworked in the past few decades trying to keep up with the Joneses then,

We also wouldn’t be heating up the climate as rapidly because gas-guzzling SUVs wouldn’t have become so popular” (2003, 10-11). This also connects greatly to America’s obsession with individualism, it is hard to consider the environmental effects of consumption when everyone is focused on outdoing each other; once again keeping up with the Joneses is more important than environmental impact. Individualism also tends to dissuade people from creating a mass movement as Naomi Klein points out, “Climate change has never received the crisis treatment from our leaders, despite the fact that it carries the risk of destroying lives on a vastly greater scale than collapsed banks or collapsed buildings….But we need not