CITIZEN POWER
Going green a drop in the ocean of change needed to fix climate crisis
Individual buying patterns are overshadowed by the effect of corporates and governments on the environment
So, you drive a Toyota Prius, you don’t eat red meat, you only buy organic food, you’ve started buying clothes made from organic bamboo, your household-cleaning products contain no nasty chemicals, you’ve got LED lightbulbs throughout your home and you’ve reluctantly decided to have only one child, despite really wanting more. Are you now assured your place in a green heaven? Are you now confident your child will not turn to you in your dotage and blame you for the climate spiralling out of control? Can you have your cake and eat it too? There is an argument that we cannot buy our way out of the climate crisis — that green consumerism is an oxymoron. Environmental activist Derrick Jensen says green consumerism (now worth about $5-trillion globally) and other acts of "green thrift", such as having shorter showers, is a "campaign of systematic misdirection" because it assigns blame to the individual instead of those who actually create the problems and wield real power within the econ...
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