There is a common theme of disempowerment, at least on Metafilter, and I suspect in much US conversation around issues like Trump, the climate, etc. This struck me particularly a few days ago in a thread on planting native gardens to counter insect decline where the following comment was inevitably made:
Although I’m all in favor of local efforts to help blunt the disastrous insect decline, the main threat to insects is industrial agriculture. It appears that most of the damage is being done in the developed world by farming practices.
Which is something that gets to me much like the common outrage at being told to finish what’s on your plate because people are starving in Africa. I have an old-fashioned value for respect for what one has been given – by a god, by the state, by wealth, by the position one occupies in society or in the world, and acknowledging it. Part of this is to create a culture of respect for the world – respect for food by not wasting it, respect for the environment by being careful and caring in ones own corner of the world.
It also seems to me to miss an important point, which is particularly related to the quote above. Societal change is not just a matter of top-down policy initiatives, of moon shots or of eating the rich. It’s also about the values of a society as expressed through its members. One of the most impressive things about New Zealand is the care that everyone I have met has for the native life of these islands. This is driven by, but also drives, government and business to value the environment here. I do think the only possible way to prevent the worst of climate change at this point is to have that sort of shift in social values where it becomes as unthinkable to buy bottled water as it is to strip off in public. Meaning, some do it, and often for good reasons, but there is broad social agreement that it is to be avoided.