For decades, Americans have been taught to save the planet by making changes to their own lifestyles – use LED light bulbs! buy reusable grocery bags! eat organic food! We are told that buying (and consuming) green is what “good people” do, that an individual’s consumption can change the world. While this is a productive cultural framework for companies selling “green” products, and while people like Michael Pollan would tell us to simply change our diet to fix a systemic problem like nutritionism, this individualization of responsibility has proven to be both ineffective and civically sedating – at highest cost to the working class and people of color. As Maniates illustrates, individualistic mental models constrain the political imagination and prevent people from contemplating systemic problems that contribute to environmental and social degradation – thus constraining the possibility of finding systemic and sustainable solutions. Because many Americans believe simply shopping green is “doing their part,” they are less likely to engage civically as environmentalists.
Civic engagement has been on a downward trend since the 1970s, producing people today who are unequipped to solve structural problems even when they see them. While I value Maniates’ IWAC model for conceptualizing a more appropriate systems theory approach, I do not believe he offered an adequate solution to the problem he proposed. He talks at length about the narrowing of the individual’s political imagination via individual and consumption-centric marketing by environmental organizations – things like recycling, eating organic food, planting trees, etc. He tells us what not to do as individuals, but fails tell how to put our efforts to good civic use. I believe that people want to help in the right way – they just need the tools to do so. For that purpose, here are ten ways to be an activist. 10 Ways to Be an Activist