Does every little bit really help?

I’ll bet you’ve heard someone say it, more than once.

In fact, there’s a decent chance you’ve said it to yourself on occasion. I certainly have.

I’m just one little person. My part of world pollution is so tiny that it won’t matter whether I go green or not.

Quite depressing, really. But wait! Maybe those two sentences aren’t as clearcut as they may seem?

One halftruth and one falsehood, neatly wrapped up in a package

That quote up there isn’t just one statement, it’s actually made up of two:

1. In the big picture, your personal impact on the environment is tiny.
2. Tiny contributions don’t matter.

Comparing sizes

Comparing whatever you and your household are doing to whatever the entire rest of the world is doing will inevitably leave you feeling dwarfed.

Even just comparing it to whatever your fellow countrymen and -women do, will leave you with a zero point diddly-squat percentage of direct influence on the total outcome.

So sure, going by raw numbers and nothing else, whatever you do won’t make a huge direct difference.

You may, however, have noticed that I’ve been emphasizing the word direct a lot lately (that makes three times in three paragraphs). That’s not a coincidence.

‘Tiny’ is not the same as ‘insignificant’

Time to emphasize a new word: Indirect.

While I’m certainly of the opinion that even the tiniest, direct (there I go again) influence is worthwhile in its own right, the potential of indirect influence is infinitely bigger.

Whenever you save energy, kick your plastic bags habit, support biodiversity by helping pollinators or green your lifestyle in other ways, it shows.

People notice your actions, consciously or subconsciously. Your contribution shows up in statistics. You help reinforce positive trends.

Humans are group beings. Even the most stubborn individualist will be influenced by other humans to some extent.

Sooner or later, your influence will be the final nudge needed for someone else to change their habits.

At that point, you’ve doubled your positive impact on the environment.

When it happens again, you’ve tripled it.

Here comes the best part: Once your influence has swayed other people in a positive direction, they might influence other people positively again – and you get partial credit!

And remember: this is without any extra effort at all. You’re just changing your own habits, the rest is happening by itself.

So, my own answer to the title of this post is yes, every little bit really does help. By greening your own lifestyle, you will end up making a genuinely useful contribution to improving the world.

Good inspiration

If you’re a bit unsure of where to start, I heartily recommend Reduce Footprints’ Wednesday challenges. They’re great for getting concrete actions you might do, and there’s a fine community of other people doing the same challenges.

If you want to go through the whole series of challenges that have been posted so far, take a look at the first challenge. Or you could head straight for the latest challenge.

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This post was tagged with: big picture, green actions, greening lifestyle, habits, indirect influence, motivation, personal impact, world pollution

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