The Scaled Ethics of Consumer Choice & Climate Change

Around the world, some of the wealthiest and most polluting nations are feeling the pain of unprecedented temperatures, floods, droughts, and catastrophic weather patterns. Social campaigns, such as the Sunrise Movement in the United States, are urgently demanding that governments intervene 1.

These campaigns are largely led by underprivileged minorities and young people — groups that are highly vulnerable to the dangers of future climate crises. Their goal is to harness the facets of democracy and supreme authority of the state to reshape industrial economies, stopping pollution and extraction on a large scale 1.

There are significant imbalances in contributions to greenhouse gas emissions between individuals and industries. Environmental movements have begun calling attention to corporations’ attempts to pass off the burden of climate impact reduction to consumers.

Some large companies have responded to demands for climate action by making overt gestures, such as limiting the provision of single-use plastics to customers3. While these moves are certainly improvements, climate activists warn that they provide a false sense of accomplishment and fail to recognize root issues, such as wasteful production practices and exploitative supply chains 2.

In promoting awareness of these face-saving corporate strategies, environmental protection campaigns almost exclusively focus on global-scale damage, implying that any actions taken by us, individuals, are essentially futile. But, there is another layer to this narrative.

In a large democracy, an individual’s vote is basically insignificant. Regardless, it is not morally permissible for them to vote for an evil cause. This is because we do not judge their vote on the scale of the entire democracy. Instead, we judge it on the scale of their individual decision. The relative scale of the impact of a decision does not diminish or altogether invalidate its morality or immorality.

Surely, the use or non-use of a single plastic bag will only have a single-plastic-bag’s degree of impact on the environment. And, a life-long effort to reduce plastic bag usage will only have a life-long-reusable-bag-user-sized impact on the environmental crisis. But, after applying the proportionally appropriate scale of moral judgment to said effort, it is undoubtedly the right thing to do.

This argument can aptly be applied to the decision to eat a primarily plant-based diet. Granted, not all varieties of meat cause equal detriment to the environment. Recent studies have suggested some meat products are even less deleterious to the environment on a per calorie basis than certain types of vegetables 4. Still, meat production generally requires more land and water consumption and produces more greenhouse gasses and runoff pollution than plant protein alternatives 5.

Simple economic theory explains that the consumer demand for meat drives its production and, thus, is responsible for the environmental impact of the meat industry. This means each time an individual purchases a meat product, they take on partial responsibility for the meat industry’s environmental effects

The common response to this argument is ‘Can I not just enjoy the simple pleasure of eating meat? It makes such an insignificant impact compared to industries that fly their products halfway around the world for cheaper manufacturing!’ The answer is no. If you think of the economy like a democracy, it becomes apparent that a seemingly insignificant purchase of meat is tantamount to a vote for the climate-damaging meat industry.

The choice to eat meat is more than just a preference; it is a moral choice with real, measurable consequences. ‘What makes life worth living if we cannot enjoy the things that appeal to us?’ I will answer this question with a series of additional questions:

Are we such unconcerned hedonists that contributing, even the slightest amount, to global catastrophe is worth any minute degree of our personal pleasure?
Would it be worth passing up eating meat for pleasure if the environmental impact was significantly greater?
If so, why would it not be worthwhile to stop eating meat even if the impact were somewhat less than we currently understand it to be?

The truth is an individual’s decisions are small, but she is still the only one making them, and she is small. We are discussing the morality of small choices with small impacts. The carnal pleasure derived from consuming meat is also small and, therefore, cannot justify the small environmental damage that it causes.

The choice to eat meat or not is just an example for the sake of argument. Concern for the environment must be present in all of our decisions: to walk to the store or drive, to fly or take the train, to shop fast fashion or thrift. These small choices make up our entire small lives. Small relative to ultimate ends and source of all moral value: the survival of human life on Earth.

Sometimes, people will be selfish and prefer personal happiness before the greater good; it is our prerogative as humans to do so. But, we must not completely block the environment out of our decision making because we consider our individual impact insignificant.

We must seriously weigh the benefits of our actions against their environmental consequences. Sometimes, the personal gains will be more important or urgent than the environmental losses, but that does not invalidate the immorality of choosing to favor one’s self over the common good.

In certain cases, greater ethical imperatives outweigh the undeniable righteousness of protecting the environment. For example, consuming meat to prevent starvation is hypothetically reasonable, but the moral wrongness of contributing to the demand for the polluting meat industry is outweighed, not dismissed. Thus, we must carefully toe the line of what is feasible for us to sacrifice in the name of environmentalism and remember that our individual wellbeing is a small but non-negligible part of 'the greater good.'

It would be best for the environment if humans did not need to consume anything, but we do. The moral parameters for our indulgence go beyond mere subsistence. Utilitarian ethics dictate that we should pursue the best possible food and living conditions for ourselves so long as they do not interfere with the pursuit of equitability and sustainability. Equitability in the present and sustainability in the long term — these basic goalposts prove difficult to interpret and achieve, but they should guide us even where we consistently fall short.

Furthermore, we must recognize the role of education and wealth required to make lifestyle changes in the name of protecting the environment. Some of us have a lot more to give based on our intersectional privilege than others.

We likely need a top-to-bottom restructuring of the economy to alleviate the oncoming climate disaster. Only government intervention can prevent the unfettered satisfaction of every appetite with a dollar to back it up. But, if we continue to think of climate change as a singular problem society has collectively created, rather than a compilation of all of the damage we have individually done to our global biosphere, we will continue to overlook our moral responsibility to regulate our individual decisions.

We have agency at many levels: as consumers, as voters, as activists, social influencers, business leaders, and community members; the only hope for our species to survive on this planet is that individuals consider the environmental impact of all of our decisions.

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