The climate crisis calls for individual accountability

‘We’re just one of the myriad forms of life on this earth, albeit the one with the greatest intelligence, but with little thought for the responsibility that entails.’ Photograph: AFP/Getty

I love the realness of Ben Okri’s poem (Earth cries! We are the gods that must step up to the biggest crisis in history, 5 August). As a green living coach, I frequently encounter a defeatist attitude that there is nothing we can do about the climate crisis – that it is the fault of big corporations who pollute our planet for profit. While this is true, I want more of us working on the crisis frontlines to point out we give those corporations our money to do what they do.

We choose to participate in the disposable lifestyles they push on us. We were manipulated by those corporate polluters to live a wasteful life, and if we’re going to have a liveable planet we must recognise this and fight against it at an individual level. We need to stop paying corporate polluters to do the damage they are doing.