When I drive my car on weekends, I emit greenhouse gases – but not enough to change the global climate on my own. But when I, my neighbours and hundreds of millions of other people drive, fly, eat meat and embark on countless other activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions, we raise the Earth’s temperature.
This is what we might call a collective harm problem, where the acts of many together lead to harmful outcomes, but no discrete act by any one person can solve it. Debates on how to fight climate change generally settle on the need for collective action – but does that make personal efforts inconsequential, even pointless?
